In this series, WeWork’s director of digital community selects a WeWork member to get to know better, sharing her fun findings with the rest of the community.
Artist Valerie Collymore, based in WeWork South Lake Union, creates fine art in the style of French Impressionism. Fueled by growing up in the South of France and years of practicing medicine, Collymore’s passion for art is a growing force in Seattle. Read on to learn about studying with modern masters of classic techniques, painting at Facebook for the local tech community, and more.
Welcome to WeWork, Valerie! Tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Thank you so much! I’m a physician who has basically been out of medicine for about two decades, mainly just to give my kids and family the opportunity to do some very interesting things with their lives. When I became an empty nester, I made the decision to follow my heart—a friend of mine who felt that she knew what was best for me convinced me to go to an art class with her. At the time, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but because I cared about this particular friend, I went. And something happened in that class: I felt such a strong yearning to make art and create. I tried to ignore it for a full year, but it kept cropping up. This was a calling, a passion that I needed time to accept.
I’m also a cancer survivor, which may have something to do with my willingness to turn my life upside-down. An experience with cancer makes you realize that life is short—why not go for the things we are passionate about when the opportunity presents itself? I looked up many of the traditional models of art education, using research skills I learned in medical school. I thought “I’m starting late, so I had better commit to this new pursuit 500 percent.”
I jumped on a plane to study with six of the top Impressionist master artists in the United States, with the goal of completing this independent study with the master within two years. I also did a lot of study and research on art techniques and on the business of art on my own. Within a year and a half, I decided to hang up my professional artist shingle. I’m often asked “Weren’t you frightened?” Well, in medicine, after four years of book learning, the medical programs release us “newbies” on an unsuspecting public. With an art career, I was dealing with just paint and canvas, so I didn’t find it intimidating when compared to the practice of medicine. I feel that it was a definite strength to have defined my goals and subject matter fairly early on in my art career.
The choice of my subject matter is firmly rooted in my personal and authentic experiences during childhood and teen years growing up in Southern France. I’d walk by the Matisse Museum most days on my way to a French magnet elementary school. My family often went for picnics at Maison Renoir. On some level, I have always wanted to honor the influence of the French Impressionists.
Pretty early on, I began teaching art. I use my training in psychology a great deal. There’s a tremendous amount of science in art, and I’ve gained a bit of a reputation for bringing that into my teaching.
As a full-time fine artist and fine art instructor who oil paints in the French Impressionist style, what are some of your favorite subjects to portray?
Southern France, where I grew up. I’m doing what they say you can’t do: go home again. I had a splendid childhood overseas, and I’m painting all these wonderful locales I grew up in—all the places I would walk with my mother, and brother, with my friends. Every year, I go back to see my friends and to get my batteries recharged. And now since I’ve become a professional artist, I spend extra time there, making photographic references, color studies, and just soaking the scenes and vistas for the next collection of artwork.
I passionately love Southern France: the landscape, the colors, and most importantly the many joyous authentic memories. I strongly believe that what we paint should be authentic—the public will “smell” a fake. During the initial hour of the classes and workshops that I offer, I encourage students to take the time, even if it means some emotional discomfort, to find what they really are passionate about—something they can easily talk endlessly about, something that you can’t get enough of. Often, that subject is related to recapturing childhood joys. I enjoy the thought of perhaps liberating people from gobbledygook and myths surrounding art, to free these artists to paint what they truly enjoy painting.
What are some of the things that drew you to Seattle?
My husband had a job offer here and was ready to make a switch, so that’s how I ended up here. But I love it, and I call it home now and plan to stay here.
Your goal is to help bring the tradition of fine art oil painting to Seattle’s tech community. Tell me a little bit more about this project.
Facebook called a local museum. Since I’ve done a number of workshops locally in museums, it is the museum connection that led Facebook Seattle to Valerie Collymore Fine Art. Some lovely people from that exciting company invited me to come hold a pop-up art show at Facebook. So I said, “Sure! I’m interested, but I have a proposal. There’s one thing about hanging inanimate art on the wall, and it’s quite another thing to have the artist actively demo painting next to the art.”
So I demo painted on-site at Facebook Seattle as people were lunching. Conversations with lots of other interesting individuals at that company led to me being asked to come back to speak in their TED-like talks. And as an ex-science geek who’s now an artist, I was just so thrilled to get to spend time talking with other science geeks! I could have made it easy on myself and just delivered the talks that I’d been doing successfully in the museums, but I recrafted the talk using a science and tech-rich approach, gambling successfully that all attendees would have smart phones available to use. At all of my workshops, I share technology tools—there are great new apps and devices which I’m convinced Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci would be using if they were here!
For my art business, I’ve learned much from the startup community. I have great admiration for the networking, sharing, and coworking concepts and practices, and I have incorporated these into my business. So giving back is the right thing to do—going back into that community that gave me such great business ideas and sharing with this community the well-researched health and wellness benefits of creating art. After a positive experience for all during the Facebook art show, and demo, and talk venture, my vision is to bring the joy, intellectual challenge, and health benefits of creating art to other tech companies.