Interview with Charmaine French

How did you discover that creating art was your true passion in life? Once you discovered art, what was the journey like to develop it into a career?

Art discovered me. Before art, I was a full-time teacher, an elementary school teacher. I did it for five years and my heart loved kids, but my heart was in a place of being stagnant and I knew that something had to transition. I just didn’t know how. 

The how was a car crash. I hit a parked car in the middle of the highway. The driver abandoned the car. I dislocated my hip, broke my femur, and had to have emergency surgery. I was restricted to bedrest and blood thinners, walkers, stitches, shots, canes, all of the above, while also being succumbed to my parents’ family room. 

My bed was there, so my only outlet to wake up in the morning, besides the comfort of my family, was my sketchbook, a gift I was given from my uncle, and some colored pencils. That was my day in and day out. I would just roll over, pick up my sketchbook, and paint. 

The journey from there was a consistent discipline to find a why, and my answer to my why was the loudest through my art. I heard my art, my art spoke back, my art connected, my art drove to communities, and it drives communities. It inspires people and it uplifts people. So my art found me.

What made you take the leap to build a creative brand? 

Like I said, complacency was my push. I honestly don’t know if I would be in this career if I was not in a car accident, so I’m very thankful for knowing that my faith that all things are going to work out is attached to my art.

With that in mind, when I didn’t have an answer of how to build this career, this career naturally built itself by the people I sought out and the people who also sought me. This career is based upon something that’s bigger than me, but it takes a community to continue to see this art grow. That is how it is a career not solely based upon my own strengths, but the people around me.

Charmaine French, Set Free, 2022, Acrylic

How has your creative process changed over time? Is there anything you do today that you wish you had known to do years ago? 

Honestly, I would just say to just give myself more grace. I grant myself grace and I allow myself to know a different form of grace. Through that it allows me to not feel like it’s so cumbersome to sit down and paint. 

My art process and the creative process starts first thing in the morning when I set my intentions. The first thought I have is typically giving thanks because I know that life could have looked differently in so many ways. I’m thankful that I can set my intentions to be creative in the morning so that at night when things go completely the opposite of what I thought it would be, I can still say “I set out to do a set of goals and I was able to accomplish that.”

Now I don’t feel like it’s procrastination. I feel more comfortable and I celebrate just doing 30 minutes for the day. It gives me a sense of “OK, keep going.” 

How do you define success as an artist, what do you wish to accomplish? 

For me, success is the result of planned failures. It’s a measurement of how far your faith can actually grow and conquer with the faith mindset of knowing that your success is going to look different, your faith is going to operate differently from the next person, and that’s OK. It’s not your place to measure the next person’s success. It is only to monitor yours and see if, once I set out to do these things, are they being done or executed. If they are, pat yourself on the back and kiss your brain well done. 

What do I wish to accomplish? Just to live a very authentic life, to own my authenticity, and to not shy away or minimize myself. And also to really experience life in its purest form: highs, lows, and in-betweens. Knowing what you will leave behind and what you are generously giving to the next community; those are my artifacts.

If I can do that, if I can leave a stamp of life for the next person and the next generations to come, then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, which is to inspire and be impactful. 

Charmaine French, Untitled, 2024, Digitial Art

What does being a Black artist mean to you? 

To me, being a Black artist can almost be like a two-headed sword or a double entendre, in the sense of it’s this internal balance of where do I fit in between this spectrum of being Black and being an artist.

An artist is just naturally who I am, whether I’ve known it or not or whether we know it or not. There’s a passion and a purpose that can be found when someone is labeled a creator. It’s a very connective experience with nature and yourself.

And then on the other side of that is being Black. There are no words to explain being able to walk into a room and not know a single person, and find one person who understands what that eyebrow raise means. It’s like there’s home no matter where you are if you’ve experienced being Black and specifically being Black in America. 

To be Black in itself is a unifying experience where you know you’re the center of culture, where you know you’re the center of genres, where you know you’re the center of exploration. You are labeled as, whether you’re given that credit or not, the founder of so many things in America. Yet, at the same time, we know the history of being Black and we know the history of being Black in America. There’s a narrative of who we are supposed to be and who we aren’t. 

My art is to display joy in the faces that I see every day and the people that I encounter. What feels like home to me just so happens to be Black people and the Black experience. I believe that joy is my birthright. It’s what I deserve. That is why I choose my art. Then it also happens that I’m Black and it’s an amazing experience. Yet, I have to constantly change the narrative of what it is to be a Black artist.

How did you learn the skills to create? Did you take art classes? Are you self taught?

I am self-taught. As I said, it was a lot of YouTube videos, sketches, and a lot of things that were not proportional, but I am on the journey of gaining more knowledge from other experts in this field. And that is something that I take pride in, that I am in a position to not know the rules and what’s correct, but I’m still able to speak to what art means to me. 

In your journey as an artist, what has been the most unexpected experience, realization, or challenge? 

I will say the ease. The full understanding of “walk the path that’s less resistant”. This doesn’t mean that it won’t require you to be disciplined, actually apply yourself, and do the work, but my art and every choice that I’ve made with art in mind first has come with such grandness and with so many opportunities attached to it that it felt genuine.

I think for me, knowing that whatever the challenge may be, it’s just a life preparation. There is also a sense of knowing that if I don’t feel comfortable in this one place, it’s not permanent. I have the choice to go a different direction and if it’s aligned to what you’re actually passionate about doing, it’ll come. Especially the funds, the money, you just have to be a good steward. You just have to, even if it’s little to nothing, be a good steward and practice and keep your faith at bay and it’ll come, it’ll flow. 

What is your biggest barrier to being an artist? How do you address it? 

My biggest barrier is my mindset. I think there once was a mindset that I didn’t have the correct platform, or because I didn’t have the same schooling or the same years of experience, my voice would never be heard. 

Being able to realize simply that what is for you will always be for you helped me with this. This Black Art Magazine experience reminds me that growing yourself, your career, and your brand will happen organically. The people who are intrigued by you, want to know more, and want to connect more with you as well as you with them, will happen organically. 

The only way to overcome those thoughts of I’m not good enough, or how do I fix this, is to just keep pushing forward. You just have to control what you can control, speak positively into what you can, and plant seeds. 

Is there anything missing within our Black art communities?

I think there are communities out there. I do believe that if there is a voice that you want to express yourself in, or there is a place where you need to feel heard, you just have to do the seeking. I think that’s the hard part because some people don’t know where to start. 

I am aware of what I can offer to the Black art community, which in itself is just a presence offering validation, and affirmations, especially to our youth.

Our youth needs to continuously hear, be innovative, be different, be bold, be fearless, and I know that place exists. I may not know how to connect the people, and or connect myself to those people, but I know that’s what I want to leave in the Black art community, to be a place of comfort and a safe haven.