Interview with Aynslee

I have a set of questions that I came up with that are a little bit Krista Tippett, a little bit Danielle Krysa, and a lot bit my own curiosity. I think talking about our creative stories is a way to bind us together and encourage us to keep going on our own creative path. I’m excited to be asking these questions and to be sharing these creatives’ answers with you. This month’s interview is Aynslee.

Tell my readers a little bit about you.

My name is Aynslee Moon Smithee.  I live in Huntsville, Alabama.  Monday-Friday I am a PK-8^th grade Art Teacher at Holy Spirit Catholic School.  On Sundays I am an Associate Pastor serving at Valley United Methodist Church.  I have an amazing Jacob, two sweet and growing kids who keep me on my toes, and two labradoodles, Chloe and Poppy.  Chloe is an excellent cuddler and Poppy likes to have staring contests (she almost always wins).  I am addicted to goat cheese and I love a bit of magic and adventure, so if you’re traveling to Narnia, Hogwarts, or Middle Earth I’m in. 

What is your first memory of creativity?

I have two early, distinctive memories of creativity. The first was collecting “pretty rocks” in my grandmother’s driveway.  I would spend hours crouching down and searching for the most beautiful pebbles, the ones that were slightly transparent or that caught the light just right.  As an adult these just look like jars of gravel, but as a child I was collecting treasure. 

The second was drawing horses.  I was enamored with horses and wanted one.  We couldn’t have one, so my aunt gave me a stack of horse books and I collected Breyer horses.  I began studying these pictures and making drawings.  The more I drew horses the better I got at proportion.  Then my uncle, who paints, showed me how to add value to my drawings and this changed my world.  After that I was obsessed with drawing shadows and light.

Misty: Ok, I love that rock collecting as a child is becoming a bit of a theme for this question. I collected rocks and so did several other artists in this series. What is it about those rocks?

What did you love to make as a kid and are you still making some variation of that now?

Although I don’t draw many horses as subject matter now, the things I loved about horses, such as their movement, their powerful but graceful form, the shadows and light that play across that form, are all present in the human figure, which is a consistent subject in my work now.  

What is your favorite creative supply and why can’t you live without it?

For painting it’s my Rosemary & Co. brushes.  They hold their shape, and they have the best spring, which is great for both precision and more expressive brushstrokes.  For drawing it’s Zebra brand ballpoint pens.  I love to do a lot of cross-hatching in my sketchbook drawings, and these pens are perfect for it.  They create energetic lines with a lot of layering capability, and when the ink runs dry, I can just order refills instead of tossing the pen.

What is a creative question you ask regularly?

“What is hidden that wants to be seen?”

Misty: Usually I approach things as an additive process and not a subtraction process so I’m really interested to see what this opposite question would yield for my practice.

What does your creative practice show you over and over?

It shows me how much love and hope exists in the world. I see creativity as an act of hope. It is easy to get lost in worry about my own troubles and the troubles of the world. But when I create, a light comes on, a warmth that leads me out of the worry.  When I create, I am hoping to put something in the world that wasn’t there before or to see/understand something that I didn’t see or understand before. I am hoping both to help myself and to help those around me. My creative practice has led me to the most meaningful relationships.  In my experience, creativity brings out the care in people, the care for making meaning, the care for community.  It has shown me how much people do appreciate art and how it can make shared spaces and the human spirit come alive in ways that it otherwise wouldn’t.

Misty: This description makes me cry. It’s probably the best articulation of what I feel about why I keep doing what I do.

What gets you to start a new project?

I feel that I am perpetually gathering what I notice, and then it rolls out in groupings according to what my life is centered around in the moment.  When I was pregnant it was my changing body and point of view, and how I was becoming this weird sort of vessel for another human life. 

Then, for a while, I was doing a lot of drawings of my children sleeping because that seemed to be the only consistent time I could find stillness, and because there is something so sacred about dreaming children. 

Lately I’ve loved taking photos of my daughter pretending.  One day she put on this unicorn blanket she has.  It has a unicorn head and holes to put her arms through.  She put it on and walked towards me very slowly, giggling and waving her hands.  I took a couple of pictures and in them she looked like some bizarre unicorn sorceress.  Another day she smeared blue sidewalk chalk across her cheeks and appeared to be praying, and in the photo, she looked like some ancient, tribal mystic. 

In the painting I’m working on right now, she is in a ballet costume, a long fluffy, sparkly blue tutu, but barefoot, holding her arms out and looking down, as if she is about to step off the edge of the world.  She looks so ethereal.  I am loving these types of images right now.

Collaboration also helps me start new projects; it gives me accountability and relatability.  I am working with another artist/dear friend right now on a body of work and it has been so refreshing to my studio practice.

What is a book on creativity that you come back to often? Why?

The one that I have returned to the most is Art and Fear: Observations on The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.  I bought my first copy in grad school.  It is honest, hopeful, and helpful for artists at any stage.  I recommend it to students and gift it to artist friends. 

I also love this one because my husband, who didn’t know I owned or had read the book, randomly saw it in a bookstore on a work trip, bought a copy, read it himself on the way home, wrote encouraging notes in the margins, and gave it to me when I was in the middle of a particularly tough bout of self-doubt.  He is an engineer, and the fact that he didn’t just buy the book, but read it and added to it, all to lift my spirits and encourage me to be more confident in my work, is an act of love I’ll never forget.

How did we meet?

This fantastic group of artists called the Alabama Women’s Caucus for Art (ALWCA).  And I am enamored with your books and the creative energy that carries through every page!

You teach art to elementary students and you’ve previously taught at the college level. How are those different? How are they the same?

The biggest difference is the independence.  With the college students I focused on teaching technique and critical and creative thinking skills.  For the most part, I didn’t have to worry about classroom management. 

With elementary students, they are still learning how to express their emotions and how to behave as a classroom community, so you must focus not just on technique and creative thinking, but also on managing behavior and communication.  With the college students I never had to say, “Get that oil pastel out of your nostril!” 

The similarities are that everyone wants to feel that they can approach and understand art materials.  I think what gets in the way for most people is their fear and the idea that to be an artist you must be a particular type of person.  I think it’s important as an art teacher to debunk the myth that you are either creative or you are not.  Everyone can create something.  So much of art is about staying curious, getting comfortable with the materials, simplifying the process, and trusting that the process will lead somewhere or to something.  I find that all students, young, old, or anywhere in between, just want to believe they can, and they need someone that will walk with them through the fear.

How can people find you?

My insta is amoon_artist.  My website is www.aynsleemoonartist.com and my business page on Facebook is Aynslee Moon Artist.

Aynslee, thank you for sharing your creative stories with us! I had so much fun reading your answers to my questions. And I know my readers will enjoy it too. (These photos belong to Aynslee. She graciously allowed me use them for this interview.)

What about you? Are you formulating your answers to these questions? I’d love to know your answers! If you want to know more about this series read the post What about these Interviews? Catch up with me on socials, email me, or go oldschool and leave a comment on this post to be immortalized for all of time.

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