Art is an Honest Medium

J.C. LITTLE is a Canadian artist and former animator known for her expressive watercolors and storytelling. Here, she is interviewed by PURNIMA RAMAKRISHNAN. She shares how art serves as meditation and reflects on two of her standout works—Momentum, a celestial painting on inner transformation, and Deadline, a poignant take on time and womanhood.

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Q: Do you see art as a form of meditation? When I look at certain art, I feel a kind of meditative stillness in it.

I think so. There’s a popular way of describing it, where you get in the zone as youre executing art.

For me, it starts before that. I’m one of these people who suffer from an overactive imagination. I'm always being assaulted with ideas and concepts, and in my mind, I’m turning them over and seeing how to tell that story. Is it funny? Is it wordplay? Is it emotional? At the back of my mind, I’m percolating on these things that I want to turn into images.

When you finally get to the point where you're executing something, there’s an element of discovery in it. We may not have completely worked out the solution to what we are looking for, the actual creative expression, but most of that work is already done in my head. That can become extremely meditative. It can also be problematic because we can get lost in it.

I have a little escape hatch, which is my dog. It keeps me from working on and on into the small hours of the night. The answer to your question is yes, definitely, there is a meditative aspect. Several aspects.

Q: How was your journey from being a cartoon artist to a person who does beautiful paintings? Has your creative process changed? How has this evolution changed you as a person?

I have always mixed the two, ever since I was a small child. My parents knew I could draw, so they were always getting me art supplies for every birthday and Christmas. Whenever it was time for presents, I got art supplies. I was given art lessons, lots of art lessons. As a kid, I just wanted to do funny drawings.