Today we’d like to introduce you to Melinda R. Smith
Hi Melinda R., we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As a child, I loved playing by myself; I loved inhabiting the private worlds I created in my mind. I lived silently and secretly within them. I was not escaping difficult circumstances—my childhood was pretty ideal—it was just that I was in thrall to my imagination. When I was about seven years old, I began to write, and, from then on, self-expression was *the* driving force of my life.
When I became a young adult just out of university, I made the conscious decision to become a writer, and I worked tirelessly at becoming the kind of writer I wanted to be. Mainly, I wrote poetry, but I also wrote for the stage. Now, neither one of these pursuits, poetry and playwriting, are very highly valued in our culture, but that didn’t matter to me. Putting together words, creating characters, depicting experience, these were what mattered to me. I was (and continue to be) an obsessive recorder of my life and the world around me. Worldly success was far down on my list of priorities. Good thing! It was not easy to interest the world in poems or strange plays by an unknown playwright. Actually, it proved pretty impossible, with the exception of the many small literary journals that showcase the efforts of people like myself.
But the lack of interest in what I did was not why I quit writing and turned to visual art. It was because at some point in my 40s, I lost my writing muse. I can’t say for certain whether I lost it or walked away from it; probably it was some combination of both. I doubt, however, I would have walked away from it so decidedly were I not walking toward something else. And that something else proved to be the great unexpected love of my life: Painting. (I say that, but poetry and literature really were the love of my life for the first half of it. I don’t want to diminish that love in any way. It was as close and fused with me as my skin.) Perhaps I never would have met painting had I clung stubbornly to the writing, not letting it go when it was time to let it go. But I did let go. I made the decision to quit writing and to focus entirely on painting, and I never looked back.
I’m an entirely self-taught painter. This was painstaking and took years, but I was persistent. Somewhere within myself I knew that despite all evidence to the contrary in those beginning years of painting, I was going to be good, I just needed to get there. And there was only one way to arrive at “good”: hard work. A lot of hard work—and, of course, love for what I was doing. Even when the results disappointed me, even when they frustrated me, I still loved the process of becoming better than I was the day before, even if, in the beginning, that wasn’t very good. I loved every minute of it. I still do. And I’m still getting better.
It didn’t take long to attain some recognition in the art world for what I was doing. The art world is much more open and generous than the literary one. I have my theories as to why this is—primarily I think it has to do with the accessibility of art vs. poetry or literature. (It also has to do with money, of course.) If you give people the option of looking at a painting or reading a poem, the vast majority would choose the former; I think the world just loves art more, mainly because it’s easier, in that it bypasses the intellect (art that aims for the intellect isn’t my cup of tea), goes straight through the eyes to the heart and soul. At any rate, the art world made room for me, and it’s a wonderful place to be welcomed into. For one thing, it’s populated with open and generous-spirited people: artists!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been smooth insofar as I’ve always known who I am and what I wanted to do and how I wanted to be in the world. Always. It’s as though I was born with the knowledge. I really never faced any internal obstacles (nothwithstanding the difficult, doubting, sometimes extremely harsh internal voice most artists struggle with…but that voice is useful and part of the process), and external obstacles were just life itself. Various circumstances that made life difficult at times. But since I used the circumstances of my life as material for my art, the more difficult life was, the better it was for the art. So even in times of depression or relationship difficulties, or whatever, I was able to make art from it. It’s just always been my priority and driving force of my life. But since we’re using the road as a metaphor, I will say that smooth or not smooth, the road was unexpectedly curved. Whereas I was dedicated to walking the one road for most of my life (writing) and never foresaw leaving it, it suddenly, midlife, took a very sharp turn, one I never expected, and suddenly I was on an entirely different road, that of visual art.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m primarily a painter now, though in the first half of my life I was a writer. Mostly now, however, I’m known for my paintings. I think the thing I’m most proud of is the fact that I’m entirely self-taught. It’s not the fact that I taught myself that makes me proud, it’s the fact that I persisted. That I worked hard to teach myself all that I needed to learn in order to become a good painter. Learning to paint isn’t just sticking a brush in paint and suddenly finding your voice as a painter. It’s a long and arduous process. It’s about learning the tools, the materials, the techniques, the limitations, the possibilities, and, ultimately, it’s about learning who you are as an individual artist. It’s also about fighting the voices of doubt and self-defeat and self-sabotage within the process, it’s about continuing to paint in the face of bad work and self-criticism, it’s about getting up tomorrow and going to the studio with the intention of becoming better today than you were yesterday. It’s about determination and persistence. And that I possess those qualities is something I’m extremely grateful for.
I don’t know that *anything* sets me apart from others, other than the fact that I’m me and not them. That’s it. I have my stories I tell, the ones I return to because I’m compelled by them, I have my painting style, but so does everybody else. I have a lot of artist friends. We all work hard. We’re all distinct in our styles. We’re all ambitious. We’re all frustrated with what we perceive as a lack of recognition. We all continue to work, express and improve ourselves despite that frustration. Frankly, I don’t need to be set apart from others. I just need to do the work, and if it resonates with people, then great, that makes me happier than just about anything. And if it doesn’t? That’s okay too. I did the work because I *had* to do it, because for my entire life, I’ve been a compulsive creator. It’s how I live; it’s how I stay sane; it’s what makes me happy—or miserable, but in the end, it’s all channeled into the art, and that is, quite simply, my raison d’etre. And anyway, it’s not up to me to decide what, if anything, sets me apart from others. That’s posterity’s job.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
That I’m happy wherever I live, and if I complain about my circumstances, it’s mainly to keep the gods off my scent. I’m a pretty happy person, despite the dark undertones (or sometimes overtones) in my work, which are there because I’m a disciple of fairy tales, folklore and archetypes. There’s beauty in darkness, and no story without it. In the end, whether I’m painting or writing, whatever my medium, I’m a storyteller in love with story.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.melindarsmith.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melindarsmith/
