Tell All Tuesday ~ Featured Artist: Lydia Harris

Hi guys, welcome to our 15th Tell All Tuesday interview - I honestly cannot believe how 15 weeks has flown by. Once again thank you to all those artists who have allowed their creative brains to be picked so honestly, as well as this weeks artist, a lady I first 'met' over on youtube. Her name is Lydia Harris and I hope you enjoy her work & interview =)

Tell us a little bit about yourself & what kind of artist you are.
Hi, My name is Lydia Harris. I am a painter who dabbles in mixed media as well as other things. I'm from Texas and have lived here all my life (much to my chagrin. I love Texas, don't get me wrong but I'd flit across the world on a bi-monthly basis if I could!) I'm also Hispanic and I mention that only because I have a deeply rooted love of my culture that I try to show in my work.
I'm married to a professional artist from England and we have two children together. I'm also a writer, although I'm going through a bit of a writer's block at the moment. I'm not too worried about that because I tend to be either focused on my writing or my art; it's just time to be focused on my art right now I guess. 

What is the biggest challenge you personally face as an artist and how do you overcome it?

Right now the biggest challenge that I face is finding the time to work on my art. My daughters are six and four, and keeping up with them and the house, and still finding time to paint can sometimes be hard. There are days when I just say 'okay, if the kids are sorted and everyone is fed-forget the house'. There are also days when I stay up way too late in order to paint, but I can't do either of those too often we'd end up with no laundry or I'd end up being a zombie :) We do have times when we paint together but my children prefer drawing to painting right now so those moments don't last as long as I'd like them to. 

What do you love most / least enjoyable about your art?
I love working through my feelings with my art. Art is therapy to me and that is extremely helpful.
However, sometimes I can look back and see things that I created when I was going through a really rough time. I recently found an art journal that I kept during my first marriage and (consequently) during a horrible bout of depression-it's a little hard to look at some of those images now. 

What do you most wish your art to achieve?
I'm a huge fan of Frida Kahlo's work. I always felt like I could relate to her through her art. Relating to someone else who you don't even know, someone who has touched you personally and had an impact on you is a huge thing. It connects us as humans, it makes us feel less alone I think. If I could make someone feel like they could relate to me through my art... then I'll have accomplished my biggest goal. 

Tell us where can we find out more about you & your art?
I have a blog where I show my artwork and also ramble a little bit. You can find me at: http://lydiapuenteharris.wordpress.com/
I have also started making YouTube videos and you can find those here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSquidmom

Thank you so much Lydia, I adore your 'Love Note to Frida' page, just beautiful and I think everyone of us can relate to the time issue; whether we have children or not. I think art, like any 'hobby' takes a backseat but as you say it is our therapy, and we need to make sure that we are okay within ourselves before we can take care of not only others, but our daily business too. I call art journaling my cheap therapy, because it really is and it takes place over all those other things I used as a substitute before it - television (after all, you can still sit sketching in your journal while Big Brothers on) and trashy novels etc. One of my very first blog posts was about 'Creating Creative Time', because I think it is important to make sure we create it for ourselves, after all ~ we deserve it lol =)

Would you like to be featured in an upcoming TAT interview? Click the TAT lady on the right for more info =)