Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Wierschen.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in New York and began my journey of art at the age of four. Lying on the floor under my grandmother’s dining room table, I would draw pictures of my dolls, flowers and birds. In school, I continued to draw filling my notebooks with school work and art. My subjects became more complex and my self-taught skills grew. By the time I started high school, I was exceptionally good at drawing portraits. At the age of fifteen, I got my first art commission while working a summer job with the city housing authority. I was given a crew of four other teenagers and asked to paint some art on the side of a two-story housing unit. I was given paint, brushes buckets, and a step ladder. I needed and convinced the supervisor to provide me with a small painter’s scaffold, which he reluctantly supplied.
With my crew working below and me up on the scaffold, a lifelike one story high mural of Stevie Wonder was created! It had taken us three weeks to finish it. My crew worked on the lower portion and I worked from his chin upward. In high school, it would be my reputation of being an artist that made my self designed and sewn outfits and my ever-changing hairstyles accepted. Art gave me an escape from being seen as ‘weird’ and elevated me to the respectable level reserved for the school’s artists, dancers and musicians. After graduating my family and I moved to California. I continued to draw and paint with no planned artistic goals.
By the time that I entered adulthood, I was working full time and still drawing and painting. Then through an acquaintance came an invitation to participate in an art show! Having my works on display and seeing them being admired by the people attending made me realize that art was not just something that I ‘did’, it was who I was and always had been, an ‘artist’.
From this first show came many more over the years. I would not only participate in shows and exhibits but also have my own independent shows too. Along the way, I started a Saturday art academy for young artists and taught them. Later on, I enrolled in classes to study and learn sculpture. A skill that took years to learn and which I treasure! Art has taken me on a very interesting journey! And I continue my travel, making the world artfully beautiful along the way.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
An ‘artist’ journey is never traveled on a smooth road! But you eventually get used to the bumps and potholes. I’ve learned that to be an artist, you have to have thick skin like a rhino, so you can endure the arrows of disappointments.
You have to have the super confidence of a ‘Diva’, not ashamed to be your own enthusiastic fan, agent and promoter!
You have to be tenacious! Never giving in, up or out.
If you think that “you” have these qualities, and you can draw…buckle up, get ready and go on your own artistic journey!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I define success as having a dream or a goal and running after it. Success doesn’t necessarily have a ‘point of arrival’, because when you reach a point and think that you’ve ‘arrived’ at your destination, you look up ahead and see so much more of the road yet to be traveled!
Contact Info:
- Website: theartofcynthia.com
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