Meet Lauren O’Neill | Muralist, Surface Designer, Librarian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lauren O’Neill and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lauren, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
The world of art is hard to navigate from a business perspective and it’s a constant challenge for me because my brain is wired to create and not to manage. I follow a very distinct cycle when it comes to giving up and keep going. I can happily sit my studio for weeks just making art, painting things, assembling books, rummaging for vintage imagery, listening to my music – just doing me, but it doesn’t pay for anything. So I force myself to come out of my hole and look calls for art submissions or post my art to a variety of Print On Demand services. After awhile I’ll get overwhelmed with the business of art world that isn’t my wheelhouse and become discouraged. I begin to feel like I’m not doing enough, that I’m not working hard enough or that what I’m working on isn’t valid or appreciated. It’s like my happy studio bubble pops and I worry that I’ve spent too much time creating in a vacuum. Then I’ll just stop making things and go searching for “real jobs” that I know won’t make me happy and I know that I’m giving up. There will follow some unknown length of mope-around-the-house-time and a brief thought of getting rid of all my art stuff. But then the sun will come out (sometimes quite literally, especially during the winter months) and light up my studio in away where I’m ready to show up again. I’ll put on some Aesop Rock or Wu Tang, dig out all my art materials in colors that I’m feeling, and I make a mess – I get lost again in my process. I work intuitively so I just let myself get to work on making myself feel happy again in my creative process. I will never give up or sell my things, that I know I’m just being dramatic when I say or feel that way because creating is just who I am.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I was a pretty creative kid and I always wanted to learn more about how to make things, but money was tight and I learned most of what I know from library books and just playing around. I had an awesome art teacher in middle school and being in his class was the first time I ever felt apart from the other kids in something. It was the first time I felt and was recognized for having a talent. In high school, I signed up for the all the art classes and sold my first piece at the school district’s seniors art show. But I was discouraged from going to college for art in favor of a career where I could be an independent woman, such as nursing or teaching. I tried to for my first year at LSU to avoid all the arts, but then I ended up in the Theatre Department and getting my degree in Scenic Design and Technology. I enjoyed creating worlds on stage, painting and building scenery, and the teamwork of putting on a show. I travelled a lot after graduation working for a circus and with a theatre companies across the country, but I was called home to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina hit. I got a variety of jobs from designing kitchens to working at a vet hospital. I put all my creativity on hold. It was years later that I took on a librarian job at an elementary/middle school and started to fire up some of my art skills. I’d heard or read someone once say that taking time to create isn’t what you do when you’ve finished everything else on your to-do list. That taking this time shouldn’t be a reward, but it should be at the top of the list. This changed my whole perspective! It meant I could create, I just had to make it what I did and a priority. So I continued to self teach myself everything I didn’t know and wanted to: anatomy, surface design, illustration, etc. There’s so many great online class platforms out there! I’ve moved around a lot but I’ve always made it important to have a space that I can go to that is open and inviting. When I teach privately lessons, I always tells students to put their art supplies in a place that is out in the open because it encourages you to use them. Keeping them tucked away in a box in a closet keeps you from using them.

I’m finally beginning to feel like I’m making my art and doing what I want to artistically. Is it making me any money or a full time job? Absolutely not. But I work as a tween/teen librarian for the public library and a huge part of my job is to create creative programming for kids and I love it. I also work for the theatre here and continue to look for more theatre arts projects. The majority of my time though is spent dreaming up more murals to paint, creating surface design patterns for textiles and home decor, and making a general mess of my art studio.

I don’t necessarily think of myself as having “a brand” because that seems very business-y to me and that’s not my wheelhouse. But when I look at my social media, there’s a definite thread that runs through all my projects and it’s colorful. Most of my work features strong patterns and vintage imagery. I love to rehome things I find, always going back to my theatre roots of creating a world for people to inhabit. I also recently figured out that my minor of Improvisational Acting is a huge part of what I create. In improv, that no.1 rule is to say, “yes and” because it keeps the scene moving, accepting what is happening and pushing it along. I work intuitively in my art process so I’m always asking myself in my work “yes and” to keep a piece moving and experimenting. I love painting murals because I’m painting big and pushing myself to think larger. So my brand or story, is just really me playing around with what is in front of me, seeing what I can make with what I have.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I have to give a shoutout to my husband because his hard work allows me to be who I am. He is the one who sees me during my creative business cycle of give up/keep going. Without his encouragement to get out of my cycle, I’d spend a lot more time just moping around waiting to be struck my inspiration.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenoneillart/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-o-neill-59653146/