"Grab your water!"
This is the phrase that starts nearly all of Leigh Ellexson's YouTube videos: a silly and heartfelt moment of connection with her viewers, and a simple glance at Leigh's colorful work proves that this adage is genuine. Leigh's work showcases a kindness, a gentleness, and a general joy for life that often feels starkly absent in our increasingly minimalist and colorless world. In contrast, her art is bright and bubbly, and she is careful to never stray towards the overwhelming.
"I always have a little bit of failure in all my art-making, that's just kinda how it is."
This quote, from one of Leigh's more recent YouTube videos, is one that feels familiar to most artists, even those who deal in such joy as Leigh does. In this video, she shows how she recovered from a period of creative slump following the reopening of her online shop, from which she makes part of her income. Like many small artists today, Leigh makes art mostly for the individual consumer, the person perusing the internet in search of a bright piece to grace their living room walls or a silly sticker to put on their water bottle or phone case (all uses Leigh herself expects from her art). And these YouTube videos play to that market as well. Leigh's personal address to the camera is familiar, friendly, and her candid voicing of her struggles as an artist makes her relatable, even to those who might not consider themselves creatives at all.
These videos are also a great look at Leigh's creative process, and as they are narrated by herself, one feels as though they are getting a personal window into her head. For example, in the same video as mentioned above, Leigh detailed the steps she took to get out of the slump she found herself in. She set herself a "homework assignment," as she calls it, grabbing a new sketchbook from her studio. "It's a good first step for me to try a fresh new sketchbook because I feel just like more inspired and like I'm ready to start something new." She then set the challenge for herself: to fill as many sketchbook spreads as possible before she had to walk home for lunch. The video then records this process, while Leigh narrates over the video to discuss more of how this "art block" affects her process. "I don't always have the luxury of waiting around for inspiration to hit. I have deadlines within my job for art, so when art block hits it makes me a little panicky...So I usually choose to just push right through the block like everything's normal."
Here Leigh refers to her Patreon deadlines, a monthly pledge site which makes up the bulk of her income. She creates a work of art for her Patrons each month, and missing that deadline means missing out on a month's pay. But she admits that this brute-force approach isn't always helpful, and typically results in pieces that only please her audience, not her own creative ambitions. So Leigh does take incubation periods as much as she can, admitting that this is what most often "cures" her of her art block. She also switches mediums frequently, from markers to colored pencils to pastels to digital art programs, the constant change contributing towards a renewed spirit of creativity.
Ultimately, Leigh does end the video having created a piece she is happy with, a digital art set of still lifes. But she states that the struggle is not over: despite the effortless look, her art takes work. "I don't think that making bad art is bad, and I don't feel like it's a failure...My goal instead of curing my art block is to just give myself a little bit of gentleness, a bit of grace." And this shows through in her art—by taking this time, this incubation, her art becomes better for it.
Leigh is considered a little-c creative, as her art tends to circulate only within the online community that she has built, and it has yet to affect the larger society. But this does not devalue her work; rather, I believe her work is meant to exist on the small scale, to touch people individually, and to inspire them to care for themselves, even with something as little as drinking water.
Malia, I thought it was interesting you chose what you consider a little-c creative for this. Great job incorporating the fact that Leigh explains her creative process through videos, since that is something unique. Thank you for your post!
ReplyDeleteThe ability for Leigh to acknowledge when she fails is something that not many artists can do. Failure is a part of any process and hearing success individuals acknowledge it is very respectful. Her bubbly personality is something rare these days and it is always nice to see an individual not be changed by their set-backs.
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