— The featured artist of the 82nd issue of Living the Photo Artistic Life magazine is AWAKE artist Pauline van der Spuy of South Africa. It’s wonderful to be able to share my interview with Pauline here on Quill and Camera . . .
Q: What got you started in digital photo artistry?
School and university gave me an education and I excelled in the academic field but sadly when I was of school-going age the options were Academic (with Mathematics, Latin, History, Biology and 2 languages as main subjects) or Commercial (accounting) or Domestic Science (cooking, needlework, etc). I found I had the academic qualifications but my enquiring mind was not satisfied. The reason for this was that none of the available educational options at the time offered art in any form. Art was considered an extramural hobby at best. My parents had just emerged from the war years and for them art was simply a “no-go,” especially during the time when the world was still putting itself back together and everything was a matter of survival. So I never quite had the opportunity to delve into my artistic yearnings and desires, apart from venturing into digitizing designs for people to embroider on digital sewing machines in an attempt to express my thoughts and ideas.
Photographic equipment and developing photos were also not within my financial reach at that stage. But then, in the nineties, I eagerly followed the rumors of digital cameras and ordered a big square SONY digital camera from the US as soon as they became available.
Online buying was not the done thing in South Africa at the time (or perhaps even the world at large), but I was burning to have the camera and went ahead.
The maximum resolution of that first digital camera was 2MB and it wrote its files to a huge floppy disk. I remember my boss at that time saying “this digital thing is not going to fly my dear.” But I was in seventh heaven. I could now develop my own photos. This is when the photographic bug bit hard. I suddenly began to see the world in a different light. My eye caught things I would not have stopped long to look at before such as the textured bark of a tree, or wet moss, and so much more. My particular path lead me to learn about the SOUL of the art before the technique, and I’m very grateful for that. However, while photography with my primitive fixed-focal-length 2MB camera was SO exciting in a documentary kind of way, I so badly wanted my images to reflect my creative vision.
In 2010 I got my first DSLR but still it was recording images rather than capturing the vision emerging in my soul. My vision only truly became a reality when I discovered the Photoshop Artistry Fine Art Grunge course, which then led me to the AWAKE and KAIZEN groups.
I had just started these courses when tragedy struck our family. We lost our beautiful young fun-loving daughter. Not long after, to make things worse, Covid-19 hit the financial markets plus personal pension investments and we lost everything we owned within 3 days — home, cars, and security.
By way of escape, I decided to deep-dive into learning. I began to read intensively and watched tutorials to try and stay focused in some way. I believe that this photo artistic journey saved me from losing my mind. I avidly read Sebastian’s positive essays and letters and clung to the threads of hope and light that he always seems to illustrate.
Q: What would you say inspires your work?
Inspiration is a strange thing, isn’t it? Sometimes it seems to come running at me full speed, even wakes me up in the night, while at other times, it’s nowhere to be found.
Even when I do feel inspired, sometimes getting started can feel overwhelming. My art is mainly internally driven. It is about my emotions and passions of the moment. It is my journey into the soul. The initial inspiration, however, might also come from people, places, colours, moods, emotions, beauty and so much more. A bird singing happily on a fresh spring morning can kick-start my creativity. That old rusty tap, long forgotten, begs to be brought to life on a canvas.
As an artist, I have discovered I have to DO something about inspiration; otherwise it just stays in my head. And that is where the journey with my photo artistic life has proven so meaningful.
Should I ever fall into a slump, I find I am fueled by the photography of Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Dix, Sebastiao Salgado, Sally Mann, Diane Arbus, and Ansel Adams. These days I am also inspired by artists such as Hein Waschefort, Martin Dudley, and so many artists within the AWAKE and KAIZEN groups. One of the most valuable aspects of my journey has been the camaraderie and mutual support that we share. The encouragement from fellow artists (like August Naude, also of South Africa) has meant the world to me.
Q: How do you approach your work? Do you follow a particular process?
No, I don’t think I follow a specific process. Sometimes I dive in with this whole interplay of emotions and thoughts that come together in some unusual or unexpected way as I work. At other times I light on a very specific idea and then I wade through my collection of images to see if I can find what I need to bring the vision to life. Other times it might be nothing more than a colour that sets me going. I then look for images that can fit the mood of the colour.
I should add that often I start off with an idea or vision for a piece . . . and within a few minutes — perhaps because of the images I chose, the colours I’m working with, or the mood they elicit — the idea has veered off in another direction entirely.
When that happens, I just go with the flow.
But this is what makes creating art so exciting.
Of course sometimes things just don’t come together and that is also okay. Sometimes we need to step back, breathe deeply, maybe go do something else for a few hours, and then come back to the drawing board.
Q: What’s your next step as an artist?
I would love to sell my art. I really would. Having said that, I never want to lose the fun and joy of creating art for myself that illustrates my own vision and emotions.
But where next? Hard to say. Perhaps I need to pick up the next map Sebastian gives us through AWAKE and KAIZEN and see where it carries me. I believe we are on a never-ending, wonderfully exciting journey, and we will grow for as long as we are prepared to keep learning and keep creating with an open mind.
We may fall short at times, but in falling we learn, we get up and dust ourselves off, and we find our way back again.
I am not sure where this journey is taking me but I am enjoying every moment of the ride.
Q: Any tips you would like to share with other aspiring artists?
It is important to not let your well run dry. There will continually be new shifts in art (and reflections on old styles), and all artists need to make sure that their own wells are kept full. To do that, you take in all the art you can, soak it up like a sponge, and hang onto that which inspires you.
If you’re giving it your all, expect that there will be tears and times of frustration. It is not always an easy road, and it can be a long road. Just keep trying. Ask those whom you respect to give you constructive criticism. Attend to those whom you admire. And always be courteous to people even if they criticize your work.
But remember that there is no right or wrong here, and there is no win or lose in this artistic life. Art and photography can sometimes feel very competitive — whose work is better, who is winning prizes, whose work is selling more. It took me a while to detach myself from that noise.
For me, it is about improving my own art and skills and not about competing with others. It gives me so much joy to see the successful images of friends. I find joy in their joy.
I started this journey late in life but I am determined to stay on the train. To quote Henry Moore: “There’s no retirement for an artist. It is a way of living, so there’s no end to it.”
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