Today we’d like to introduce you to Stevie Oliver.
Hi Stevie, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’ll start at the beginning of my current story but it’s worth mentioning that my previous story consists of an 18 year career as a wedding and portrait photographer. To set the stage, it’s the beginning of 2020 and I live in Hampden with my husband and 2 young daughters (ages 3 and 5). I had stopped taking on photography clients and begun homeschooling our oldest for her kindergarten year. And then the pandemic hit.
Everything shut down, we were all stuck at home, I was pregnant with our 3rd daughter and I was pretty terrified. But then I started noticing things in the natural world just continued on even though so much in the human world came to a halt. I became mesmerized by all the early spring flowers and I had this fierce desire to preserve everything. So I started pressing flowers .. compulsively. These fragile little flowers that grew out of the cold, hard dirt represented hope to me when the world had shut down and I desperately tried to make them last forever.
I pressed ferns and flowers and tried everything I could think of to keep them “alive”. I glued them to paper, sealed them to clay or wood, and sandwiched them in between pieces of glass. But it didn’t work the way I’d hoped. The flowers dried out and became brittle, faded or brown.
Then I tried cyanotype printing, which is often referred to as sun-printing. I started applying the UV sensitive chemicals to fabric and paper, making compositions with the pressed plants and my photographic negatives and exposing them to the sun to create art. I couldn’t save all the flowers themselves but I had finally found a way to create something with them that wouldn’t fade.
Creating art helped calm some of my anxiety. I was terrified of Covid, terrified of getting sick, terrified of disappearing. I realized that I wasn’t just trying to preserve these plants. I was desperately trying to preserve myself.
So I began telling stories with my plants and my photographs and recorded them with the sun. I captured so much of myself and what I loved into my prints and I found a way to feel like I might be preserved forever.
For the past 6 years my art has been steadily evolving. Eventually I moved almost exclusively to fabric and started hand embroidering my pieces as well. My work is heavily influenced by the moon and my daughters and often has a whimsical, celestial feel to it. I add sea glass to some of my nature prints and hand stitch in little details to turn them into little houses. And some of my more recent work includes an exploration of the feminine form and the matriarchy. I’m currently enjoying creating larger pieces and I’m really excited to see what the future brings.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being an artist has not necessarily been a smooth road for me. We have 3 daughters that we homeschool and my husband and I set up our lives where he primarily works outside of the home while I take on most of the care-taking for our girls. I won’t say anything about maintaining balance because I don’t think that exists. The main struggle I have is trying to find time for my art alongside the chaos of mothering.
As a result I cobble together bits of time here and there in order to create art and I work really hard to be able to pull together a body of work whenever I have the opportunity to exhibit. But I think it makes the reward of being able to see it all come together all the more meaningful for me.
There have been plenty of times over the years where I have questioned whether the disruption to my family is worth it and sometimes it seems like it would be so much easier to put everyone else first.
But it is also all too easy to let myself be swallowed completely by motherhood and when I picture my daughters in my place I would never want them to abandon themselves.
So I cling like hell to this part of me. And not because I want to set the example of how to be an artist. Because I want to set the example that you deserve to be whatever you want to be even if it inconveniences the people that you love.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At a base level my main medium is cyanotype but my artwork sort of ‘clicked’ when I discovered a way to combine all of my passions and processes that I’ve collected throughout my life. Photography, storytelling, science, embroidery, motherhood, lunar cycles and magic. So much of me is embedded into each piece that I create. From the collection and pressing of the plants (some of which I grow in my garden), down to the music that I listen to when I lay out my compositions. I am literally and figuratively woven into all of it. And I hope that others can feel that when they view my work.
Cyanotype has been around since the 1840’s and is currently experiencing a major resurgence. Probably because of its analog nature and the popularity around mindfulness and slow art. Since it’s so prevalent it’s important to me to put my own spin on it, mostly through my hand embroidery. When I lay out my pieces I see all the original color of the flowers and when they are removed and the fabric is rinsed the piece switches to all blues and white. I am such an earth tone lover that I can’t help but stitch all those earthy colors back in.
I love whimsical, tiny worlds and the idea of little gnome houses hidden under a forest of ferns so a bit of my work satisfies that side of me. I collect sea glass and river glass with my daughters and I use those in my cyanotypes to create the shape of a house or cottage. Then I hand stitch in all the little details so everyone else can see the little house I see in my mind.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m most known for but I like to think it’s whatever people see in the world that makes them think of me. I get messages sometimes when people see a gorgeous full moon or the first snowdrops of the season. I like to think maybe I’ve helped them notice something they might have overlooked before and there is something so poetic about that.
But I think the thing I’m most proud of is when someone approaches me at a show or sends me a message to let me know how my art makes them feel. When they share a story of a loved one that has passed and how my art reminds them of something that they loved, or a place they have visited. The personal stories are something I’ll never take for granted. I think the human connection is what sets me apart. Or at least I hope so.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I think the most important quality has been my curiosity. It leads me to explore my own experiences and share them through my work. My art is rooted in noticing—plants, light, small moments—and that requires slowing down and paying attention. My daughters really help with that part. There’s often a sense of nostalgia in what I create and I try to follow that. My hope is that when people connect with my work, they feel seen in some way, like something inside them has been recognized.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://iamstevieoliver.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamstevieoliver/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Stevie.Oliver.Art
