— The featured artist of the 68th issue of Living the Photo Artistic Life magazine is Canadian AWAKE artist Francine Malo. I’m excited to be able to share my interview with Francine here on Quill and Camera . . .
Q: What’s your background as an artist?
My background plays a major role in my photo artistry. It’s the base upon which my images stand even though the artistic approach I now take is quite recent.
My mother gave me my first camera when I was a kid — a Kodak Brownie, no less! — although she stimulated my artistic curiosity in many ways, mostly by feeding me books and music of all kinds.
I loved to draw and paint from an early age, though in my early twenties I “decided I wasn’t good enough” as an artist or a photographer, and as strange as it sounds, I completely stopped taking pictures, drawing, or painting. I went on spending my life hanging out with artistic people without ever thinking I would one day create art or could be called an artist myself.
As an adult it didn’t even occur to me to resume photography until I gifted myself with a Canon SLR when we moved in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal in 2002.
That’s when I started taking pictures again — though more like a scientist than an artist — of everything that our backyard has to offer: birds, critters, flowers, insects, trees. I then switched out film for a Canon DSLR and my territory broadened to the forest trails where I dedicated myself to learning as much as I could about wildlife and wildflowers.
(I also became a member of Trek Nature, a nature photography website, and I participated to the FeederWatch program across many winters, counting the birds coming to the multiple feeders installed in our backyard. It was all so exciting!)
Ultimately, all this fed into how I think and feel about art. Only now I have modern tools to work with.
Q: How did you come across Photoshop Artistry?
Nature has always been my passion. I see intelligence and beauty all around me, so much of it worth capturing. After spending time with photography for so long, one day I felt the need to express my emotions more fully in my images, to become more artistic with what I was creating, but I really didn’t know what path to take.
Then I stumbled across a fantastic image on Facebook where the artist mentioned that she had taken the Photoshop Artistry class from Sebastian Michaels. Eureka! I knew in my guts that something was out there to push my interest farther and I felt I had just found it. So in 2016 I enrolled in the Photoshop Artistry course and later went on to AWAKE and then continued on even further with the advanced KAIZEN Group.
Through all this, I have never stopped growing and exploring. It’s like dipping one’s toe in an ocean of possibilities. There’s total freedom here, a limitless expanse before you . . . and the journey across that expanse is absolutely fascinating.
Q: What inspires your work?
Nature first and foremost. But also my love of humans and their lives. The fact that nothing lasts and yet we live in the infinite. And as dark as it sounds, the coming together of life and death.
When I create an image, there will be a figure at the center of the piece, but I absolutely need to include elements from nature as well: a branch, some leaves or lichen, flowers, trees, grass, insects, mountains and clouds . . . otherwise I feel my images would be lifeless.
I love to find beauty in what we label “dark” and “chaotic” because life is such also. I love creating feminine, borderline surreal creatures to explore the emotions and dualities that are a common thread within our human destiny.
Almost always I’ll also work in textures, gold, lace, sparkles, anything beautiful and rich to show transformation, even pain or despair, and suffering as beauty intertwined with hope.
I also find a lot of inspiration in the art created by my fellow artists in the Facebook Awake group, they’re just awesome, and some online magazines. There’s so much great art and beauty out there.
Q: What do you most want to convey in your art?
Emotions. Our link to nature as our home. Nature as perfection and chaos. In fact, there’s a Japanese notion related to this, a view referred to as wabi-sabi, which touches me deeply. I would not pretend to be at this level, but I would point toward this as my ultimate inspiration:
“In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is ‘imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete’ in nature. It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, specifically impermanence, suffering, and emptiness or absence of self-nature.” (Wikipedia definition of wabi-sabi.)
I find that beautiful and yet profoundly troubling in its own way. I also see this as the artistic ideal I aspire to in my work.
Q: How do you approach creating your art?
Very loosely. My pace is quite slow — a piece might take anywhere from a few days up to a week to complete. I just cannot work fast. I start by browsing my collection until something pops up and inspires me. Then I dive in and ride the wave to where it’s leading me . . . and strange enough, an idea will emerge along the way, almost on its own. Colors appear and the composition falls into place.
As I work, I feel as if I’m back to being a kid in her sandbox. I’m just there, immersed in it all. Intense mindfulness is a very enjoyable state of mind, a “no-time” state of mind that I guess is one of the privileges of artists and creators of all sorts.
Q: Where do you wish to take your art next?
I aim to include more and more of my own photographs in my composites and one day I would love to use my own models in order to gain more freedom when I create. Diving into that sort of scares me, but that would be a true personal accomplishment.
Beyond that and my wabi-sabi “ideal,” I have no real expectations, no timeline. I don’t want to take myself too seriously. Even though my favorite themes are very serious.
In the end, I just want to keep on doing it, searching for it, learning from it. As long as I’m having fun and caught up in the fascination of it all, I will continue to love creating. I’m at that age where it’s possible to immerse myself in it all, and that’s very liberating.
I once read an interview with Edouard Lock, choreographer of the dance company La La La Human Steps in the 80’s. Asked how he felt when a project was completed he answered: “The aim is of no interest to me; the path is much more fascinating.” I really like this way of looking at my own art too. I’m just happy to be on the path.
Q: Any advice or tips for aspiring digital artists?
Create the kind of art you like best, fight off any self-doubt, and enjoy the ride. The rest is all yours. Fill it in with whatever captivates you. Follow your instincts. Cherish and express your passion and then let it take you wherever it takes you. Just work. Create. And keep at it. That’s where the fun is.