Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsey Hurst
Hi Lindsey, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1999. I lived in a handful of areas and graduated high school in Franklin. I have a bittersweet affinity for those small towns like Franklin and Middletown. They were home to me, but they weren’t always comfy. I come from a blue-collar background where I did have love, friendship, laughter, and good memories. But I also dealt with the effects from poverty, mental illness, addiction, and turmoil in my home. That’s worth mentioning because these have become themes within my art. A point in which I really started to feel like an -artist- was the summer before I entered high school. I remember watching a documentary (Beauty is Embarrassing) about Wayne White, the guy who created the set for Pee Wee’s playhouse and he’s a fabulous artist that inspired me to start playing more with creativity. My neighborhood friends, my brother Jake, and I were sculpting and drawing and painting that summer, and the creative spark stuck around. Throughout high school I continued exploring art through lots of different forms. It didn’t feel serious back then but art was always present, I knew I would always be doing it.
When I graduated high school I wanted to go to college to try to create a more stable living for myself. I felt discouraged from pursuing an arts major because I didn’t want to be poor forever. Like I said, I knew I would always be doing art regardless, so I tried going a more practical route and I got my Associate Degree in Natural Science and Mathematics from Miami University in Hamilton, OH. However, while in my first few years of college I took some art classes and I had professors (Andy Au, Jen Purdum, Roscoe Wilson) that helped me feel encouraged to continue developing my craft. In college I started to appreciate the value of art more within myself and the community. I stopped viewing art as merely a hobby, and it became an aspect of my life that I was constantly thinking about. I graduated college in 2022 with a BA in Community Arts and a minor in 2D Studio Art. I took several printmaking classes and fell in love with the various processes and outcomes. I mainly took a liking to woodcut printmaking.
My artwork during college was a lot of abstract, non-objective, net-like structures that I was drawing a lot. I was working through the grief of losing my Grandma Ruby, whom I was very close to. I was also working through the lingering mental weight of childhood experiences, abuse, and family members consumed by addiction. I didn’t know how to express all of these things and the nets served as visual placeholders for these big feelings. With the net drawings and prints, I wasn’t trying to visualize a specific narrative but I was creating an opportunity for the viewer to become introspective in their own way.
I’m feeling like I’m in a turning point in my artistic practice this year. I’ve been moving away from the nets standing alone and making work that is more figurative and tells more of a story. I still feel the value in my abstract work. However, I think a main reason why I was obsessively making the same structures repetitively was because I was struggling to find my voice as an artist that can actually connect with the viewer. The nets feel more like personal diary entries to me. My current work is building on the same themes, but I’m reconnecting with what made me fall in love with art in the first place—it’s fun. I’m now working through my big feelings; joy, hatred, embarrassment, life and death, love, friendship… in the hopes that the message hits home AND it’s enjoyable to look at.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It is hard to be a working artist trying to prioritize the art. I know I’m not alone in this struggle, I know so many creative people who have to work “real” jobs to pay the bills and the art lives on the side lines. It is hard to nurture a balance in which the art gets the time and energy it deserves. One must survive, and unfortunately the loop of working to meet survival needs can diminish the ability to work the creative muscles. I’m a barista by day, bartender by night, and an artist all the time in between. I’m working these jobs because honestly it’s easier to block them out at the end of a shift to focus on my art again. For a while I was a manager at a previous job and although I was making good money, it was taking up too much energy and mental real estate, so my art was suffering. I had to quit. I’m sacrificing better paychecks for the development of my art, because that is what seems to be working for me right now. It can be a struggle to maintain self-confidence and to see projects through to the end. I feel like giving up in a big way sometimes. But I don’t think I ever will. It would be so silly to give up now, after all of this effort already. I can’t give up. I just have to keep figuring out how to make it work.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in woodcut printmaking. I usually use 1/2” or 3/4” thick birch plywood from the hardware store. I draw my image on the wood, carve it out by hand using small gouges, then I roll ink on the surface, and print the wood onto the paper.
Some of the best advice I’ve received was, “make art that you would like to look at.” So, my artistic style is forming into a combination of all things I love to look at. I love the work of classic old woodcut printmakers with ornate details and symbolic borders, and I also love cartoons, and I appreciate realistic portraits and figure drawings from life. My brain pulls from all these things that I love and that’s how I’ve coined a “style” that sets me apart. I feel the most proud when I’ve created something that I love to look at.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is something you really do have to define on your own, and coming up with that definition can be difficult in itself. Honestly, I have times when I feel like a failure because I’m not doing some life-saving career like a surgeon or a firefighter, I’m not getting wealthy, I’m not solving poverty or stopping wars. I sometimes feel very overwhelmed, feeling like a fly on the wall. But I have to remind myself that although I’m not saving the world, I am doing something of value. I remind myself how important other artists’ work is to me, how I’ve been so inspired and comforted by those before me. The escapism of a good movie, the laughter from a cartoon, the sense of understanding found in lyrics to a song, or the enchantment of an intricate illustration. All these art forms are so hugely important in my life and they are the things that help me to never give up. So, success to me just entails continuing my creative process until my final days. I feel warm and fuzzy when people tell me that they enjoy spending time looking at my work. That feels like success to me. It’s a dream come true to be able to create visual experiences for others to sink into the same way that I have spent time sinking into my favorite pieces of art.
Pricing:
- You can email me or DM me on Instagram to purchase my work. I have some work for sale on my website, but I prefer to sell directly to the buyer.
- Prices range from $15 for mini prints to $350 for the more detailed work
- I will occasionally take commission requests
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.lindseyhurst.com
- Instagram: @lhurst_art
- Other: Lindseyhurst17@gmail.com
