Leslie has been creating art ever since she can remember. She has a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering, but after working for a few years, decided to go back to college and take art classes. She enrolled with the University of Alabama in Huntsville and studied photography, sculpture and painting. Over the years she expanded her creative skills with numerous master led classes. Her work varies from mixed-media and art journaling to sculpture and jewelry making. Her recent solo exhibitions include ‘Dreams and Reality: The Artwork of Leslie Wood’ at Carnegie Visual Arts Center and Evelyn Burrows Museum, Visiting Artist Exhibition at the Huntsville Art League and an exhibition at Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment in Huntsville Alabama. An avid art journaler, her journal work has been published numerous times in Somerset Studio’s ‘ART Journaling’ magazine including features in the 2019 Spring and Fall editions. You can find her work at local shows such as Montesano Art Festival, and Panoply Arts Festival or on her website at www.lesliewoodarts.com. She teaches various classes throughout the year in the Huntsville Alabama area and will be a featured artist in the 2020 Huntsville Museum of Art Master Workshops.

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What does Art is Magic mean to you?

It means a fun weekend in July that I look forward to each year where I get to feast on beautiful artists sharing their creative processes to inspire us all.

Why do you create art?

It feeds my soul. I have a day job in a technical industry and after a day of that, I crave the release of color and line and play in my art. My art is probably my closest companion and confident and where I can share my thoughts, secrets or just mindlessly play.

Tell us about your journey to become an artist?

There was always some art in my life, whether it was drawing and painting for an art competition in my little hometown, or working on an embroidery kit that my mom bought me every few years. But determined to pick a career that could finance my hobbies, I focused on that until I was degreed and safely employed and then I ran back to the closest university to take all the art studio classes I could. I loved learning new art techniques then and I still love learning them now.

Tell us about your journey to claim the title artist?

I think it was when I went back to University to take my studio classes in sculpture and photography and sharing studios with some amazing other artists, that I started easing into the title of artist. I guess it wasn’t until years later, when I started setting up a booth to sale my work that concreted that title in and helped me to embrace the title with pride and honor.

What is it about making art that stirs your soul?

I think it’s in the ability to become completely lost in the process of creativity and lose track of time and sometimes what day it is. I like to immerse myself completely into whatever I’m working on, whether it be a children’s story that I’m re-interpreting, or a technique that I’m trying to figure out. This full immersion just feeds me and sometimes to the point where I have to take a break and join back into the real world.

What is currently inspiring you?

The beautiful Italy and preparing for a class that I will be teaching there in 2023. Digging into building structures, colors, textures and learning some of the history of how they got so much beautiful age and what it must be like to live among them.

What does your creative Practice look like?

I get into my studio on most weekends for morning and afternoon sessions. During the week, I might get an hour or two in the studio in the late afternoons, but sometimes I just do sketches or watercolors in my house because I can’t seem to stop drawing.

How do you keep your creative practice fresh and inspired?

I take classes in the hopes that I will learn a new technique or hit on something that will light a spark for me to delve into more. I also sometimes pick themes to go off and explore and that will create new paths for me to explore. I don’t tend to stay on the same subjects for very long as I feel like I reach a point where I have no new ideas. I get bored making the same thing over and over.

What sort of creative walls do you hit?

Being locked down in isolation really stalled my desire to go to my studio. I just felt like cocooning inside my home and so I had to find small things to work on there. Also, if I run out of ideas on a project, I will tend to stagnate.

What do you do to move through them?

I can always find less creative, creative things to work on. I like to make background papers, or maybe I’ll create a new journal and pre-paint the pages. If I really get to where I can’t create, I might try and clean up my spaces and get more organized so I can focus again.

How has your process evolved?

I think I used to try and control what I made too much. Like I would resist drawing whimsical things because I had it in my head that it wasn’t a serious artform. But then I decided that drawing whimsical was my natural tendency from even when I was small; so I decided to let it just come out instead of resisting it. I try to let things evolve naturally now, and if that means I need to draw 500 wonky faces before I move on, then I draw them without worry or guilt.

What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your creative journey? 

That all artwork matters because if it’s authentic and comes from a real place, then it will show in the work. I think it’s important for artists to learn basic techniques, but once you get those down, then the skies the limit and it’s better to create from a real place inside yourself than to try and imitate what you think is supposed to look good.

Do you have a Creative Self Care Practice?   

If I unfocused, sometimes it’s because my working space is cluttered and I have to stop and get some order again. But as far as self care, I guess I have some fellow artists and friends who I can lean on and who I can support on those days when more self care might be needed. It’s important to find your tribe of fellow humans, not only in art but in life. And wow, my therapist should probably get credit for helping me figure that little nugget out after years of isolation.

Do you have any creative rituals?

Some days, I just can’t draw or get anything to really work, so sometimes I test my drawing ability for the day by doing some doodle or wonky face sketches. If they flow easily, then I pretty much know, that I will have a decent day of creating. But if I struggle through those, then I know I might want to work on background pages or cleanup or even looking for new inspirational ideas on Pinterest or some similar site.