Marcy Parks
The pandemic has dramatically affected Marcy Parks’ artistic life. The emotions it engenders are illustrated in her artwork. It has given her more time for her artwork because her outside job is on hold. It inspired her new podcast and moved her project – Bristol in Bloom – online.
“Honestly, for all the terrible things this year has brought, the one good thing the pandemic has done is give me the opportunity to really dive into my artwork. I work full time managing Kil’n Time Contemporary Ceramics Studio. With my full-time job, and being a mom to a 3 year old, time to paint is limited to naptime or after bedtime. Our owner made the difficult choice to close our store until it is safe to reopen back in April, so this time has not only afforded me more time with my daughter, but also more time to paint.
“I am an abstract expressionist artist, so my work is very intuitive and oftentimes initiated with the intention of working through emotional experiences or memories.Because this year has also brought with it lots of fear and other challenging emotions, I have also had time to paint through those experiences and gain clarity and understanding around them, which is how my recent collection, ‘There are No Bad Emotions,’ was born. This collection was inspired by a therapy session in which I was sharing with my therapist the intensity of the fear that I was experiencing. In the session she told me, ‘There are no bad emotions,’ and later asked, ‘What would it look like if you painted your fear?’ I saw it immediately in that moment and went home and painted it. Twelve more paintings poured out of me over the course of the next several weeks as I painted and processed other ‘bad’ emotions. If not for the pandemic, I would not have had that experience or those paintings.
“I am largely inspired by my own experience as a human, the humanity of the people I am in relationships with,and life as it happens around me. I am inspired by moments of accountability and authenticity. I am inspired by moments of connection and vulnerability. I am inspired by the raw intensity of rage and the transformation it can bring when channeled in a healthy way. I am inspired by honesty. I am inspired by the wildness of the outdoors and how unapologetic mother nature can be. I am inspired by really good, clarity-bringing therapy sessions. I am inspired by the nuanced experience of motherhood. I am inspired by my daughterand watching her grow into her own gifts and identity as her own human. I am inspired by real people,” she says.
Her therapy and creativity meshed to help her create a podcast – Perfectionist in Recovery.
“I started the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast this year during the pandemic. On the podcast, I talk about all things related to creativity and creative practices, perfectionism and even share some of my own experiences. My intention for starting the podcast was to share simple ways to adopt a creative practice as a way to navigate and manage struggles with perfectionism, but also as a therapeutic practice. I think it is important to have space in your life where you are free to let all pretense, obligations and pressures go; a space where you don’t have to be ‘good’ or ‘perfect,’ a space where you can be messy and let yourself fall apart, a space where you can get out all of the thoughts and feelings you aren’t allowed to say in front of your boss, or your partner or your kids. Life is crazy and our society doesn’t exactly encourage us to be human because we need to be efficient, and we need to be productive. A creative practice is where you can be human, where you can be yourself and express your true self. It is where you can discover, and rediscover, yourself over and over,” she says.
Her other online activity during the pandemic is Bristol in Bloom Appalachian Regional Art Festival. It was supposed to take place Mother’s Day weekend in Cumberland Square Park, Bristol, Virginia, but couldn’t. So, she moved it online to their website.
Bristol in Bloom’s purpose is to “showcase Appalachian artists from Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee,but also nurture young, blooming Appalachian artists and encourage them to dig their roots into this region by starting the Blooming Artist Scholarship fund. Our region of Appalachia is filled with so many talented artists, but they are all hidden because there just aren’t many opportunities for them in this area. Most gifted artists that I grew up with have moved away to other areas. Bristol in Bloom was my way of igniting a mini cultural revolution to help bring attention and energy into the arts and artists in this region. Because of the pandemic, the festival was moved online for 2020, so I featured participating artists on our website by sharing their art, websites and interviews with participating artists so people could see the face and know the person behind the work.
“The 2021 festival will be taking place in person at Cumberland Square Park Saturday, May 8 of Mother’s Day Weekend so long as the world is still spinning and everything is not on fire by then,” Parks says.
She has a bachelor’s degree in English literature with a focus on creative writing. She described her art education as an independent study – mostly self-taught with a few teachers along the way. She lives in Bristol, Tennessee.
To see Parks’ artwork, learn more about her or listen to her podcast, visit www.marcyparksart.com.
