I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Virginia Patrick for the past few years. I consider her to be a very talented artist, as well as being intelligent and rather funny. She’s a comic book artist, painter, writer and poster of many memes.
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down to ask her a few questions about her life and work. These are her answers.
So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where do you live now? What did you want to be when you grew up?
So I'm originally from Greece, New York. Now I live in Chili, New York for about a year and a few months. It's just a bit south of Rochester. When I was younger, I was gung ho on being a video game concept designer and an author. And in college, I ended up taking music and art in college; I double majored. I graduated with a bachelor's in studio art. And now, this is crazy, you know this. I'm a bus driver of all things. So you know, it's a really strange combination, author, artist, bus driver. I don't think I’d change it. I've got my passengers' school bus endorsement, and a new edition of tanker and hazmat. So I can drive straight trucks from school buses motorcoaches if I want to fuel tankers. In the future I might get my Class A, you know, to drive those 18 wheelers. Every time I drive. I noticed them going down the road. And one day, I'm like, one day, just one day on my feet behind those wheels. Yeah, that's me.
So what sort of artwork do you do? What's your main medium?
Right now I'm working in a combination of pen and ink, and digital painting and collage. This is for that comic book I'm working on currently. But in the past, you know, I started working in pencil when I was young, like in middle school and stuff. Then I graduated to the coloured pencils. I was so elated - I think it was for my birthday or Christmas - I got a whole Prismacolor pack. It's like the premium coloured pencils, they blend real smooth. I dabbled a little bit in acrylic, but I took that on in college, I started to paint a lot in acrylic. That's what my thesis work was all in acrylic. Now I work with Pan digital collage. And I do that because it really fits my lifestyle schedule. I rent so I don't have access to a big studio. Not a lot of room to toss paint around and stuff like that. And I like that, you know, I can just take my sketchbook with me, my pen set, my India ink set with me, and then you know, I can just do art wherever. And for me what works with that is the patterning. So the mediums I work with are defined by my limitations to what I can access. But that's what gives my work. It's it's look, it's style, you know?
So How and where did you learn your skills?
Um, this is mainly through trial and error. When I was young, you know, from like, fourth grade, I'd set up all my toys, like my little animal figurines, and I’d draw them. I picked up a couple of those drawing tutorial books, but they never quite clicked with me like but I did learn through repetition each piece I did got better than the last. And, you know, in high school. After that, I went to college where I got to work with more mediums like acrylic and do more sculpting; stuff like that, but it was always through that repetition. That really, really helped shape my artistic style and just improve.
What made you want to start making art? What motivates you to keep making art?
Now this is a weird thing because I actually don't consider myself like a real artist if you could consider it. Because I'm an author before I'm an artist. So storytelling motivates my art. I don't go by the art for art's sake. I'm like, no, it has to tell Story, there has to be a purpose behind that. So I've got this intersecting interest for art and storytelling. When I was a kid, you know, I had grand visions of like 3d animation and stuff, but I never had access to that medium. And I had to use what was accessible to me at the time, which was Crayola crayons and coloured pencils. And I would illustrate these short stories. I remember our teacher, she printed out there was like a box up here that you could illustrate on and there were lines that you'd write up and I just dumped that and I flew with it. And I think I still have a couple of those stories in like storage the papers are all like gnarled with age. But yeah, and what kind of inspired that to was the Legend of Zelda series of all things. It still does to this day. As a kid I’d play Ocarina of Time on my N64, it is still the best game hands down, that is a hill I will die on. I would actually take breaks and write my own fanfiction of the different temples and stuff. I love the Forest Temple Shadow Temple, Spirit Temple, I have a big fascination with that chic character. And chic was usually a very cringy self insert character. But I was seven, so like, give me a pass on that. It was a means for me to tell stories. I think that's what lends itself to my creating comic books now because it has the art and the story. You know, I went to Roberts Wesleyan, and I have my bachelor's in studio art, and I'd say that the college really helped me develop, you know, just my mechanical skills of doing art. But unfortunately, like there were many areas this programs lacked, and particularly painting in the human figure which was my main focus. And, you know, I did dabble and abstract representational mannerist styles, I still speak so highly of my professors, I love so many of them. I wish that academic art would pay more homage to its history, and its predecessors and teach historical styles of painting, because that was never taught. We got the art history, but we never actually got to sit down and say, “All right, we're gonna compose a piece and you know, 14th century style painting” or something like that. And I have this perspective of double majoring. So I had the art and the music. And what I find is the music itself is historic. We play historical pieces, and through that we maintain connections to the individuals who shaped our profession. But the thing is, it's really weird with art. As artists were pressured for newness at the expense of our history. It's like this rejection and almost borderline disdain of our roots, and people. And that's not just the college I went to, but that was very tame when I felt there. It is pervasive in other academic forms of art. It's like, “don't paint what's already been painted, reinvent the wheel”. And I was reading, it was one of Stephen Hicks short books called explaining postmodernism believe it's like in PDF form online, I found it really, really easily. And I could see his analysis of post modernism really creeping into the arts. Tendrils of group identity and class guilt, and It questions the legitimacy of the art of the artist. And it really has taken a sledgehammer to the historical perspective of it. It's like, you know, such as this attitude is like, what do they know? You know, they're dead and gone. We’re far more educated than they were. That's that moral relativism coming in and, and they're like, “oh, what kind of bunch of old men from the 1400s have to offer?” But, you know, like, we stand on great individuals who went before they had to fight and battles that we wouldn't even think of before even to just include brushstrokes in a painting. That was a huge war that was waged among artists. We don't know all these privileges that have been bought for us to paint and create. And it stands on their shoulders, and I do believe we need to have a connection to that.
Where do you get inspiration?
Video games are a big one for me. Like that Zelda series, but also the Little Nightmare series. That's what really inspired the scope, the perspective, even the color palette of my comic that I'm working on currently. Also, historical events; I wouldn't say that I paint, like an actual historical event, like to document it. But it will be the underlying, like, if I'll read something, it's that underlying emotion that just doesn't leave me alone, like reading about like the Soviet Union, Mao's China, things like that. And it's this restlessness that it puts inside of me, and that comes out through my art.
Also fantasy novels, psychology; two things that intrigued me there. And then I'd also say music too, I'm really into alternative rock. There's one song that I keep listening to as I make my current work, and it's called more than machines.
And that's, that's, you know, that's a driving force for my creation. And, but for my recent work, as a bus driver, that's what inspired solely the comic I'm working on now.
And I feel like artists when we're fresh out of school - artists tend to create in a vacuum. At that point, they're fresh out of school, because there's like this, oh, create from your perspective. But you've only had the perspective of living life as an artist, and going to school and doing all this. So it's circular. It's like a vacuum. It's just like, “oh, creating art about art and art’s sake and my experiences as the artist”. It kind of reminds me of Stephen King. There's so many characters in Stephen King's books who are writers. It's like, there will always be a writer somewhere in a Stephen King book. But I feel like the artists they've taken that they just dialed that right up and actually going into a completely different industry has given me far more material to work with than just being “Oh, I'm an artist” or “I'm an author” or “I'm a college student”. Because like a lot of people can't relate to work that's just created in a vacuum. It's too individualized. It’s too niche. There's nothing that it can really connect with.
Who are your favorite artists?
I really, really like Eugene Delacroix, he was a French painter. He was basically like the Elon Musk of the art world, like back in the - I don't have the exact dates. I know, it was like in the mid 1800s. He really set the pace for the Impressionist movements. It was at that time that the French Academy controlled a lot of art and artists in the academic world. And they were like, you can't have brushstrokes, you know, everything has to be perfect proportion. And your art usually has to have a clear message of like, royalty, military duty, that sort of stuff. And there was one painting he did, it was an orphan girl in the cemetery. And people would look at that and be like, that's subject matter isn't legitimate at all. And it had brushstrokes, which you weren't supposed to do at all. It had to look photorealistic. And this guy, he had a lot of money. He's a very rich man. And they would not feature his artwork in their gallery. So he said, “You know what? I'm gonna build my own gallery, and invite my own artists to it”. So he completed this completely other gallery, and then he brought all the Impressionists. All the “undesirable artists” into his circle and gave them a place to display their artwork. Huge rebel vibes from Delacroix. I really liked his style of painting too, but that opened up the way for Impressionism and expressionism to be a legitimate form of art. One of my favorites. I also like El Greco. He came a little bit before, I believe. I'm not very good with dates when it comes to which era was this person from? Who led when the era – ? It all kind of just flows into itself. But I love his mannerist style. He did a lot of paintings where the proportions aren't quite right. But the figures they just have like a fluid motion to them. And I, I loved his style is one of my favorites.
Where do you like to show your work?
When I was a kid, I loved art shows and stuff, but that doesn't really fit with my schedule now. So I would like to see it published in illustrations, comics. I've done book covers for some people too. And I've done commission work for some people too, especially from Realm Makers and such. So it's really amazing when I'll be scrolling and then I'll be thinking “that's my art right there! The people are liking it!” It's bridging this gap between like fantasy and actually having you know, a picture and I'm like “I did that!” so that's that's the rewarding part of that.
What is your favorite piece that you’ve done?
Okay, so before I worked with acrylic on panel and the artwork I did focused on bones and skulls for my my thesis work. I realized that I had to have a very sturdy background that I was working off of - a sturdy surface, because if I didn't, I had these very, almost violent palette knife strokes in it, it would tear my canvases. So I got some nice quality wood from Home Depot and then I mixed in glazing fluid and stuff like that. I was also bound by limitation of the medium itself, because acrylic tends to dry very quickly, so I just had to keep going. It kind of had almost a mosaic or pixelated appearance to it with how - I do a stroke and I couldn't really blend it with the other one, so I just had to keep adding more paint and blend it on my palate as I was going along. You know, now I use pen and ink. I'll do my sketches in a very light pencil, and then I will go over with India ink pencils. I love those Faber Castell pens. And then once I'm done with that, I take in just a regular ballpoint pen, and I start to do my shading with that. From there, I will take my image, upload it to my computer; I'll do a scanning at UPS - they really, really great scanners there. And once I have it on my computer, then I will color it in. But I found a way to be able to use photographs I've taken myself and make them into backgrounds that match, and that is how a lot of animation studios work. I would always look at anime or cartoons or whatever, and I would be like “how do they get a background and like that perspective is 100% Perfect?” And then come to find out it's a photograph, but they've edited it in Light studio and really had enough filters on top of it to look like a real watercolor piece. I kind of cracked their code on what they do, and I was like, “Oh, I can just industrialize this thing.” My background is done real quick.
So I was very excited once I figured that out. And a lot of it is trial and error, figuring something out, you do something, you like it, you don't know how to recreate it, you're frustrated, you're like, “how did I do that?” And then it's just going through until you realize what you're doing. I think as artists, we don't really know what we're doing at first. We start doing it and then we're able to ascribe meaning to it later on. But at first it's this kind of mysterious act of creation.
Do you have any advice for other artists?
burnouts is like Thanos. It is inevitable. I'd say don't throw away your current projects to never return to it. They're going to grow and they're going to change through all the seasons of your life. It might not be the original version you had in your head - the original picture, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be created. These these last few years for me, they've been laced with hell. That's the best way I can describe it. You know, I've had to move three times fast. There's divorce in the family. I changed jobs. You know, I had to do what was best to change jobs. I lost some really dear friends. And it's been difficult, you know, and that sticks in you. It's like these shards in the heart, you know. And many of my visions, they had to be put on hold. And I think I went without creating my own stuff for like, two years, it was just a drought. And I was frustrated because, you know, I went from this, oh, you know, “you're gonna be the next abstract painter, go to New York City, go do this.” And I was just angry at all of this pressure put on the quote, unquote, gifted child that was now a burnt out adult, and I'm like, “I don't want to do anything.” And, you know, for a time, I really lost faith in my art, and in my ability to create. I saw zero utility in it. So my advice is never delete anything. never delete anything, never put it on the fire and never rip it up. Unless you're doing it for art. Like if you have a painting and you rip it up, because you can collage it, but don't and I love doing that. I love collaging with old watercolor pieces that I didn't like before, I'll rip them up, glue them together. And I'm like, that looks really nice. But yeah, don't don't Don't end your process. Don't you know, control out, delete. Whatever you've been working on for years. Keeping them around.
Is there anything you would like to add?
This is gonna be a huge dose of just recycled Jordan Peterson from an artist's perspective, but art itself, it's a dying process. And I think this is where a lot of people give up before they start. Because to create is a sacrifice within itself, you know. And when I create, I can never put out what I have in my head. It's weird. I know some people can project like full images in their mind. I can't do that. It's like I see this very dark room with very low resolution, like quick shots of blurry, almost pixelated. I can't have a full form in my head. It's just like light flashes here. And they're blurry, vague, vague flashes of detail. But even from these scattered pieces that I get, I can never quite get them down on the page, how I envision them. And then I'm left with what came out on the page. And sometimes I really don't like it. But my process is then to respond to what I have in front of me. And it's not to try and force it back to that original conception I have. Now, that will always inform it, but that's really where it can get frustrating for artists, and myself in particular. And this is how I believe, like styles are created. They're really born out of their limitations, and not their potential. We see this especially in like, in Japanese animation, they have to have a very, very low frame rate. And that's where you have, like the anime character that's just completely still, and their hair’s moving a little bit. Because they couldn't afford to animate the whole movement in a feature like in a Disney film. And, you know, what should have been done and could have been done in 16 frames. They're like, “we'll do it in eight, but do it in three,” because that's in the budget. And it's that limitation that gave us this beloved style. You know, there's so many people who watch like Studio Ghibli or other animators, and it's, it's a process that's been born out of its limitations. And this is why I find the new like 3d anime is - something's jarring about it, because it doesn't fall back to that limited frame rate. And the sparse, detailed sparse movement. And this in itself, you know, is a limitation. It's a dying process. It's losing the potential of what could have been for what there is. And sometimes it's really jarring artists, and this is definitely frustrating. I feel like for a lot of people, you know, this is where burnout peaks highest. It's where the art departs from the vision. And this is where I think many artists hold their art inside their head to avoid this. Because an idea is perfect. It's infinite. It can be whatever I want it to be, you know. But when it comes out through your pen or your brush, or your tablet. It's not perfect. It's not infinite. And so as an artist, we have to sacrifice the infinite, you know, we have to strip it away of everything it could have been. Until we're left with what the work actually is. And it is, it is frustrating. This isn't an easy process, it feels awkward. You don't know what you're doing. Sometimes it's like you do something good, you don't know how to replicate it. And then that's a struggle, figuring out what you're actually doing. It's a really drawn out process. And this is where people give up. And I'd say, you know, please, please don't. Like, I remember when I sat down to work on this comic, I had a clear vision in my head for what I wanted it to be. And I was like, my artists skill isn't up where I want it to be, to be able to do this. And something just said, “just draw the first page. Just do it. Yeah, just doesn't have to be perfect.” And now I'm, like, 27 pages in out of 32. And sometimes, like, I'll have a really cool pose pictured in my head or something, or I'll see a picture of a reference pose, and I'm like, “oh, I want to do that” and I’ll try to get drawing and it just doesn't work. And then I'm like, you know, what, do what you're good at, just just do what you know will work for this. And then on the other extraordinary parts that work with those. But that's a big thing, you know, don't give up when what's in your head can't come out on the page. It's our job to respond to what comes out on the page. And that's really what separates the artists and the visionary.