Charlotte Art

Brooke Colby, a woman full of passion and interest gave us her time for Charlotte Art’s first interview. Brooke finds herself at a crossroad of medium talents that let her build beautiful watercolor paintings blending transfers and drawings often in a female figurative abstraction.

An Interview with Brooke Colby

An Artists First Steps

To take it back to a start Brooke has a great story she tells about how her grandmother saw her sculpting her mashed potatoes and gave her a forked destiny of either a scientist or an artist. She recounts that she’s been into the artistic way of thinking as far back as she can remember. It all came to a head in High School where a student teacher inspired her by showing her different perspectives that art could achieve.

Educated and Educating

Ms. Colby is serious about her work. Graduating from Western Michigan University with a Bachelors in Art Education which allowed her to take so many classes she nearly double majored in Fine Arts and Education. Building upon that she teaches art during the day to young children of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system helping them come into their own.

She also did a stint at Studio Arts Center International in Florence in 2001 where she studied High Renaissance Art and through on site classes fell in love with the art of etching and transfers.

Guiding Inspiration

Brooke finds her emotions a guiding inspiriation whether highly energetic to the doldrums of a gray day. Many times she begins with automatic writing. It gives her a canvas to think on, then taking from that she springboards into areas that she finds interesting.

While Brooke may have a penchant for the abstract figurative she will work on landscapes when the view is particularly striking. She finds an indulgence in earthy colors and contrasting cool blues.

Unique Wedding Gifts

She also takes on work for wedding creations. Taking her talent of watercolors and drawings she utilizes the engaged or newlywed couples intertwined to create a unique and memorable painting.

Where’s the Art, Charlotte?

When talking about Charlotte and the Arts Brooke is obviously discomforted by the current state of affairs. She feels that the inroads have high barriers of entry and the same artists that come from corporate endorsement seem to be blotting out much of the areas availability. In future pieces we’ll be exploring this view point with local galleries and studios to see if we can’t shed light further on the process. Brooke would like to see more local art showings where the mood is professional with a mellow vibe incorporating Charlotte area artists.

Art Approachability

One of the reoccurring themes I picked up on with Brooke was her giving nature. She teaches, she wants to share the light, and she wants to push more art into homes. She understands that many artists push their work out of the range of affordability and so many homes may not be adorned with works. This is some times a supply and demand issue, or what the market can bear, but at the same time I bet if we check back in with Brooke over the next decade she’ll still have collections that are approachable.

Foster the Future

A message that kept coming up was our need to foster the local art scene. The more it develops the richer and more vibrant the local culture will become. If the local galleries and chambers could help show light on the cycle of artistry in the city it’s a good step to paying it forward and growing a more culturally diverse future.

Brooke Can Be Found At

Currently Brooke Colby’s works can be found at the Canvas Monkey and her portfolio can be viewed at her Myspace Page.

Keep up to date with Brooke’s artistic happenings by tracking her here!
http://charlotteart.info/charlotte-area-artist/brooke-colby/

To get in touch with Brooke feel free to leave us a message.

Brooke’s video interview is available through these outlets:
YouTube, Yahoo, Metacafe, Google, Revver, DailyMotion, Blip.tv and Viddler