Local Albuquerque Illustrator & Lettering Artist

Chloe Cawthon is our Uptown Cafe artist for October 2020. You will be able to check out some of her art in the cafe til the end of the October and here at the bottom of this blog.

Continue reading to learn more about Chloe, her art, thoughts, and our Albuquerque community.

My name is Chloe Cawthon and I am an illustrator and lettering artist based in Albuquerque, NM. I like hanging out with my dogs, being married to my husband Bradley, working with kids, camping, and trying my hand at different creative disciplines.

My art is colorful and light-hearted. I’ve never really been as attracted to obscure art as I have been attracted to beautifully lettered and easy-to-read phrases, or things that look like they’re drawn with crayon by someone who is drawing because it’s fun and not because it’s their vocation. I think my art sort of reflects that leaning.

What has been the biggest obstacle for you creatively? And the greatest joy?

In late 2019, I entered the more challenging and longest lasting creative dry spell yet. In November, I quit my full time job so that I could pursue a creative career. At first it was exciting and I had so many hopes and visualizations for what pursuing illustration and lettering could look like for me.

A few months in, though, the high hopes began to be replaced with insane self-doubt and self-defeating thoughts. I was learning the (obvious, but hard) lesson that, if I wanted to do this illustration thing full-time, I needed to make a substantial amount of money off of it. I hadn’t yet been in a position where I had a consumer in mind during my creative process. I had always just created because it’s what I love to do.

By March, most of my mental energy was being spent on what other people like and what other people want to buy. I was spending more and more time on Instagram and Pinterest studying what’s trending than I was creating at all. Naturally, that led to a lot of comparison. It began a really negative feedback loop inside of my own brain that told me that whatever I have to offer isn’t worth anyone’s time or money.

The self-defeating thoughts would repeat over and over again throughout the day until I would exhaust myself with the negativity and eventually opt out of doing anything creative at all. Constant and long-lasting negative self-talk is devastating for most folks creatively, but I don’t think I really knew that until this past year. It’s a valuable lesson I’m grateful to have learned.

Getting around the latter portion of the question… Through a lot of genuine encouragement from loved ones, support from acquaintances and strangers, reading and listening to illustrators I esteem, and allowing myself to process the creative journey without discounting myself, I think I’m finally making my way out onto the other side.

And those things have come to be my greatest joys creatively: The love and help of community, and compassionate internal dialogue. I have learned that my mind and my heart need to be nurtured like a garden for creative ideas to grow from within. If I allow them to be, other people are often the best keepers of the garden. And when I give myself permission to really tend to the garden, there’s great creative reward waiting on the other side.

What is the last book, album, podcast, movie you’ve read, listened to, or watched that you enjoyed?

Books: Art Inc. by Lisa Congdon and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Both have been instrumental in helping me build my creative career in a healthy (and smart) way. I’m currently reading Christ in Crisis by Jim Wallis, which I’m especially enjoying during this specific cultural and societal moment in our country.

Album: Sad Hunk by Bahamas (spotify + apple music)

Podcasts: The Soul of the Nation with Jim Wallis (spotify + apple podcasts), Creative Pep Talk (spotify + apple podcasts), Reply All (spotify + apple podcasts), and Woodland Hills Church’s sermon podcasts (apple podcasts)

Movie: Columbus and Beautiful Losers (watch on youtube)

Where can we find more of your art?

Follow me on Instagram @chloe.cawthon, check out my website at chloecawthon.com, or shop my Etsy at etsy.com/shop/chloecawthon.

Little Bear Uptown Cafe (apple maps + google maps)

Describe what it is you aim to do as an artist, and how you feel it impacts you and your community?

This question is my favorite. I love that artists can have different goals and hope to do something unique for their community. It’s beautiful to be a part of such a varying and vast world, where the meaning of art and its practice is dynamic and different for everyone. To answer the question, I’d just like to address whoever might end up ever seeing my art:

I hope it makes you feel good, reminds you of an important lesson on how to treat others with kindness and love, or prompts you to notice that every day objects have aspects that are beautiful, and it’s worth the time to slow down and admire them. I hope my art causes you to stare at a bottle of nail polish and notice how to light runs through the glass at the bottom, and you find some small beauty in the ordinary. And I hope my art welcomes you into the creative practice, however that looks for you.

Practically speaking, I would love to maybe someday own a community studio, open to anyone who wants to come by, with workshops and equipment that would otherwise be difficult to access. I’d love to create programs that could run in after-school programs, because kids are the greatest artists of us all and their creative capabilities should be nurtured and brought out. And maybe some day I’ll write and illustrate children’s books about using kind words, and accepting others as they are, and loving yourself as you are.

I just want to do the most good I can with whatever skill I have.

Anything else you'd like to share?

God loves you! Really, truly, deeply loves you. Without condition, without a single exception. If you’ve ever been made to feel otherwise, that you weren’t welcome to fully access the love that He’s got to give because of some barrier placed in front of you by others, I hope I can invite you to walk past those man-made borders and have it for yourself. God’s love is for you, whoever you are and however you identify, and it always, always be.

Thanks so much to Little Bear for giving me the space here and at the shop to share myself and my art. I hope you get something from it.

-Chloe Cawthon

IG: @chloe.cawthon
Website: chloecawthon.com
Shop: etsy.com/shop/chloecawthon