Check out Victoria Speck’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Speck.

Victoria, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Since I was little, I always had a special love for nature, animals, mountains and trees. I was always the girl in school that would rather go and watch the stars at night instead of going out to a party. My only problem, though, was that since I was born and grew up in a huge city, like Santiago de Chile, I didn’t get to see as much of nature and stars as I wanted. But thanks to my amazing parents and grandparents, I got the opportunity to go to the country on the weekends. They would teach me the names of the different plants and animals, they would talk to me about the different sounds that each bird makes and they would teach me to love patient and simple things, like observing the stars. Those are some of the happiest memories I have.

Since I couldn’t go outdoors as often as I wanted, I started painting animals and trees. This helped me to feel close to nature and then I realized that painting and drawing was very therapeutic for me. This happened when I was around 15 years old but then, when I started working as a primary teacher (at age of 22), I stopped because I didn’t have enough time and because I was so stressed.

After teaching almost for four years, I moved to the US to marry the love of my life. This has been a wonderful experience, but also a very hard one because I am away from family, friends and my homeland. But after three months of being here, something happened, I started painting again. But I quickly realized I was very out of practice, and this was very frustrating to me. I started going out on hikes and paid attention to the colors and shapes I saw in mountains, sunsets, trees, etc. I bought myself a watercolor kit and started painting and I enjoyed it so much. I was discovering a whole new world with my new hobby.

I didn’t like my paintings but I tried focusing on enjoying the process rather than the finished product. It was really hard at the beginning and I was very discouraged because I wanted to get better. I painted around 8 hours a day and slowly I started noticing more and more progress and I also started liking what I was painting. This was a very good feeling.

I decided to start my Instagram account to share my artwork. I started with five followers and now, after around eight months of having it open, I am about to reach 600 followers. It has been an amazing experience and I am very grateful for all the support that people have given me. This journey is only beginning for me and there is so much more to come! My next step is opening my Etsy shop by the end of this month. This is going to be a blast.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I am all about connecting! Life can be so consuming sometimes. It is so easy to fall into the routine and get lost in it. I feel that as humans, we have lost contact with our Mother Earth and we have forgotten our roots. What I try to do with my art is to show the beauty that there is in simple things that surround us, like a sunset, the shapes and colors of the clouds, a raindrop. I believe that being present in what you do, where you are and what you feel is very important. What makes me enjoy the outdoors so much is to be present – to feel the wind running through my hair, feeling the warm sunshine on my skin, to be amazed by the big night skies… I try to feel and live every moment like that and that’s where I get my inspiration. My inspiration comes from the connection I seek after with nature.

I mostly do watercolors, create original paintings and I love experimenting! Recently I started using cold ground press for watercolors so I can paint originals on wood. So far, I have made stickers, magnets, and shirts with my art on them. Trying new things is all part of the fun. I also try to stay positive and understand that there are no limits, there is more than one way to do things and that every “mistake” guides you to find more about yourself and your “style. ” My paintings are all different, but what they all have in common is that they are very personal to me. Some of them are inspired by real places that I have been, and others come from my imagination. In all of them, though, I try to communicate the connection that people can have with this beautiful world that surrounds us. Through my art, I want people to be able to feel that they are part of the place I painted. It is one of the reasons I like to use vibrant colors and inspire positive vibes so people can feel happy when they look at my artwork. At the same time, I think that we have a responsibility to protect the environment. That is why I want to be an eco-friendly artist, and I want to avoid using plastic in my shipments as much as I can.

I hope we can make out of this world a better one for us and our future generations.

Artists face many challenges, but what do you feel is the most pressing among them?
From my experience, social media for an artist can be a blessing and at the same time, it can get very challenging. I am very grateful for being able to use social media as a platform to promote my artwork and reach out to people of different parts of the world. I have followers from Europe. Asia and America, which blows my mind and none of that would be possible without the internet and social media.

At the same time, one of the challenges I face today as an artist is that we get bombarded so much stuff every time we pull up a social media app on our phone. It gets hard sometimes to stick to your own ideas when you see so many people on Instagram doing different things. If you are not confident with yourself, you start wondering if your artwork is worth to be seen by others. Of course, it is not like that for every artist, but I am sharing here the way I feel sometimes. That is why I love so much going outside with my watercolors to paint and forget about everything for a while. – it feels good. Talking about this reminded me of this quote I read one time on a shirt “There is no WiFi in the woods but I can assure you, you will find a much better connection,”

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
You can see my work on Instagram @vickispeckart and in a few more weeks, I will have also my Etsy!

Contact Info:

• Website: Etsy coming soon!
• Email: vicki.speckart@gmail.com
• Instagram: @vickispeckart

Image Credit:
Profil Picture, Credits to Naomi Felicity

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