Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Tribble.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Rachel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up in New York City where the sounds of city life merged with the monochromatic colors of cement, stone and the black of asphalt. As a kid, the nighttime noise of the city was my lullaby. I would lay awake staring up at the vast white ceiling above my bed listening to the city and imagining pathways filled with vibrant swirling colors that I could follow deep into the dreamtime. Manhattan was wondrous to my little kid eyes and as a young child, the colors of trees or grass and the blue of the sky seemed electrified against the city and I’d imagine that the shapes of nature opened up doorways into magical worlds. The old oak trees that filled Central Park became geometric pillars that held up the sky, the bark of their trunks were actually patterned glyphs, ancient tree languages that offered stories of what lay beyond the stars. Just as I became a teenager, my family left Manhattan and moved to a small beach town on Long Island.
There, the shapes and sounds of nature revealed something else. The sounds of the city were gone and there was deafening quiet, not silence, just quiet. At night, off in the distance I could hear the waves of the ocean hitting the shore. At the beach house, I would spend hours looking up at the sky, staring into the space between the clouds. That place of in-between was amazing to me and I would calculate the spaces from the sun to the floating masses of white, imagining there were rainbow bridges and entire civilizations existing within. All I had to do was find the gate and go through it and I would be there, floating on the clouds looking down at the Earth below. At night the stars aligned to show pathways to the moon and into the clear dark of space beyond. I could see shapes and lines that built the layers of blue and the deep black velvet air that filled the space of in-between. It all fit together, circular lines and dots that made up the colors that layered each other and wove the fabric of everything I could see. It was the combination of those worlds, the desperate ferocity of New York City and the quiet of the beach that collided in my personality.
I always painted and I loved to work with clay and build things. My mother was a huge advocate of me being an artist, she loved paintings and she probably influenced me the most to focus on painting rather than become a three-dimensional artist. Like many artists born into our academic and business-oriented culture, I had no understanding of where I fit in. Looking back, it seems like I was always on the edge of society, moving against it and not able to join. I took art classes as a kid and formally studied fine arts and painting in college before I dropped out. But being fully focused on painting on canvas and 2D works came later for me. For many years I wanted to be a fashion designer. I focused my creative energy on costuming and fashion, I repurposed things found in thrift shops, but I never actually made any clothes! Finally, I went to design school and there I took a class in jewelry design. In that class, we were instructed to paint our designs. I think that was the moment I soulfully fell in love with painting. I learned more about painting from looking at how light moved through the facets of a gemstone than from any of the fine arts classes I had taken. And this also began what became many years of jewelry making.
I left the world of jewelry behind and for several years, I worked with three-dimensional concepts that were used in music-oriented settings. I have loved music as deeply as I love creating visual art. Sound influenced every aspect of these installation pieces. Lots of different sounds from ambient soundscapes to sleep harmonics, singing bowls, specific notes played on string instruments, EDM and of course and especially, every kind of rock music. These works needed to be very light because they generally hung from the lighting grids above the dance floor or stage and so I made them from a wood and paper-based foundation and theatrical lighting gels. The final part of creating these works was to paint them. During that time, I also produced what some people considered dark and controversial performance works that focused on esoteric, environmental and social questions. In my mind, I was confronting evil and trying to bring light they were big pictures with musicians and DJ’s and performers working within my installation. Eventually, all that work gave way to paint on canvas and the ambient soundscapes remain as much a part of my work as the paint itself. I still listen to tonal harmonics and use those sonic directions to drive the dimensionality of the space in the paintings.
After building all the music and performance oriented works life gave way to a sort of quiet, a seeking of nature and a more meditative existence. Somehow that need to be within nature took me into the Native American culture where I became influenced by the traditional wisdom of the Aninshinaabe and Lakota. The honoring of Earth and the quiet ways of the people were healing and natural to me. It was the first time I ever felt like I belonged anywhere and their way of life made perfect sense. I wanted to convey the peaceful connectivity I found there. I wanted people to feel their own connection to the Earth and what I felt in nature; the serene beauty of living life connected to our Mother Earth. So I began to paint the natural world, not only as we see it in our daily waking state, but what lies within the in-between.The first time I showed the new paintings someone from Disney saw them and that began more than a decade of collaborating with the company for special events and some original works in the Art of Disney gallery, and especially the work for the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival is so close to my heart. Over the years, the paintings have evolved from monochromatic minimalist takes on the Aninshinaabe beadwork and flower wisdom to the tree and sky dreamscapes I’m painting today.
Has it been a smooth road?
Life is bumpy right? I grew up in a functioning chemically dependent home. I became chemically dependent early in my teens. Things happened during those years of addiction that are disturbing and painful. I got help and away from that life, but it took a long time to feel safe in the world and understand who I had been as an active addict. That lingering darkness drove a lot of my earlier work. I’ve struggled with being an only parent on many different levels. As a woman trying to work in a world where gender equality is a constant battle has weighed heavily on me, but that’s a well-known story. I’ve never found the balance of being a creative in a business-oriented society. I think most artists struggle with that. The question of fitting in, when the reality is we just don’t. The ups and downs have taken many forms, but I believe that life is the journey of finding the way up through the melee.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a painter, an artist. I mainly use oil paint or watercolor, but I do drift into multimedia expressions at times. My work has become know more as quiet meditative experiments in color and light that are gateways into the unseen elemental worlds.
I am most proud that people who live with my work (and don’t know each other), have repeatedly told me that they are inspired and transformed by the work. They find it healing and that during hard times in their lives it is my painting hanging in their home that gives them the serenity they need to get through the rough spots.
I think my work has its own voice. Its simplicity is obvious but it’s not simple, the paintings are organic works that layer upon themselves and people feel a life change when they live with it. I believe my art creates a bridge between the viewer and nature and the otherworldliness I attempt to bring forward presents something people find calming and life-changing.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I believe art is becoming more important than ever. I think the instant information world that has emerged through the use of the Internet, Social Media and Text Messaging has left a void in the human experience. People forget that we are natural beings connected to Earth and beyond. They respond to artwork because it reminds them of their natural connection as a human. Whatever the artwork is, the moment of seeing something that touches the heart and makes an instant connect with your spirit is becoming ever more essential. So I believe that art; from the simple word graphic or video you see on your social media stream to critical works of fine art, is trending to become viscerally important.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.racheltribble.com/
- Email: hello@racheltribble.com
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