Today we’d like to introduce you to Callie Wright Scott.
Hi Callie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I tell people that I started drawing and making art the same time they did – as soon as tiny hands could hold a crayon! I just haven’t stopped.
I was somewhat of a gifted artist early on in grade school, and took as many extracurricular fine art clubs and classes as I could manage. Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, opportunities like that were abundant! By 8th grade I had won some recognition and by high school was enrolled in an art “magnet” program – like an art major, but for high school.
Well, I haven’t exactly stopped – never for good. However, that academic art model did a lot to reinforce some perfectionism and struggles with seeing my personal value in my work, and I burned out at times. It was hard to sit down and draw just as a hobby anymore, like I once had before there was ever a grade attached to it. I went to college declaring a social work major, and not even sure I would go through with an optional art minor. I wondered if I was done.
I just couldn’t leave it alone, though. I snuck into a couple art classes and remembered the parts I loved. For the next few years – including over COVID lockdown! – I made work and wrote papers about the value of art in human society, and especially the therapeutic nature of it, which combined well with my social work studies and career.
Eventually I took my own research seriously, and graduated with dual degrees in social work and visual art, as well as a summer residency at the New York Academy of Art which changed my life.
A lot of people asked me if I was going to be an art therapist with those two degrees. But I was once again fighting burnout, and that would need even more school! So I decided I might need to art-therapize myself before moving forward. And started my painting business.
During all of that, I connected with a few nonprofits that supported my art – Kentucky Refugee Ministries and Faces of Mankind. Both allowed me to combine portraiture, human dignity, and social causes – my whole heart loved these projects. My work started to recieve local recognition, which allowed me to connect and win several public art/mural commissions in Jackson, Tennessee. Public art meant I could make work even bigger, and even more community-accessible.
By day during that time, I’ve also been blessed to work in mental health clinics with children and adults, and while I’m not an art therapist, I do get to bust out the paint and help them relearn how to play and create. Those clients may never know how therapeutic that work has been for *me* too.
Last year I moved with my new husband to north Mississippi, though a large part of my audience and clients are still in west Tennessee. I continue working on commissions and working out my own relationship with art – having to occasionally stop and ask myself if I’m relying too much on external pressures or shame to finish a painting, or if I remember what I love about it. I continue to try to bring beauty to people and relearn the joy of creating along the way.
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?
Oops, I answered some of this in the first section!
But yes, I can’t be honest and say it has been smooth sailing. I have struggled lifelong with severe perfectionism, and unfortunately sometimes an academic art environment reinforces that, rather than helps. I was always turning in excellent work, and just assumed that teachers expected all of us to give every assignment multiple sleepless nights full of literal sweat and tears (hopefully not too much blood, but….sometimes.) I didn’t even know perfectionism was a bad thing until college! This meant that I mostly learned to make art motivated by perfection, kudos, and fear of failure. It looked like I was doing great, but to be honest, it wasn’t enjoyable or healing for me anymore. Shame can only sustain your motivation so long. But even that caused me shame – so many people had supported me in art, so how dare I not want to do it anymore? And at first, starting an art business meant even more pressures to make a living off of paintings.
I work in mental health and have written probably 100 pages of research about the therapeutic nature of art, and more, the deeply human need to create. But even 5 years out of school, I have to teach myself my own lessons every time I stand in front of an easel.
I’ve found ways to rediscover my love for it. Honestly, public art has been the best medicine! I love painting big because mistakes are just one little dot in a big mural, and the work is so embodied and physical. Also, it’s no fun painting a mural alone, so I get to introduce more people to the joy of painting alongside me. And adding color to a random street makes people so happy. It helps me feel like a kid again – but this time people actually pay me to run around with paint and draw on the walls.
But hey – if anyone reads this thinking you can’t make art because “you can’t do it perfectly” – just now a lot of artists are staring at a blank canvas thinking the same thing. Be kind to yourself, and also be brave!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I specialize in portraiture and paintings that shine a light on overlooked people and places.
This started, and continues, with portraits. In 2019 I started my professional art career painting a series of portraits of immigrant families for Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Later in 2021/2022 I did the “Faces of Jackson” project: a series of larger-than-life portraits of local homeless neighbors I met. I love the mix of classical portraiture, which was usually for nobility, and some cheeky subversion to bring that to “the least of these” populations. After all, we are all humans, one just as beautiful as the other. I continue to take portraiture commissions and strive to make dignifying art accessible to more people.
I also consider public art in a similar vein. I designed the “Rockabilly Walk” crosswalk murals in Jackson, which brought playful color to an overlooked intersection. Anyone who walks by there, or my other murals, gets to be surprised with some unexpected joy. I’ve even designed a mural that is on display in a Walmart! Again, highlighting beauty in unexpected places.
As far as style, I don’t aim for photorealism much anymore, though I do strike somewhere between realism and impressionism, with a lot of messy play with colors. My drawing background comes in too, as often I finish my paintings with a bit of subtle linework.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Oh yeah, I often need podcasts playing in the studio to focus on my paintings!
I’ve been super into “99% Invisible” by Roman Mars for years, I’m just obsessed with the way they delight in the human world. It connects to my art philosophy so much!
As far as books – “Becoming an Artist” by Scott Christian Sava has been a recent heal-my-inner-artist-child book for me. I like “The Anthropocene Reviewed” by John Green for inspiration. For headier art stuff, I love a good artist memoir. “Why We Make Stuff and Why It Matters” by Peter Korn and “Shop Class as Soulcraft” by Matthew Crawford were two books that got me back into art in college.
Also, I just love deep dives into nerdy art history facts. Like, read the Wikipedias on Rembrandt or Monet sometime. They struggled too; finanically, socially. Da Vinci was a forever-procrastinating piece of work, apparently, who was annoyed by this new upstart redheaded kid on the scene, Michelangelo. Sargent, one of my favorites, got tired of painting commissioned portraits, quit, and travelled around the world painting watercolor plein air scenes (I feel that urge sometimes.) Finding out the “greats” were such real, flawed humans too gives me hope somehow – that anyone can fit in to the label of “artist.”
Pricing:
- Pricing for commissioned work goes by size, and can be found on my website: https://www.calliewrightscott.com/pricing
- 12x16inch oil portrait: $100-300
- 8×10 watercolor portrait: $65-100
- Murals – depends on location, starting at $10/sq. foot
Contact Info:
- Website: https://calliewrightscott.com
- Instagram: @calliewscottart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1D5bk6gRvq/
