V. Michelle Griffiths

NOVEMBER 12, 2019 - FEBRUARY 10, 2020

Matthew Peters | January 2020

The story of the The Uglies starts small and ends large. The five pieces that comprise V. Michelle Griffiths’ debut art show at THE ARTS AREA @ CASA Pitzer were initially created as entries in an art journal. Later, those entries became part of a 100-day Instagram art challenge before they became bold, 48x48 works on canvas.

“It is through the process of making all of those pages that I was then compelled to make the larger pieces,” Griffiths said. “Or rather, I felt ready to make the larger pieces.”

The exhibition began Nov. 12, 2019 and runs through Feb. 10, 2020.

From red to orange to yellow to green to blue, The Uglies advances piece by piece through a rainbow cascade. Layers upon layers submerge pages of text and maps among other elements. Meanwhile, ink splatters and various incarnations of repeating circles reside on the top layer of the canvas.

The subject matter, however, is anything but small. As Griffiths, a Rancho Cucamonga resident and professional makeup artist, explains it The Uglies is a “subconscious exploration and dumping ground for processing frustrations, joys, and challenges of becoming a mom and raising two small children after the age of 40.” The pieces are set to a journey through grief, starting with denial and ending in acceptance.

“Some of the work is raw and ugly but it’s all just for me anyway,” Griffiths said. Griffiths had taken up the practice of art journaling about five years ago as a way to work quickly, not overthink her output and use her art as therapy.

She first thought about transferring some of the journal entries into high-quality prints that she could sell during an Ontario Arts Walk. However, she missed the deadline to be a pop-up vendor. The Arts Area founder John Machado pushed her to submit a proposal for an exhibition with The Arts Area. The timing turned out to be fortuitous.

“I was pretty much floored at the opportunity being presented,” Griffiths said. “This opportunity to be considered was the push I needed to finally just do it, to find the time and space, gather the materials, and get to work.”

She set to birthing The Uglies between July and November 2019. There were themes and a body of work built up over years of journaling. As she moved from pages to canvas, she also started doing a 100-day art challenge on Instagram and shared glimpses of her journals. “Having never done a 100-day project, I decided to start one on Instagram as a way to sort of lead up to exhibiting these larger pieces,” Griffiths said. “I wanted to post one picture a day of my art journal pages that had already been completed. My most personal pages will never be shown on Instagram, and there is plenty that didn't make it into the 100 images.”

Griffiths recently spoke to The Arts Area via email about The Uglies, theatrical makeup, her journey as an artist, motherhood, and working intuitively.

What is your background in art?

How long have you been involved with art? I remember being a creative child and enjoying it. Later on when I was 10, my dad bought me a used clarinet from a yard sale and from then on I pursued music as my extracurricular activity through high school and beyond. In college in the early 90s I took introductory courses in painting, drawing, and photography and really enjoyed those, but art was not my major. From there I continued to create in various ways: pencil and charcoal drawings, paintings, making Christmas cards and tree ornaments, and I spent a few years making handmade paper. I took up chalking for the I Madonnari Street Painting Festival in 2000 and do that every year. I've always needed art and craft supplies around me, and over the past three decades I've had productive spells and I've had dry spells. Any instruction I've received since the 90s has come in very small informal bits or short classes, except for my beauty and special effects makeup training in Hollywood at the Joe Blasco school 10 years ago.

Does your work in makeup influence your painting?

Absolutely. Makeup -is- painting and the face is the canvas. For me, theatrical makeup has been about playing with light and shadow and using color theory to solve problems as well as helping make a character come to life. There are moments when an idea or concept creates a spark for me, and I bring it over to my painting or collage or drawing. The reverse is true too!

What is the significance of the title of the series: The Uglies?

The Uglies is a label I assigned to all of the personal thoughts and feelings that I was writing about a lot from roughly 2014 onward. It's all stuff that I really had no one to talk to about in a way that really helped me process. Yes, I was seeing a therapist, but really it's stuff I had to sort out through my art. It's about negative emotions and ideas that erupted and were triggered by my day-to-day experiences at the time. Sometimes I was writing about painful experiences from the past and sometimes I was writing about current events. A lot of it centered around what was — and continues to be — triggered by motherhood itself and the sacrifices that entails.

You provided specific instructions on the order for the paintings. How does the series evolve from start to finish? What is the story you are trying to convey across the five pieces?

I think the easiest way to explain how the order of the paintings ended up is to liken it to the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. My spin on this for my series is Fear, Shame, Escape, Vulnerability, Anxiety/Depression. When I developed the idea of the series I wanted to use color to help tell the story. Each piece is intended to convey an emotional state, and I matched colors to those emotional states in a way that made sense to me. I also wanted the series to follow the basic order of the rainbow, so red-orange-yellow-green-blue. As I created each piece, I held the intention about what I wanted to convey, and I let the piece become what it wanted to become. I did everything I could to avoid forcing any further framework, and just worked intuitively until I couldn't do anymore. Then I let some time pass, and then revisited to see if more needed to be done. If the piece felt done, I just left it alone and signed it.

What’s the significance of the toe-shaped objects within the pieces? What are the significance of maps within some of the paintings?

It's interesting to me to hear your interpretation of those shapes. For me, they are not toes — or at least I never thought of them that way. That scalloped shape is one I borrowed from the art journaling videos I started watching online, and gradually evolved it into my own mark. It feels good to make that shape, so I keep doing it. I also really love circles. So, the significance to me is that it represents a couple of different things, but I'm not going to say more than that. As for the maps, I happen to have a huge collection of old ones, and I've enjoyed tearing them up and using them in my collages. When I was collecting collage fodder for the large paintings, I just grabbed quickly from my overflowing stash. I thought it was fitting though, that some of the locations helped tell the story. For me, that's what I like about working intuitively. It just ends up working out.

How did the series evolve from an art journal into the fully formed 48x48 works?

Art journaling has helped me explore new techniques and learn about other artists. Around 2014 I started heavily down the art journaling path and have been inspired greatly by artists who work both big and small, like Rae Missigman, Roben Marie Smith, Flora Bowley, Tracy Verdugo, and Traci Bautista. Later on I discovered Gina Johnson of The Rebookery with her no-rules attitude and messy, imperfect way, all of which speak deeply to me. I started creating my own journals out of junk mail and scraps and have also used existing book-like mailers to create in. I enjoy this repurposing, which has trained my eye to see alternative uses to just about everything that could be thrown away.

Are there any particular techniques that unite the five pieces?

All of the pieces have collage, and as I explained before, I created intuitively. I did my best not to think too much and not to judge. I noticed that I took a liking to making my paint and ink drip, which seemed to be influenced by the sheer size of the canvas.

You mention becoming a mother later in life as part of the inspiration for this series. How much has your life changed from before you had children to now? What impact has that had on your creative work?

Becoming a mother has added an important layer to my identity as a woman. I now often think of the idea that when you become a mother, you become a mother to the world too. Nothing is the same anymore, and my life will never again be what it was before children. In some important ways, I'm so very thankful that this is the case. But back then, before children, while having all of that "freedom,” I couldn't possibly have known any different. You just don't know what you don't know until it happens to you, no matter how much you think you can empathize and understand.

I wouldn’t change my life and having kids is helping me gradually conquer the fears I had all along about having them! Having kids later has meant that we are doing it on our own, without the help of parents or even other extended family members to step in on a regular basis to provide childcare or relief. It's difficult and expensive to always have to hire a babysitter if a neighbor or friend can't step in. Luckily there are a couple of friends who have really saved us a few times and I'm so very thankful for having them in our lives. But in over five years since our first was born, we have not once gotten away to be alone together as adults. If my husband and I had met earlier in life, prior to my parents' passing, and prior to my mother in law becoming too ill to care for children on her own, I'm sure our situation would be different. What has changed the most for me is the concept of time and the idea of perfection. Once you have a newborn, you live on the baby time scale, with very little sleep, and it doesn't matter if it's day or night. Gradually it's toddler time scale where maybe you have two minutes to do a half-assed job of taking a shower or getting dressed or cleaning a mess or even completing a work related task. Gone are the days where I could spend as much time as I needed for anything — had no choice but to accept that my life was slowing WAY down, I'd be getting very little done, and anything I did do would just have to be good enough. All of that was a hard pill to swallow. Over time I wanted my non-mom work to still matter enough to deserve the time it would take to do it. I started to feel angry and trapped — I'm sure in part because of not having much help. And I felt guilty, because taking care of young children is the most important job of the moment, right? And why should I be concerned about any other desires I might have? At times the (mostly) stay-at-home mom gig felt oppressive. I was losing myself a lot and there was never time for me to take care of me. And then you just get used to that new normal, I suppose because you have to. But through it all, in my frustration and anger, I had to insist upon fitting in time to create — which was in very small increments, most of the time.

Which brings me to another thing — all of the interruptions. Forget about being able to focus on anything and seeing a task through from start to finish. It's all about interruptions and your brain getting ready to explode from trying to keep track of everything. Rae Missigman did a series of inspiring "15 Minutes of Mixed Media" videos, where she would simply use a timer and create for 15 minutes. These taught me to be quick and helped me feel like I could accomplish something. To even be able to do that much was so meaningful and I had to oftentimes force myself to tell my husband I needed to take a little break. Fortunately, my husband is fully supportive of me and my needs, and of his children, and I'm so thankful to have such a giving partner in all of this. We do it together and make it work.

What do your kids think of the pieces?

I'm not completely sure. Both kids wanted to get into the painting process so I allowed for that as much as I could. And at 4 and 2 years old you can imagine that getting all painty is lots of fun for them. My oldest likes the blue-based one titled "let go", I think maybe because I eventually added glitter to it?? Once I did that, she got really excited. Since they are very young I don't expect them to understand what's happened: that I've created pieces to be displayed in public.

How quickly did these pieces come together?

I completed all five from July to November 2019. Four of them developed quickly over the span of about six weeks, I think because I had so much energy that had built up so it was a sort of explosion of work. Once the initial push was done, I slowed down and added to them as time permitted.

You mention using art as therapy. How have you evolved as both a person and an artist since the completion of these paintings?

Since completing these paintings I feel a push to move forward and do more. The process of creating helped me sort out those issues I was contemplating on yet another level-different from journaling or art journaling. I want to continue to work big and see where that leads. There are definitely some profound past experiences I want to express through my art and I'm feeling ready to tackle those subjects next.

How do themes of social justice fit into your work?

Currently the theme of breastfeeding and supporting mothers would fit into my work. We need to normalize breastfeeding, de-sexualize the act of breastfeeding, and stop perpetuating the spread of outdated and harmful advice and practices. Women, and mothers, need to realize they are ENOUGH, and with proper support, they can meet their breastfeeding goals. There should not be a fight between new mothers and pediatricians, or new mothers and their own families regarding what best supports the baby. Both of my babies needed laser revision of their lip and tongue ties in order for them to successfully breastfeed and for me to not be in pain. How many women out there are tolerating immense pain when they shouldn't be? Any number of challenges can happen that can make a new mother want to give up, and if that mother is not surrounded by a supportive and helpful network of people, she will.

What does your signature/website name (cellibacello) mean?

Cellibacello is a made up name that I think I created back in 1994 to use for my art. It doesn't really mean anything, but it's important to me that it's uniquely mine

What do you have planned next for your artwork?

I'll be starting more paintings as time permits. Since I don't have a dedicated studio space I sort of have to take over part of our garage and it's not the most ideal set-up. And of course I continue to do journaling as much as I can, preferably daily!

You can contact V. Michelle Griffiths at cellibacello@gmail.com.