Today, we’d like to introduce you to Gerri Green.
Hi Gerri, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I spent my childhood living on a small island on the west coast of Norway where every view was a picture. Our friend, a well-traveled and educated artist, had returned to this place to paint the scenery of his home. I was lucky to be able to sit quietly on the steps of his home studio and peer into the world through his eyes.
My next stop was Canada, where, like all Canadian children, I was exposed to the famous Group of Seven artists who painted expansive landscapes from coast to coast. In the early nineteen hundreds, their push toward modernism and abstract interpretations drew acclaim that remains today as their work hangs in every important gallery in the country.
My mother kept me busy with ‘Paint by Number’ sets, which I poured over for hours. For my thirteenth birthday, my dad gave me a set of oil paints and a blank canvas. And, so it began. A passion for color and form was elevated in me and through the course of life with marriage, jobs, and children, although I didn’t have time to put color to canvas, I imagined doing it. I thought about the paintings I wanted to paint in daydreams.
Every now and then, though years were passing, I pulled out the same paints my father had given me and ‘dabbled.’ Lots of those pieces hang in the homes of my relatives. Each time I picked up the brushes again, I found that my life experiences had given a new perspective to my interpretation of my subject.
My skills didn’t have time to develop when life kept me otherwise occupied, but my understanding and exposure to art in galleries from the Louvre, and my favorite, L’Orangerie in Paris, to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, our own National Gallery in Washington and hundreds of others across North America and Europe became the rich soil in which I sowed seeds of creativity. I learned that a picture is different from a painting because a picture, though pretty or well-composed, is missing the element of ambiance. The thing that elevates a picture to a painting is the feeling it evokes.
With children grown and retiring from work, I’ve had the last fifteen years to build skills, try new media such as watercolor, gouache, and acrylics, and learn about my subjects, whether it’s a bird, a flower, or a landscape. My first love, oil paint, allows me to create the incredible clouds and skies of the low country and indulge in the soft and sensuous movement of water and grasses. That scenery from the coast of South Carolina is sultry, quiet, and ancient. I prefer to express the feeling in soft pastel colors and luscious swaths of buttery paint.
My more recent subject matter, the rolling mountains just north of Greenville, I feel, are better depicted with the crisp colors and brisk lines that I can make with acrylic paints. It almost takes me back to the Paint by Number technique of placing color blocks side by side and stepping back to see them melt together to form the picture.
My first gallery experience was at the Artists Guild Gallery of Greenville, where I was a member for five years. The experience was enlightening and encouraging as I found my way into the commercial side of the business. Understanding what sells, and what doesn’t adds a new dimension to my expression as an artist, that of communicating to an audience. I was painting for them now, not just myself.
The community of artists enriches the whole and the individual. I believe in galleries. The vanity galleries, those that rent wall space, are a great starting place for developing and emerging artists. I am currently showing work at the White Rabbit Fine Art Gallery in Travelers Rest, and I am looking forward to my new ‘home’, Gallery One, at 640 Main St. in Greenville.
I currently have a one-woman exhibit hanging at the beautiful Simpsonville Arts Center through April 25, featuring my Escape to the Mountains series and debuting my ‘Meltdown’ series of ice-scapes of Antarctica. It is a call to environmental concerns that will affect the world as the well-named Doomsday Iceberg melts into the seas.
Art attracts people. They want to see it, and they want to see it being made. It’s a great pleasure to paint in public places during festivals and local events and to talk to people about art. One hears everyone’s art story because everyone has one. I love hearing them all, and I enjoy the curiosity of children and their unfiltered viewpoints. Growing as an artist never stops, especially if you are receptive to seeing your own art through the eyes of others.
I’m a member of the Metropolitan Arts Council or MAC, the Blue Ridge Arts Council, BRAC, the Simpsonville Arts Foundation Inc. or SAFI, and the Mastrius group in western Canada, and participate in their events as often as I can. From ‘Flat Out Under Pressure’ to ‘Open Studios’, each experience promotes an artist’s development and self-assurance.
I participate in mentorships with Mastrius, which takes me back to my Canadian roots and provides me with a wonderful community of Canadian artists. I participate in regional, local, and national juried shows and competitions and occasionally pick up an award for my work.
My art hangs in several public places in the area, including the Senior Center on Pelham Rd., the Queer Center, Cafe & Then Some Theater, Reedy Rides Bike Shop, and County Bank. My local scenes of the Liberty Bridge, Fluor Field, Peace Center, etc., can be purchased at Kathy Young Jewelry & Art on North Main in Greenville and at the Gift Shop in the Greenville Center for Creative Arts and Reedy Rides.
Over the years, I have done some classes for beginners, and they were lots of fun, but recently, I have taken a new approach through mentorships with artists who are already selling their work. Like a Montessori program where the student leads the teacher, it allows me to coach and encourage as well as allow the artist to set their own path. Watching others grow and flourish has great rewards. The ‘aha’ moment when someone pushes past their comfort zone and finds a new tool to use in their art is exhilarating.
To continue my own development, I look for new mentorship experiences for myself and will travel to spend time and do workshops with artists I admire. My next adventure is to travel to Calgary, Alberta to participate in a workshop with my mentor, Heather Pant, a well-known Canadian landscape artist working in half a dozen fine galleries nationwide. I’m so excited!
Next, I will be pursuing a residency in France or Italy to further immerse myself in the wonderful world of creating art. I have been blessed with support from the clients who buy and follow my art journey and those who trust me to paint for them. My practice is robust, and my joy of living an artist’s life is immeasurable.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
An artist struggles with every painting. Creating a piece of art is more than applying paint to canvas, it is about making decisions. A hundred or even a thousand decisions go into every new piece. Each stroke is a decision. Some are bad decisions and must be corrected. More decisions now on how to correct it.
There comes a point in a painting when it goes through the hopelessly frustrating phase, then the ugly phase, and the remedial phase, and hopefully emerges as a beautiful and worthwhile effort. An artist’s road is not smooth. When I have personal struggles, I turn to my easel and let the brushes and the paint smooth them out. There is peace at the easel. There is anguish at the easel. It is like an altar where love is expressed, and pain is resolved.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I have worked between careers in order to provide for my children. I spent several years in media, working at radio stations as a creative writer, on-air personality, and later in sales. I started my own company and traveled the country as an independent sales coordinator for radio and TV stations. I left that behind to raise my granddaughter and found work at Lockheed Martin, retiring from there in 2015. It was a rich and rewarding time for me, and I am grateful for all I experienced and learned there.
My career before that was as a nightclub entertainer and vocalist. I began singing in the clubs on Young Street in Toronto, traveled the length and breadth of Canada, and worked in every state east of the Mississippi over the course of 16 years. My band worked in bars, honkytonks, casinos, and resorts and was represented by the William Morris Agency out of New York. We belonged to the Musicians Union locals in Toronto and New York City.
After retiring from the road and settling in South Carolina from my home in Toronto, I attended broadcasting school with the intent of turning my music career into a media one. I would have to say that what I am most proud of in my lifetime is my ability to draw from a powerful instinct for survival and reinvent myself as my world changed around me. Each time I have done so, I have been rewarded with success and great satisfaction.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
I have had both good and bad luck, but have relied on my ability to work through the bad and not take the good for granted.
Luck is just the product of the environment in which you live and operate. It’s like the weather. If it rains, wear a raincoat, and if it’s sunny, close your eyes and turn your face to the sun.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gerrigreenpaints.com
- Instagram: @ggreenpaints
- Facebook: @Gerri Green Art & Gallery
