Hello!
My name is Renée McGlothlin, though I sign my art as renée mcg. I'm turning 70 – a retired sign painter / sign designer / graphic designer, who is now, finally, becoming an actual professional fine artist!
I've been an artist for as long as I can remember. Most of my childhood memories are about "making stuff". Doing various kinds of art, and experimenting with every art form and medium that I could get my hands on. In fact, my mom used to say, "You couldn't NOT do art." (And had a lot of unfinished homework to prove it.)
I was raised a "blue collar girl". Making college of any kind, "not an option". So, at 19, when I 'left home' in Michigan to move to Denver, I had to get a job. ASAP. With no experience or 'skills'. Though my art teacher had told me once that I'd make a great sign painter. So that's what I looked for, and was immediately hired as an apprentice. Years later, when computers started changing the world, and the sign industry, my boss sat me down in front of one and said, "Here. Learn this." Which, I did. So, through the years 'sign painting' morphed into 'sign design and production', and then 'graphic design'. All without a single day of art school – and all the while 'getting paid to learn'. Not a bad deal, really!
Though, back when I was 20 an uncle gave me a batch of oil paints. I'd tried painting before in acrylic, without much success – but with that simple set of oils I had my first "breakthrough painting." A whole different level than any painting I'd done before. Which is how portrait painting and photo realism ended up as my main painting styles for decades. (Which I'm now working to evolve beyond.)
Not that I did a lot of it, though — since I was using my artistic talent to make my living, I wasn't nearly as drawn to doing art when I got home. So, my paintings, though very good, were few and far between.
But now – long retired from making signs, and settled in Southern Oregon, it's just me, my computer… and my paints. Which I'm now diving into – though in acrylics.
I once heard an art supply store owner say, "Art is easy… for artists." Which it is. And fun too! In fact, I've long suspected that we creative types – we "makers" – actually NEED to be creative. Or we can go a little nuts. And all this painting… well, frankly – it makes me happy. And, helps keep me sane too.
Though in addition to growing up "blue collar" – I also grew up 'metaphysical'. AKA 'New Age', or 'Spiritual But Not Religious'. Long before the terms were coined. I've been to India. I've lived in a commune. I've been friends with professional astrologers, tarot readers, psychics and spiritual teachers. I'm 'different'. I'm quirky. A "fringe dweller," and proud of it.
You know, sometimes it feels like all that psychic energy we call 'creativity' is a kind of 'moving inner force within our being'. Which genuinely needs to come out and have expression in the world. For without that, it can eventually turn toxic… So, as the French might say Vive la Créativité! (Long live Creativity!)