From early on in AWAKE, Billa Bozem stood out as an inevitable Featured Artist in Living the Photo Artistic Life, and with Issue 9 her artistry hit the world with all its intricacy and power …
Q: What would you say most inspires you as an artist?
Billa Bozem: When I go through the world, my senses wide open, I can find inspiration everywhere … It might be a face, a gesture, a sentence in a book, a fragrance, or the mood in a certain situation of my everyday life …
It might sound strange, but it can as well be the dark side of life which inspires me … It challenges me to create kind of a counterweight. There have been some tough periods in my life, and creating beauty has enabled my soul to find a way back to the lightness of being. I think anything that is creative really takes my mind off whatever it is that I’m going through in my life.
Q: What does living the photo artistic life mean to you?
Billa Bozem: I think living an artistic life is not confined to simply making art, it means seeing things where others do not, being sensitive to art and beauty everywhere, not just in a museum or gallery. As Van Gogh said, “I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.”
Living an artistic life means giving myself the permission to be different — even weird — and independent. It means to defend my feelings and visions, to push beyond the boundaries that I allowed to restrict me for years and years. These days we all are thinking of Muhammad Ali, and he once said: “I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.” And I love that.
Living an artistic life also means letting the child in me play, experiencing butterflies in my stomach when at a certain point of the creative process I feel what I am working on will turn out well. In this way, I suppose it means never losing the excitement about making something beautiful, seeing it work out the way you hoped.
Q: Were you always interested in making art? And what is it you most wish to convey in your work?
Billa Bozem: Looking back, I’m sure I was always interested in art … Of course a little girl couldn’t have called it an interest in art … It was just how I lived. I remember adoring my coloring books and remember feeling delight in filling in shapes with red and green and blue. I enjoyed building fantasy houses with toy blocks, and enjoyed kneading and shaping clay … Very early I tried out painting and then moved to creating collages with real photos … And then there was Photoshop …
My breast cancer some years ago made me feel the vulnerability of my femininity, of my outer appearance. I lost my hair in my battle with cancer, yet my headpieces made me like myself nevertheless (and I still wear headpieces) … But perhaps where outward beauty cannot be preserved forever, femininity can be. And this is what I celebrate in my artwork.
Q: What are the most important things you’ve learned in your journey as an artist?
Billa Bozem: Being my own harshest critic, I had to learn to not fall into despair when I am not satisfied with what I’ve created. “Try and fail, but never fail to try!” as Jared Leto once said.
It’s necessary for me to take time and space for having fun. Doing what I love inspires me to be more creative. I love sitting in a café, reading a book, watching the people around me, listening to their conversations and having a sweet creamy coffee.
And especially when the creativity evaporates, it’s best to get away from my work for a while, if only in my head.
I’ve had to accept that the creative process doesn’t work on a schedule. It doesn’t fit into a time sheet and doesn’t just appear when you want it to, on command, like a prop. Make it a habit not to judge yourself on your creative output. Sometimes your muse is at her best, other times she is off elsewhere. That’s okay.
For me it’s important to be creative first thing in the morning, before doing anything for the outside world. This really sets the day up for me.
Q: Any thoughts or artistic advice you’d like to wrap up with?
Billa Bozem: Don’t try to be perfect. (Which is something I still struggle with myself. LOL.) There is a healthy and necessary striving, and this is good … but perfectionism is crippling, it might hamper your playfulness and joy, might even paralyze you. And don’t compare your work to others, wondering if you are better or worse. Just keep pursuing your own passion. Every flower blooms at a different pace. And every flower is beautiful in its own way.