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OREM — She may have seen art as impractical, but eventually, Annie K. Blake came around to the idea that it is what she was meant to do; and her art seems all the more personal for it.
Blake grew up moving around extensively, going to three high schools on three different continents. It wasn’t until she went to Brigham Young University that she lived in one place for more than four years. Now, she’s been in Utah for 14 years and in that time, she has come around to the idea that she is a maker.
“Growing up in so many different places left me with lots of chances to think about ideas of belonging and home and experiences that divide humans and experiences we have in common (even if they look different from the outside),” she said. “I want my work to help people think about how they are a part of a whole — an important part. I went to a lecture once by a neuroscientist. She said something about how humans have never had the sharpest teeth or the fiercest claws or the fastest legs, but what has protected us as we evolved was that we back each other up. Our connections and communities are what make us human and help us survive. That's what I paint about.”
“Even after college when I realized I hated editing and just wanted to keep making art, it felt impractical,” Blake said. “I tried selling handmade goods for awhile, and I taught preschool art classes for awhile — both seemed like more reasonable ways to pursue a creative career than fine art. But being reasonable isn't always a great way to be happy, and it sure wasn't for me. Until I was honest with myself about my desire to paint and put things on walls, nothing worked well.”
Blake started painting, making the 2-foot width between her bed and a wall in her tiny apartment her first studio space.
“I painted on the floor, and my back always hurt. I would work in 10-minute bursts of time between my kids needing stuff, which is not ideal, but it was a start,” Blake said. “I always say 26.2 miles is a marathon even if you run it really slowly and take lots of breaks. I got somewhere slowly but surely.”
“The limitation keeps things from becoming too precious,” Blake said. “Doing a series of pieces on one theme makes it so each painting doesn't have to be the perfect expression of the idea. That's too much pressure! I can use the repetition to ponder while I paint and figure out what I'm supposed to learn and how to convey something meaningful in the best way or in lots of different ways that will connect with different people. Also, playing with different proportions and colors within the same idea is just fun and appealing to me.”
Blake’s work feels very personal, and she said it’s part of her heart. She uses the paintbrush to ask viewers about their experience, peeling back an individual layer to reveal what’s below, in their own heart, in the same way she shows the geological layers of mountains or the hidden mass of an iceberg. Her work emits a vulnerability by exposing those layers or hidden parts — something she calls her “you too?” question.
- Website: anniekblake.com
- Instagram: @anniekblake
- Current exhibits: Spiritual and Religious Art at the Springville Museum of Art and HERE Provo gift gallery
“A couple years ago I was doing a pop-up shop and a girl who had followed my work on social media came and was asking me about what my paintings meant and where my ideas came from. She started to cry, and I felt so understood,” Blake said. “That connection with people, that ‘me too!’ moment, or the moments when people feel something with my art to the point where they are willing to part with their money to be able to hang it on their wall — those are my favorite times.”
