Podcast Feature: The Artist Supply Guide
This last June I shared some thoughts on my personal Facebook page:
So....I was just a guest on a podcast for the first time! It's called Artist's Corner on http://artsupplyguide.com/ It will come out later this fall!
I really like being thirty y'all. I feel like I'm relearning that childhood courage to just be my weird and wonderful self. I was pretty nervous before, but I'm rejecting the temptation to pick apart every answer I gave. I'm not going to sit and wonder if I sounded dumb, or will I be perceived as a real artist or any of those things.
I was asked to give a final thought or word of encouragement and basically said just that: Don't be afraid to be who you are. I wasted too much time being scared to claim what I do: I'm an artist. So, go forth, don't be afraid to put your stuff (art, music, thoughts, project, lessons, opinions, dreams, whatever!) out into the world.
The experience of the last four months has been one of the biggest adventures of my life. I changed my job (mostly!) and moved across the country with my husband and our two dogs. When I met strangers, I introduced myself as an artist. My focus has been on my artwork and my confidence has skyrocketed through the roof. I thought I was going to be nervous when this interview aired, but I am nothing but excited to share it with you today. Thank you so much to Jeremy at ArtSupplyGuide.com for being an incredible host. ( Be warned, my inner VIPkid teacher really shows and I say, “Yeah!” a lot! )
Overall, this is a great representation of my work, my process and where I come from.
Jeremy: Hey everybody welcome back to artists corner the artist podcast at artsupplyguide.com. How are you today, Andi?
Andi: I’m good. I’m excited.
Jeremy: That’s good
Andi: Yeah, I’m happy to be talking with you.
Jeremy: Thanks. So let’s get started. Tell us about yourself. Who is Andi?
Andi: Who is Andi? Well, I’m Andi Garbarino, which you already said. I’m a Texan and an artist. Just someone who wants to really let her inner child out. I live in Houston with my husband. We’ve been married for about four years. I grew up in rural east Texas in a really tiny town, that maybe isn’t so tiny anymore. It’s called Royse City. I love that I’ve gotten to experience what it means to live out in the country, and now that I’m a grownup I get to live in the city. It’s good.
Jeremy: Cool, so, you said you’re an artist, so what exactly do you do?
Andi: Yeah, so my work is focused on reminiscence of childhood memories, and dreams. So what that looks like is, my own childhood was really spent out in nature. I loved to go out into the woods behind my parent’s house and pretend the trees were a castle. My dad would take us to the pond back there and we would catch frogs and fish and minnows. And we would make potions and salads for our pet bunny rabbits.
There’s something about holding onto those memories that is really encouraging to the trials and tribulations of adulthood. And I thought that was just me, but the more that I talk to people and notice those tiny reminiscences coming out in conversations, it’s just really, really special.
So I spend my work focused on that feeling and what that is. I hope that my collectors or anyone viewing my work will see those pieces and really remember their own silly potions or special recipes for their pets or stuff like that to encourage them in their adulthood too.
Jeremy: That’s cool. Yeah I think back growing up in East Texas in Tyler and Palestine. And my brother and I would go play in the woods, and we had our base and…
Andi: Those trees out there are so GIANT! I remember being this tiny person and looking up at them and they seemed to go all the way up to heaven or Saturn or something. So cool.
Jeremy: So, how did you actually get started in making art?
Andi: Yeah, well--I’ve always made art. But, most people have--they just don’t realize it, right? So that’s the easy answer. But, my family is just really creative. I was really blessed to grow up in a family of artists and musicians and people who love to make new things and make things better for everybody. So my grandmothers, both of them LOVE to paint. I actually grew up next door to my Mom’s Mom--My Grandma Patsy. And she is a lovely lady. I love her.
She is so fun and hilarious and, speaking of someone who is not afraid to let their inner child show--that’s her. She is always laughing and cracking jokes. I grew up painting at her kitchen table. She would pull out all these acrylic paints--there would be all of these robin egg blues and really special greens, and she would teach me all of her cool folk art techniques. I loved to just get down and dirty with paints.
My other grandmother would pull out water colors and we’d sit at my parents’ kitchen table. My whole family just had this way of encouraging all of us kids to just be ourselves whatever that was. There was never, “Oh, a rabbit doesn't have seven legs,” or whatever--which I realize now talking to you that might make it sound like my pieces might have rabbits with seven legs, which--they don’t. But those are my earliest experiences with art.
So I am a mixed media artist. Which means that I really started doing art and calling myself an artist--what is it? 2019? Already? What is that?! Well, I guess about five years ago I started working with mixed media sculptures which was really cool. I would make these crosses out of paper and beads and wire and wood. And so that was where I started to say, “I’m an artist and I do this thing.” Because that’s scary, right? To be like, “I am an artist.”
But really, what my work has evolved into now is mixed media collage. So I take magazines and books and old things and new things and juxtapose all of these images of nature and not nature, like the train that keeps buzzing by and put them together. I really just started putting those into the world and showing them this year, which is really crazy. But I’ve done them, done collage for as long as I can remember, too. Especially being a ten-year-old girl in my bedroom ripping up magazine papers and pasting them all together. So yeah, I’ve always done art. But really in the last five years has it been the thing that I do.
At my Senior Voice Recital with my gal pal, Emily. ❤︎
Jeremy: So, did you go to school for art?
Andi: No, actually. Interestingly enough. I was a music major in college.
Jeremy: Oh, wow.
Andi: Yeah, I have a degree in music. I spent a lot of that time studying music therapy. Which is really an interesting field. But I love that creativity has the power to heal us, and heal our bodies. And so a lot of what I learned in my music studies has crossed over into my work as an artist.
Jeremy: So, going to school, and getting a music degree--are you also a musician or a singer or?
Andi: Yeah, so I got my music degree with a focus in voice. I love to play the guitar. I have been working as a fine arts teacher, so I've been teaching music and art classes at a church here in Houston. And now my husband and I are getting ready to move to Boston, and it’s really the time to launch into this new career with focusing on making art for myself and not just teaching.
Jeremy: That’s cool. And it sounds like you’re really passionate about it all too
Andi: Yeah, that helps right?
Jeremy: Yeah exactly. So, what are the things that you are currently working on? Do you take commissions or are you just like,”I’m gonna make something today.” And it may take a week or a day or how does your whole process work there?
Andi: Yeah, well Jeremy, right now I haven’t been taking commissions. But my process looks a lot like sitting at a giant table with giant stacks of magazines with no intention of what’s about to happen. Which is really magical because just pulling out images that really speak to me or I just like or am drawn to, I just rip them all out and stack them on up up next to me. Which just becomes like a puzzle that you don’t have the picture for. You know? When you're doing a puzzle and you have to look at the picture, or maybe you don’t have to do that, I don’t know.
Jeremy: Well, growing up, I always did the puzzles upside down.
Andi: Cool!
Jeremy: Seems kinda weird, but yeah I know what you mean.
Andi: No I don’t think that’s weird, it’s like good spatial reasoning skills. Just focusing on how they all fit together in that way instead of the big picture.
Jeremy: Yeah, my mom she thinks it’s funny and likes to tell people that. But she was always like, “Why don't you look at it?” and I’m like, “I just want to be surprised by the picture when it’s done.”
Andi: Yes! You know I think that maybe it’s a similar feeling! I can identify with that. That’s so funny. You want to be surprised...so, what was the most surprising puzzle that you flipped over?
Jeremy: You know, I don’t know. The puzzles always came in the box that showed what the puzzle was going to be. Right? So I don’t know. Just a kid doing weird stuff. Puzzles upside down.
Andi: That’s cool. But kids are not afraid to do weird stuff like that. The world hasn’t taught them that that’s weird yet.
Jeremy: Right?
Andi: And I don’t know. I think the world would be a better place if we could all get back to that place a little bit, you know?
Jeremy: Yeah, it could be fun again.
Andi: Yeah, you should bust that out at Thanksgiving.
Jeremy: Right? So, when you’re talking about the magazines.
Andi: Yeah?
Jeremy: So, is that the extent of the material you are using? Because before you were also talking about some beads and wood and all kinds of other things.
Andi: Yeah, so right now I’m really focused on 2D work. Every once in a while I’ll bring out the wire and beads and paper and make collage that way--wait! Not a collage, a sculpture--that way. But right now I’m really focused on my flat pieces that would hang on a wall. So right now I’m really primarily working with paper for my media.
So, I might have something that came in the mail the day before yesterday and I’ve already devoured. I love to read magazines front to back and I always have. So that might be at the top of one stack and on the bottom of another stack there might be like an old text book that I picked up at a garage sale that might be something my dad might have used in fire school or something. There’s just something about the old and new next to each other that’s just really special.
Jeremy: Interesting. So you’re taking these images and those are the pieces, the puzzle pieces that are coming together to form. So that’s interesting because we have a video on the website it’s a collage video. It was one of our really early videos and it’s one of our most popular videos. There’s some art teachers somewhere, I’m not even sure where that have started using it in their curriculums. So we’ll get comments from the students saying, “This really helped me in my class…”
Art Supply Guide has a great video on how to get started with collage techniques!
Andi: Oh, yeah!
Jeremy: But it’s different though because this, what you're talking about is you are cutting out this piece and using that piece as part of the whole project. Which is interesting because the video that we have, you draw a picture and then you cut out a bunch of things that are blue and glue that in as the shirt. And then cut out a bunch of things that are red and glue that in as the hair.
Andi: Yeah! Like painting WITH the paper.
Jeremy: Yeah, so is your focus more on what the image in the magazines are and how it comes together?
Andi: Yeah, in the process of it, right?
Jeremy: Yeah, in the zone.
Andi: In the zone. At the table. It’s more about like what each little image is. So I might pull out a chunk of a garden, right, like a big piece of paper that has a garden on it. I might like, see a small rose and pull that rose out and...and I guess the equivalent of it would be if when a painter is sitting down to figure out what paints they want to use and staring at their cabinet like my grandma used to do. Right? And whatever paint colors or media that she was drawn to, she’d pull ‘em out of her cabinet and set them on her table. So when I’m going through my magazine s those magazines and books and pieces of wall paper are like my cabinet. So with each tear, that’s like me pulling them out of my cabinet and putting them on my table.
So then the work begins when I am piecing all of these little images together to make something bigger. Which almost always turns out to be something that is pretty surreal and combines nature with something else. So.
Jeremy: Cool. Interesting.
Andi: It is interesting. My favorite, not my favorite, because I love all of it. But the thing that is so neat, is when it’s finished to look at it and say, What is this saying? And have a conversation with it. And that’s when the stories come out of the work.
So, one of the pieces that I recently finished is called Flower House. It’s a house. It looks like a house. There’s a roof and there are tons of flowers underneath it that make up the shape of this house. And the door to the house is actually the view of a road at a sunset, or maybe it’s sunrise. You don’t know until you have your conversation with it.
And out the front door is the ocean. So I didn’t sit down to make this piece and say, “I’m gonna make a house out of flowers and it’s gonna be on the beach,” but it all came together that way.
When it was finished, I just got to look at it and ask, “What is this story? Where is this house, and what is it?” And it may just be that it’s summertime, but the story that this piece told mew as of the family vacations that I would always take with my Mom and my Dad and my brother and my sister to the beach. And we would go to Surfside Beach, right--Texas Gulf.
Jeremy: Yup.
Andi: And every single year we would go. And I know that someone else who would go to Surfside Beach every year with their family might not look at Flower House and hear that story, because when other people look at it, they tell me a different story. And that is what is so cool about art. It’s that, they tell us all this different story, but the beauty is the same. We’re all looking at the same thing and it’s always something beautiful.
Jeremy: So, do you have a favorite piece that you’ve made?
Andi: Uhm, it’s hard to say that I have a favorite I really like Flower House, but that’s probably because I just finished it and I’ve been immersed in it. There is one piece that I’m really fond of. I tried so many different names for it actually before I picked one. But it’s about October. And this piece has butterflies on the corner, and they are Monarch butterflies. They may be queen butterflies, but they told me they were Monarch butterflies. And it’s got this mostly unmade bed in it. And this background with a frame that’s hanging up and it’s got a black and white picture. I think it’s my favorite one.
It just reminds me of the magic of the butterflies that migrate down through the middle of October. And they would always make a special stop in my parent’s backyard. Even last year I had to make that sure I was out there for when the butterflies came. Because they all chill in my Dad’s field back there. And they all rest, and they’re snacking and their wings will flutter and there’s hundreds of them, Jeremy, it’s the coolest thing. Their wings are closed so you can’t really see that brilliant orange color. But then they flit open really quickly and that’s happening all over the field, and it’s like magic. It doesn’t feel like something that could be real in this world--but it is. I love that piece because it makes me think of that.
And there’s something about when you wake up in the morning and you dreamed of something that almost really happened. That’s really special and that’s why I like that piece because it kind of does that for me.
Jeremy: Well I’ll make sure that we include Flower House and October Under Way in the article too.
Andi: Yeah! That would be great.
Jeremy: As well as some other stuff I’m sure. So you said you're in the middle of moving to Boston soon.
Andi: Yeah.
Jeremy: And your main focus is gonna be on your artwork
Andi: I think so, yeah
Jeremy: So what kind of goals and intentions do you have for that in this new place?
Andi: Well, I'm really excited to have a more dedicated space in our home in Boston to make art. My husband has been supportive in the moving process. In looking at the floor-plan of our new apartment, and “Where’s your space going to be?!” because right now in our downtown apartment. I pretty much just go to town on our kitchen island. Which is great and wonderful. But I’m excited to have a physical space to work and being able to carve out more time to focus on that. I know that’s not a goal, but it’s something I’m looking forward to.
Right now I’m in the process of putting together my website, so that’s a short term goal that I have is launching hat website by launching it by the middle of August, maybe sooner, I don't know. Long term, I would be excited to know that my work is out in the world, maybe on the other side of the world and not just locally. Even just moving to Boston, and being in another part of the country and putting these pieces out there is something I’m really excited about.
Jeremy: That’s cool. So, you said right now you’re teaching music and stuff at the church and doing the artwork. Are you going to be able to do just the artwork stuff when you get to Boston? Or are you going to be looking for a job?
Andi: Ah, yes, the artist side-hustle, right?
Jeremy: Right.
Andi: Actually I will still be teaching. I am teaching now, my fun side hustle is I teach English online to kids who live in China.
Jeremy: Oh, cool.
Andi: That’s really fun. I don’t think I could ever not be working with children either as a teacher or an art teacher or something just because they are so inspiring. Being around kids is such a good reminder of that thing we were talking about earlier, to be your wonderful, weird self. And that’s good because they're not afraid. Even just my short english lessons with my kiddos remind me about that, like, they’re not afraid. They're not afraid to say the wrong word, they just go for it. I don’t think I could ever not be doing that in some way.
Jeremy: That’s interesting. And then it sounds neat too, learning about their culture as well.
Andi: Yeah, the cultural exchange is really special. You get to learn about their holidays, we get to talk about food. And the kiddos that I teach are very young--kindergarten and preschool aged kids so yeah, but it’s really special. I get to learn about their families. They’re so little that their parents help them in their lessons and sit next to them. So I get to know their moms and their dads, so it’s really special relationships.
Jeremy: Has any of those relationships affected, not really affected, but influenced your art?
Andi: Uhm, you know--probably. The thing about artistic influences is that there are so many of them, I’m not sure if I could name them all if I wanted to. A lot of my pieces seem reminiscent of traveling or going on expeditions. Definitely, these kids all do a lot of that, and of course I would love to travel to China and see all of them too. So I'm sure that it has. I don’t have a specific piece that I can say is inspired by Susie and her mom and the conversation that we’ve had at this time. But I may have to look back and look through them and see if any of the conversations that I’ve had with those kids comes up as I’m looking through the work.
Jeremy: You never know
Andi: Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s very likely. I spend a lot of my time with them
Jeremy: I have a friend in Katy, she’s a musician and an artist. And I think a few weekends ago she was at some event, I don’t remember where or what it was now. But she was at the event. I was looking at the event’s post and saw some other stuff I liked. And they had some booth where someone was doing these mountains out of wood pieces.
Andi: Yeah!
Jeremy: Yeah, Nohemi Wood.
Andi: Yeah! I met her at that thing I was telling you about downtown.
Jeremy: Yeah, so I went to their Instagram and was looking at that and saw you had commented on a few. So I thought, let me go see what this lady is talking about because she’s talking about art stuff and I was looking at our stuff and thought, this is cool. It’s like branches or roots of the tree that goes deeper and deeper.
Andi: Yeah, the web. That lady, I feel bad that I can’t remember her name. She was SO NICE. I had to buy one of her pieces because they were just so cool. But I told you I love nature, and mountains.
Jeremy: Yeah it’s really neat, all the colors and the way that she puts it together and her husband doing the cuts for her together.
Andi: Yes! That they do it together is so cool. I was gonna ask, “How did you find me?”
…
Jeremy: Do you have any final thoughts or words of wisdom or anything like that, you’d like to share?
Andi: Final thoughts or words of wisdom? I guess I’ll go with words of wisdom...I could be wise
Jeremy: It could be and, final thoughts AND words of wisdom.
Andi: Yes, I guess for final thoughts this has been really fun chatting with you and talking about art and connecting with other people. That has been really fun, so that’s a good final thought I suppose.
And I guess words of wisdom, are just to not be afraid to access that inner child who will go out and unabashedly be themself whether you are an artist or musician or a teacher or a podcast producer, perhaps?
Final thoughts on the Artist’s Corner Podcast interview
So, I think that’s my main word of wisdom is just don’t be afraid. I spent a lot of time being afraid to put my work out into the world and I wish that I hadn’t done that. And instead of focusing on what I hadn’t done, I’m really excited to launch off into this new place of courage and I hope that other people will be too.
Jeremy: That’s exciting. And we’ll definitely stay in touch over instagram and I’ll let you know when the episode is released of course!
Andi: Thanks or, you could just not, and you make sure you’ve gained a faithful podcast listener...which you already have!
This episode of Artist Corner podcast has been brought to you by www.ArtSupplyGuide.com : Feed your creative side.
And that is that. Now I can check podcast guest off of my bucket list (but I’ll have to write it on there first.) It was a wonderful experience. Thanks for reading the transcript and I hope you enjoyed the pictures along the way! See you next time!
-Andi