Painter Spotlight: Ms. Terresa Ford

Where do you live: Atlanta, Ga.

Where are you from: Buffalo NY.

Art website: http://www.terresaford.net

I had the very awesome pleasure of interviewing Terresa Ford. Terresa and I have known each other over twenty years. We attended SUNY Brockport College our alma mater in Brockport, NY – together. We had very long talks about life and people and places. Recently I found Terresa again on Facebook and was absolutely delighted to bring her on board for an Expressive Voices Interview. Here, she shares her love for painting and why it’s such a rewarding passion for her.

I asked what her style of painting is and she says she doesn’t really have a style, but she likes painting people. She says as an introvert. She is able to come out of her shell and allows her personality to come into the painting form. “Being an introvert helps me to express myself in painting. It encourages my art form.”

She says: “depends upon the subject matter how she paints and what she paints about but she loves painting people. Terri says she gravitates towards painting and it seems to fill a void of what’s missing inside of her. An avid painter since the age of three, she has always been motivated to paint. She notices that her mom began to encourage her at the age of three and she began actively seeking out places to paint at age eleven. She found a wonderful place at a local community painting school in Buffalo – and she blossomed. Terri participated in this community painting school for about ten years. She learned how to stretch a canvas, put on shows, build her portfolio for college and a few other things. She found out how valuable the school was for her growth. It became her ” safe haven”. “I was always there. It saved my life. It helped me to honor my work.” She would leave and go away to college and still come back to paint at times. She noticed she would return to the community school for the feel, the people and the ambiance the school created with her love affair for art.

Terri loved this community school design so much, she later decided to use it as a model for youth when she moved to Baltimore and then on to Florida. She would write grants to help young people be involved in their creative art forms. Terri believes anyone has the capacity to be creative.

I asked Terri what helps to motivate her to stay with her painting. She said a little bit of self talk helps her to stay motivated. “Sort of like I talk to my child, I talk to myself the same way.” I say: “This is who I am… I will be sad if I don’ paint.” ( In other words she notices it make her happy to encourage herself to d o something she loves to do.) She also tells herself: “It’s good for your spirit, Terresa.”

I asked her like I ask all my Expressive Voices participants: “what holds you back from your creative expression?”

Terri said that most everyday distractions can impede her work . She says finding balance can be a challenge. Yet she believes that taking care of herself through her art form is so pertinent, because “if you aren’t taking care of yourself, then you are not going to be around for your kids - and the other things that are so important in life.”

I asked Terri what helps her to stay on task with her painting and she says she uses her phone reminders to prompt her encourage her to paint. Sometimes it may simply involve “pushing things around in her studio and holding the brushes in her hands that encourages her to paint.”

We had a really interesting conversation about what art does for the health of brain, for the spirit and even the soul – (the mind will and emotions). She says : “Painting frees my mental and emotional energy. Making art is so personal. Its deep work, and sometimes it can take you places that can produce life altering work. It’s definitely a calling… a gift. It saved my life many, many times.”

Please enjoy the wonderfully expressive paintings of Terresa Ford….