Bringing Art to Life: An Interview with Artist, Nicholas Wilton
Savvy Painter Podcast with Antrese Wood
Antrese Wood
4.8 • 941 Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2021
⏱️ 48 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Have you struggled with integrating the various aspects of your day to day into a workflow that respects your responsibilities AND your passion for art? How do you avoid burning out and feeling like you’ve wasted too much of your life?
If you’ve ever wondered if there was a way to truly bring your art to all aspects of your life - you’ve come to the right place! Here to help me dive into this critical topic that burdens so many of us is my friend and fellow artist, Nicholas Wilton.
Hailing from San Francisco, California, Nicholas studied art at the College of Creative Studies in Santa Barbara and then went on to receive his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Wilton’s paintings are seen in yearly gallery exhibitions, International Art Fairs, and are included in numerous private and corporate collections in both the United States and Europe. Nicholas is also the founder of Art2Life, an online platform that strives to build, empower, and inspire the creative community.
I can’t wait for you to get to know my engaging and insightful friend as he helps us explore what it really means to bring our art to life - you don’t want to miss it!
What is ART2LIFE?
Thousands of artists listen to and believe this lie every day and they walk away from the passion and energy that set them on their creative path - what is the lie?
You aren’t good enough. You’ll never make it. No one wants to buy your art. Only the supremely talented can make any money off of their art. Do any of these lines sound familiar?
What if there was a way to silence those lies that swirl around and re-train your mindset? With his Art2Life program, Nicholas strives to build, empower, and inspire the creative community. Nicholas wants to flip the script and help us shift our focus away from competition to sharing. His program is all about finding what inspires and brings you joy, and making art that is more and more like yourself.
The process of becoming yourself
If you’ve been around the Savvy Painter community for very long, you know that I am passionate about empowering artists like you to fully realize your potential and chase after your dreams. It’s been so encouraging to meet and speak with artists like Nicholas who have dedicated their lives to their craft but to also helping others discover the joy of creative fulfillment. If you find yourself wondering if you’ll ever be able to talk about your art like Nicholas does - STOP! Remember, this isn’t about who you can be most like, it’s about discovering the real YOU. Give yourself patience and space to continue the process of discovery - we are all works in progress!
Pay attention to your energy and mindset
While it might sound silly, the truth is, the energy you bring to your studio matters. Maybe for you, it is all about that cup of coffee or maybe it’s about getting in an early morning run - the actions we take before we decide to sit down and create can have a huge impact on our artwork! As you continue to explore this critical topic with Nicholas, I encourage you to begin paying attention to what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how it is impacting your creative process - the result might surprise you!
Outline of This Episode
- [0:25] I introduce my guest, Nicholas Wilton.
- [4:00] Nicholas talks about the moment when everything came crashing down.
- [8:00] Setting intentions and turning over a new leaf.
- [11:00] What is, “ART2LIFE?”
- [15:00] Why the world needs YOUR art.
- [20:30] The process of becoming yourself.
- [28:45] Nicholas opens up about “getting stuck.”
- [33:30] Pay attention to the energy you want to bring to the studio.
- [37:00] How you can learn from Nicholas’ innovative approach.
- [40:30] Closing thoughts.
Resources Mentioned on this episode
- www.nicholaswilton.com
- www.art2life.com
- Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
Connect With Antrese
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey it's Antries and welcome to another episode of the savvy painter |
| 0:05.1 | podcast. Today on the podcast I have Nicholas Wilton. I'm super excited |
| 0:10.6 | about this conversation that you are about to hear. Nicholas and I got to talk a little |
| 0:15.5 | bit earlier about his journey into the art world and I'm excited to share this with you so Nicholas welcome to the show. |
| 0:25.0 | Hey thanks so much for hosting me I appreciate it. |
| 0:28.0 | Absolutely. So give me a little bit of background for our listeners. The few who haven't heard of you yet, |
| 0:37.6 | who are you and what brings you here? |
| 0:40.4 | Yeah, so I've always been an artist and it just took different forms and the |
| 0:48.6 | quick story is that for many years so I've always made art my father was a painter and well he was a painter but I had an advertising agency but I was always around art and I loved it. |
| 1:00.6 | Knew that was something I wanted to do. I went to art school and all that. But I ended up going into illustration, |
| 1:07.7 | editorial illustration for a whole bunch of years and I didn't really my fantasy was to have a studio and just make art but I kind of didn't think that that was really an option or you know the starving artist and you know I didn't really know a lot of |
| 1:26.4 | artists that could do that but I knew that and I love doing illustration that I could make a living |
| 1:31.5 | and you know and I did I was able to raise my kids and pay for their schools and go take trips and so I did editorial illustration which for those of you listening it's not like you're hired to make a paint Wells Fargo, you know, a bank or something. |
| 1:47.0 | It's about, mine was conceptual illustration. |
| 1:50.0 | So it was pretty personal coming up with ideas and communicating them with pictures. |
| 1:54.8 | So I had a bit more control of the kind of work I made, which to me was always what I was interested |
| 2:01.1 | in. |
| 2:02.1 | If I could control things, then I would enjoy them more is what I discovered. |
| 2:05.4 | But so I did this for quite a few years and built a career around it. My plan was to save up from doing these projects, save up money, so one day I could have enough money or investments or something to plan and I wasn't so well thought out. |
| 2:25.8 | So then I could just make fine art and it wouldn't matter if I sold it or not. |
| 2:30.4 | I mean probably occasionally I would sell something but I then I could just |
| 2:33.7 | follow my dream and so this was actually I was doing pretty well I became quite |
... |
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