Gradiva Couzin

Why are you an artist?
I believe that everyone is born with the capacity to make wonderful art, and some of us are fortunate, or determined, enough to be able to devote large portions of our lives to this endeavor. To me, being a capital “A” Artist is all about the amount of time that you spend on your artwork. I quit my “day job” as a Civil Engineer almost seven years ago – a 28th birthday present to myself – and have never worked full time since then. But I never would have had the guts or confidence to quit if my boyfriend, now husband, hadn’t provided a foundation of emotional support.
 
Could you tell us some more about your paintings?
I wish to make art that is beautiful in the most straightforward ways, with pure and vivid colors, and realistic representations of the human form. Most of my work over the past seven years has been commissioned portraiture in a traditional, representational style. One thing that I love about portraiture is how approachable it is. I find that almost everybody has something to say about it, and people do not feel intimidated or distanced by portraits the way they might with more abstract or conceptual artwork.

Is the subject important to you, or do you simply paint to express yourself?
Obviously, as a representational portrait painter, I give utmost importance to the subject. For me, the process of painting a portrait is all about connecting with the people in it. Sometimes I am brought into people’s lives at their most joyous times: the birth of a child, a marriage, an anniversary. Other times I am commissioned for a painting in times of tragedy: the loss of a brother, a father, a niece. I know that I have been given a gift of trust by my subjects. I think of myself as a ghostwriter, translating their stories onto the canvas, giving them a tool to create a permanent, visual representation of what is happening in their lives: a woman ponders leaving her husband of 19 years; a man poses in his native Mexico on an agave field that he dreams someday to own. I am deeply honored that my artwork has been woven into people’s lives in these ways.
 
Could you talk about your latest series of paintings and what you are trying to achieve with them?
For the last year or so I have been experimenting with small, minimalistic, semi-abstract works. These are very simple, very subtle paintings in jewel-like colors, sometimes exploring patterns of brushstrokes, sometimes translating small pieces of our surroundings such as the flash of dappled sunlight on a sidewalk.

What am I trying to achieve with them? I want them to be beautiful… I want them to give over interpretive space to the viewer so that he or she can enjoy them in his or her own way… and I want them to represent (to me) this time and place in my life: new motherhood, San Francisco, the Mission, the smell of paint, rain on concrete. To me they are like painted haikus.
 
What artists have influenced you, and how?
My mother was and is an artist, first a painter and now an experimental filmmaker. She taught at an art school so there were always a lot of artistic types around when I was growing up. But I have also been strongly influenced by Italian renaissance painters such as Raphael, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo; by Vermeer for the gentleness of his light and space; and more recently by Impressionists Mary Cassat and Edward Potthast.

I am primarily self-taught, and started my artistic career by painting copies of old masters. I do think that reproducing a painting is the best way to study it!
 
What inspires you to paint and how do you keep motivated when things get tough in the studio?
When I don’t paint for a while, I start to get a strange feeling in my head and I miss the physical/mental experience of putting paint on the canvas. I think it might be the way some people feel if they haven’t exercised or stretched for a while. So it’s never a problem for me to get motivated to get myself down to the studio.

Getting through the difficult part of a painting is much easier now that I have some experience and I know my own typical patterns. I always adore a painting at the beginning, then about 3/4 of the way through I start to hate it - this is when I might give up if I didn't have a contract and a commitment to complete the work! Right when the painting is finished I like it again, but always with some mixed feelings because I know its flaws so well and I know the little things that I had to let go. And after a few weeks I adore it again and decide that it’s the best painting I’ve ever made.

How have you handled the business side of being an artist?
It’s certainly been a learning process. I have always taken myself seriously as a business and have forced myself to follow certain formalities like contracts, receipts, a business license, charging sales tax, etc. Since I started out with portraiture, almost all of my sales so far have been commissions. It’s a very different process than the gallery-type sale, because everything you paint is already sold before you paint it. You become very good at saying goodbye to your work!

Over several years and through several difficult experiences I have found my own answers to questions like: Do you let the client see works-in-progress? How do you display the completed work? How do you ship/deliver completed work? What if someone is unhappy with the completed work? There are a few books I would recommend - the Graphic Artist's Guild handbook, a book called "Art Marketing 101", and "The Fine Artist's Career Guide" by Daniel Grant. I also found the book "Caring for your Art" by Jill Snyder to be very helpful. Last but not least there is a website called Art Business (www.artbusiness.com) with numerous helpful articles for artists, written by a local (San Francisco) art expert.

This year I have been trying to do more work in the non-commissioned business model, where you paint a painting first, and someone likes it and decides to buy it. I have only just scratched the surface of this type of art-making process. So check back in a couple of years and I’ll let you know!
 
What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?
Put as much time into your artwork as you possibly can.

What do you do for fun (besides painting)?
Hug and kiss my little boy.