Interview with artist Elizabeth Weber
Elizabeth Weber is a Little Rock artist whose paintings and sculptures reflect her love of nature and the power and comfort she extracts from being in nature. She uses color and form to transform the light and shadow within her into vibrant paintings and intimate sculptures. More of Elizabeth’s work can be found at Justus Fine Art Gallery in Hot Springs and at her website mysoulspath.com.
AAS: Elizabeth, I believe you are originally from upstate New York? What brought you to Arkansas?
EW: Yes, I grew up in beautiful and lush upstate New York. My love of nature drew me to the mountains and natural beauty of New Paltz, New York, to pursue my formal art training even though I had been offered an art scholarship to Syracuse University.
After graduating, I moved to Manhattan where I lived for several years before moving to Los Angeles, California. I lived and worked for over twelve years there, creating and developing my craft. While in LA I also painted theatre sets for an ADA and NAACP award winning playwright.
A sense of community, connection, and service to others has always been important to me, and I applied for the Peace Corps. The plan was to go to Africa, and as I travelled back across country to visit with my family in New York while I waited for my assignment, I stopped briefly (or so I thought) in Little Rock. A close friend lived here whose mom was a talented networker. I was looking to try and get some of my paintings placed while I was out of the country. My first morning here, I went to meet my friend for coffee and overheard people talking about the Friday night art walk, and a particular gallery. I knew I had better pay attention to the universe throwing clues at my feet, so I went by a Staples, bought some cd’s and went back to my friend’s mom’s house where I was staying and put together promotional materials I could hand out. We only had time to go to one gallery, but I left there with an invitation to have work in their next exhibit.
Soon after that, I heard about, applied for, and was hired to create art with the patients at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. I realized that I could be of service here, withdrew my Peace Corps application and started building my community in Little Rock.
In 2016, I bought my first home that is surrounded by the woods, where I finally had enough room to create as I have always dreamed. It has both a painting and a sculpture studio, and I can see the stars at night.
“I guess the most important thing that I learned growing up that I still carry with me each and every day is that you can find refuge in art.”
AAS: Did you have an interest in creating art as a child?
EW: I have always had an interest in creating. As a child, before I had the visual art skills to express myself fully, I wrote. A lot. I would write both poetry and prose and was never without a book to read and scraps of paper to write things down on.
My parents belonged to a church that was rich in iconography, and I spent the hour and a half service studying the ceilings and walls. Every Sunday – that’s 52 self-motivated lessons a year. It was my first introduction to representing light and shadow and how I learned art creates sacred space.
I remember one time as a child, I really wanted to paint a masterpiece. I was maybe eight or nine years old. I had my paints, but nothing to paint on. There was, however, a stack of leftover drop ceiling tiles in the cellar that seemed to be the closest thing I could find to being a canvas. I did, after all, grow up seeing every Sunday that painting on ceilings was ok. I didn’t ask permission because I knew in the back of my head that I wouldn’t get the answer I wanted, yet it also didn’t feel wrong. I set up my paints and that tile and painted the most magnificent Smurf ever (or so I was convinced). I did end up getting into some trouble about that one.
My mother created pysanki eggs every easter and I used to try that, but it was too controlled for me, and eggs were too bumpy. My father had a small space that he built a wall around in the basement that he used as his studio. He was teaching himself how to paint icons on small pieces of wood using egg tempera. And I sometimes helped him separate the egg yolks out and mix pigments. I spent a good deal of secret time in there by myself, being in envy of his paintbrush collection. When going to the cellar fridge to get a soda pop, I would take a moment and feel a sense of reverence for the baby food jars filled with paint stored in them.
I was twelve when Bob Ross first started airing on tv. I loved to watch him. I was convinced that if I only had a fan brush, my entire life would fall into place. He taught me that creating can also bring a sense of joy. I guess the most important thing that I learned growing up that I still carry with me each and every day is that you can find refuge in art.
AAS: Your paintings and even your sculptures seem very introspective and even mystical.
EW: These works come from that space of knowing that you can’t experience light without having lived through darkness. I approach each painting with a sense of reverence, a sense of absolute gratitude for being able to help manifest that which is trying to express itself in that moment. The canvas is not mine but belongs to that moment even before the first brush stroke hits it. I listen, I listen a lot, and watch to hear and see what it is trying to say. Sometimes the message is clearer than others, but if I am patient, it will always show me how to get there.
In my sculptures I start from that space that provides the darkness, the shelter. These pieces take time, not just in the collecting and the making, but in the meditation of waiting. The lessons of patience taught by nature are beautiful ones, and if heeded allows both forgiveness and grace within our own lives
AAS: I think a good example of that is Apocryphal Beliefs. The colors are vibrant, but there is still a feeling of uncertainty and wanderlust.
Apocryphal Beliefs, 46” x 24”, acrylic on canvas
EW: In old school fairy tales and folktales, the story was meant to teach us a lesson. It took us on a journey, lured us deep into the metaphorical forest and into our inner shadows, allowing us to face our deepest fears. It is through that journey that we eventually may find our path if we are lucky.
In Japan, they have a tradition, called Kintsugi. They fix broken pottery with a lacquer resin mixed with precious metals. Instead of disguising the breakage, Kintsugi restores it, making it a beautiful and visible part of that object’s history.
Taking this idea into some of my pieces, including Apocryphal Beliefs, I intentionally caused some areas of the paint to crack. In these areas, the paint is thick to represent scar tissue. The cracks, filled with gold, to embrace my personal history of breaking and share with you the possibility of still getting back up after the shattering.
I know as artists we are aware that color has temperature, but I physically feel that temperature, and will often slowly move my hand across an area of canvas that I am working on to feel what color wants to be there. I can feel pulsations of heat, swirls of cool air, eddies of warmth… and then choose the colors that need to match that sensation.
AAS: You have created some extraordinary pieces with leaf skeletons and other discarded organic objects that I guess you find on your walks. Tell me about Transformation.
Transformation, 14” x 14” x 8”, antler shed, leaf skeletons, snakeskin shed, quail eggs, polymer clay
EW: I walk collecting natural objects that become inspiration, materials for sculptures that allow an inner conversation to take an outward form; transforming decay into life; remnants of previous forms becoming skeletal forms of new ones. Transformation is a storytelling piece of discarded moments, allowing the lives of many to be experienced intertwined and connected. A shedding of what was, so that there is room for what will be. Letting go of that which no longer serves us, so that we may grow.
The tree has shed its leaves to conserve energy for the coming cold. The insects have found warmth and protection under the leaf layer, finding nourishment in them, slowly eating away, leaving only bones. The young deer loses its first set of antlers, shedding a piece of themselves in order to grow, and it falls onto the bed of leaves. Snakes have always symbolized great change, powerful transformation, and growth throughout history. To grow, snakes must shed their skins. In this process, they become blind, vulnerable, teaching us that growth requires risks. So, imagine a snake now seeking shelter in this discarded cocoon made from discarded leaves inside the discarded antler shed. And then a bird. Finding both protection and comfort in this long line of discarded stories of growth, leaving its future hopes nestled in these remnants, so that they may emerge as new life, breaking free from their shells of protection, and taking flight.
Transformation (detail)
AAS: Your sculpture Colony is one of my favorites, I guess because of the way you contrasted the seemingly fragile and soft with the hard and prickly.
EW: In Colony, I wanted to create an environment where it showed how carefully something inside could be nurtured, nested, and protected. Yet, that cocoon of safety balances on the tips of these thorns, creating the sensation of safety from outside intrusion, but it is a precarious safety. The walls of the cocoon are translucent, and have a fragility to them, but strong enough to create a space of safety and comfort inside. I made these pieces out of leaf skeletons because although they may appear fragile, they are the strongest parts of the leaf. They are the bones, the strength, of something that spends its entire life nourishing everything else around it. When it falls to the ground, its work continues as it becomes a source of food to those who live in the soil, drawing birds to eat those insects, all of it further nourishing the tree as it breaks down and passes through systems. Yet, it often goes unnoticed by us, unappreciated, taken for granted. I feel that.
Then I chose to line them with a nest of wool roving for comfort, and then filled that nest with the decadence of dandelion wishes. I say decadence, because as a child, each wishing flower was sacred, a magical and silent way to send one’s deepest dreams to the heavens. Each of these pieces is filled with many wishing flowers, hundreds, and hundreds of opportunities for one’s heart prayers to be heard.
Although we all were on a similar journey, we were all travelling alone, creating our own personal sanctuaries within. Some spaces are small to represent the tentative steps one must take along this path at first, and some are larger to show those who have travelled a bit further, a bit longer, and have been able to carve out more internal peace for themselves.
Colony, 13”h x 30”w x 16”d, leaf skeletons, wool roving, dandelion wishes, milkweed fluff, honey locust thorns
AAS: Why do think you have such a strong connection with nature?
EW: As a child, I never really fit. I sought solitude so that I would not feel lonely. I still do. I preferred my own company and the companions I found in whatever book I was reading that day, and I was most comfortable being in conversation with nature. I was lucky to have grown up in a time when as kids you would leave the house in the morning to go play, maybe come home for lunch if a friend’s mom didn’t feed you, and then stay out till the streetlights would start to come on. I was also fortunate to have lots of woods to explore behind our house and more across the field on the other side of the street.
Our parents rented the same campsite year after year in the campgrounds they went to. Every summer we would set up the camper and our campsite for the season. There were lots of woods to explore and my brothers and I would spend all day in them. However, there were lots of times when they would go off without me as they were three and five years older. Sometimes, I would walk the woods and the trails on my own, heading in the opposite direction they went. Often, I would find recluse in the sanctuary I made for myself within shouting distance of the campsite so I would hear if I was being called back in. There was a small stream that trickled past our site and led to the pond our site opened to. There was a tree along that stream whose roots grew big and exposed in some areas and created natural steps. Each summer, I would spend hours collecting fresh moss and lining the space between two of the biggest roots to create a natural bed. Once finished, it was a bed of absolute wonder, and I would bring my book and sit there by the stream listening to the silence that is not quiet and reading. You see, entering the woods has always been a source of magic and peace for me. And for me, sound and sensations have always had color. Viewed in this way, nature for me has always been a master artist to study from.
AAS: In Bundled Grouping you did something marvelous where you added color. Is that an example of pieces you’ve referred to as transmutation.
Bundled Grouping, 6”h x 16”w x 16”d, cotton, hand dyed silk thread, driftwood, wasp nest, wasp
EW: Yes, and I think that almost all of the sculptural works are examples of transmutation in that they have changed states and forms. One of the things that I love about the paper wasp nests are the covered pupae cells. They have a beautiful round simplicity to them. I wanted to bring the vibrant colors of my paintings into this nest, so I searched for and found some hand-dyed silk thread. I then took some cotton and hand wrapped each piece to fit into the empty cells of the nest. I have had a lot of people, my partner being one of them, that feel uneasy around insect nests and seed pods, and wanted to find a way to bring them in a bit closer so they might also see the beauty that they inherently have.
AAS: Home is another terrific piece – very large and not created with found objects. Tell me about that piece.
Home, 30”h x 60”w x 40”d, acid free tissue paper, paper clay
EW: It was inspired by a found piece. A fellow artist gifted me with a wonderful paper wasp nest that they found on their property. I used that form to create the shape of this large paper wasp nest.I created this piece oversized, to again, invite others to move closer and explore something that might otherwise make them uncomfortable. I created each individual cell out of acid free tissue paper and then started putting them together to mimic the shape of the nest I had. There is easily over 100 hours into creating this piece, not including all the hours spent in the failed early attempts. This work is translucent, and it absolutely glows from within when light shines behind it.
As I was working on this piece, an actual wasp had entered the studio and landed on the piece, exploring the chambers. It was such a wonderfully magic and exciting moment.
AAS: You worked with kids at Children’s Hospital using art to make their hospitalization more bearable. That must have been rewarding work.
EW: I have worked at Arkansas Children’s as an artist-in-residence for almost 16 years. It is a wonderful experience each day, where I am constantly reminded of both the fragility and resiliency of us as humans. I work there three days a week, and one day a week I teach art at a day treatment school through Methodist Family Health for kids with behavior issues.
It makes my heart happy to enter a child’s room, introduce myself as an artist, and see the looks of apprehension and fear melt from their faces when they realize I am not there to do ‘medical stuff’. The relief on the caregiver’s face when they see their child’s face light up and smile for the first time in awhile because they are distracted from their pain through playful creating. And I absolutely love it when they ask me where they can get art supplies like this to use at home.
AAS: You have lived and worked in Los Angeles and New York and Arkansas. How do you think each of those places and environments shaped your art practice? And where do you see your art practice in the next few years?
EW: New York is where I had the experiences of my childhood and then my formal training at college. I started off as a metalsmith, then moved into sculpture, then ceramics and painting.
In Los Angeles, I took classes in both painting and Persian poetry alongside each other and led by the same teacher. Those experiences taught me that it was powerful to open one’s heart and share freely from that space on both the written page and the painted canvas.
Here, in Little Rock, I found a group of women artists that came together to form a collective for the purpose of pushing each other, exploring new ideas, and sharing knowledge and wisdom. It was the curator of our group show, Rachel Golden, that came through my studio space to choose paintings for the show, saw the piece Bundled and said, “I want that series for the show.” I was less than a year since I purchased my home and she commented, “You are literally building nests as you are ‘nesting’ into your new home. I want you to explore that.” I had some moments of panic over the next few weeks because that series still only existed in my head at the time and then I jumped in.
This past year has given me many opportunities to share this body of work. Pieces have been shown in Hot Springs at Justus Fine Art, Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, the Wilderness Exhibit at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, and most recently, in the annual Materials Hard & Soft Exhibition in Denton, Texas. I was awarded an artist grant from the Arkansas Chapter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts to create a specific sculptural project that I have been wanting to do for some time. I am excited about this piece because it requires learning a lot of new skills to complete it. It will be finished by the first of the year. I was also awarded a solo show that will be at the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum in April of 2023. It will be the first time that I will have all of these nature-based sculpture pieces, along with some two-dimensional works that follow this theme displayed in the same location. I have been working hard on completing new works for this and will also be including the work from the artist grant in the exhibit.
I have enough projects outlined in sketch books to last me years, and every new one I start makes me think of others that I want to do as well. So, I guess I physically see my art practice evolving here in my studio home. If I were to ever move, it would be my last move. It would be to move to a place that had acres of land to roam, be inspired by, and collect materials from.
