Artinject Conversations with Pallavi Saxena | Episode 2
About Pallavi Saxena
Pallavi is a self-taught mixed-media artist who started her art practice in Mumbai, India and is currently based in Taipei, Taiwan. She believes that her art practice allows her to dreamily explore an imaginative inner world connected to routine everyday life. She offers original works of floral & abstract art, intuitive abstract art workshops, creative coaching & mentorship for artists, and products such as journals, stoles, and home décor with her artwork printed on them.
Pallavi is inspired by the human interactions she observes in her environment and the gamut of experiences created within different facets of her family life. Her practice is about the imperfection of daily life and working toward her personal growth and deeper understanding of self. She looks to document the rawness of these moments through colour, movement, abstract brush strokes, biomorphic shapes and figures, collage, and adding and subtracting layers of paint.
Learn more about Pallavi’s Mentorship Sessions
Tracing Pallavi’s journey from the start of her art practice to selling her art
While tracing her journey, Pallavi says that she doesn’t know when and how it all started, but she thinks that she has been holding a brush in her hand forever. She grew up with a mother who is also an artist, albeit not professionally, she has always seen her mother cultivating her creativity. She recalls how her mother was always undertaking creative projects such as painting bedsheets and the walls of their home, and the children were always a part of those creative endeavours.
Pallavi was always an artistic individual, actively participating in art competitions and such during her schooling. Post that, she briefly studied art and took exams for the same. Pallavi also performed well academically, so at the time of deciding what to pursue for her higher education she chose academics over art. This was partly owing to the bias toward academic pursuits over artistic pursuits, that is deeply entrenched in Indian society.
Then she got a job in corporate and started working at companies she enjoyed working with. But she was always making art, and that never stopped. Once she started working, she would make art during her commute. She always found time for art. ‘I think it was because of my mother as well… it almost came naturally to me that I have to do it and I will do it after coming back from school or college or work I was making art, like there was some canvas on always, work in progress.’
Most of the stories I hear of creatives making a shift from a non-creative profession to a creative one are usually a journey of coming back to their art. What I love about Pallavi’s story is that she always remained connected to art and never stopped cultivating that practice. She always made time for it because her art practice has been an intrinsic part of her life. Cultivating her art practice is something that comes from the place of ‘I want to do this’, not ‘I need to do this’.
Pallavi shares, ‘And fortunately for me, I was with such good organizations that I had a wonderful work-life balance. I got to travel to almost every other country in the world, and because I was in marketing, I also got a chance to experience different people, cultures and creativity campaigns.’
Pallavi states how the turning point in her journey was having her son, which caused a huge shift in her perspective. She had a deep desire for her son to see her as her true self that she embodied as an artist. And that desire pushed her to go deeper with her art practice.
She did multiple 100-day challenges, got consistent with her art practice, and created a huge volume of work. It was at the time doing one of these art challenges while trying to copy a photograph, she stumbled upon a style that wasn’t a complete copy of her reference image and felt very different. ‘I feel like I think that was the point when I really started understanding what is my style, and that’s when I consciously started developing and growing.’
And it was during the 2020 lockdown that she started owning up to the identity of being an artist, and started thinking about how she wanted to show up as an artist. Like most artists, she started by copying the masters, but during the aforementioned time, she started thinking about what kind of art she wanted to make which is not copied but rather an authentic expression of herself. ‘So that’s been my journey so far.’
Being multi-passionate in a world of either being a full-time artist or working a 9-5 job
I was extremely curious to know what Pallavi had to say about the popular narrative of either choosing to be a full-time artist or working a 9-5 job. Because she is both a professional artist and has a job as a tech marketer.
I love how she addressed the question from the vantage point of the inherent design of an individual either having a more singular focus in life who gets overwhelmed by a multiplicity of things or the individual being multi-passionate who gets excited by the overload of stimuli. And she also weaved in the extremely relevant discussion of building a sustainable career.
‘I think there are two aspects to this question. First is our personalities and second is basically the sustainability. So when I talk about personality, it’s like there are people who like to have a single focus in life, like having a lot of different other kinds of work can overwhelm them. And then there are people like me who like to have, who have multiple passions, say like marketing. I’m a tech marketer and it is one of my passions.’
I have served different organizations and I’m working in jobs that are demanding but also have a work-life balance. So I feel the chaos of my motherhood, the chaos of this life, in some way my job, it thrives. My art thrives with the job, so they are deeply entangled together is what I have come to realize.
And that’s why when I joined social media as an artist and I started seeing this narrative that someone’s being brave by leaving their job, this whole narrative that I’m leaving my job to pursue my art for 100% of the time, I used to feel like I’m fake or I cannot tell anybody that I am a real artist.
I realize now that I am also being brave by pursuing two things together. I am also being brave. And there are people like me who would probably want to do something like this. So I want to speak to those people and say that it’s okay to do that, especially when you’re young and you’re trying to make a living. And this is where the second point comes- sustainability. As an artist, to have a sustainable income from your art, it does take time. And it takes time in any career. You could be an engineer, you could be a doctor, it would take time to build sustainability.’
She went on to say how she believes that the future of work is multiple income streams. As an artist that multiplicity of income may come from having a day job or creating different avenues in your art business such as art on products, art classes, etc. so that the entire onus of making money doesn’t rest solely on your creative practice. Pallavi’s goal is to set up an ecosystem wherein she can make art freely and doesn’t have to make art to sell.
A lot of art teachers, course creators, mentors and coaches in the online space preach ‘If I can do it, you can do it’ and sell the ‘six-figure income’ dream, while conveniently leaving out that it takes time to make a reliable income from your art and for your art to fully support you financially. Pallavi rightly commented ‘I’m thinking that how many careers do you make a six-figure income in the first year? I mean, how many careers do you do that? Why are we saying that artists should make six-figure incomes? So, it’s a very false narrative too.’
I wish we would talk about the this and that narrative instead of a this and that narrative more!
How to Cultivate a Consistent Art Practice & Develop an Artistic Voice
I think that Pallavi has rather successfully established a consistent art practice, and I have seen her develop her unique artistic voice and now have an undeniable authentic expression in her work. These are two of the biggest concerns that a lot of artists have, especially artists who are in the beginning stages of their journey, how do I find my authentic expression in art and how do I create art consistently? So I asked Pallavi to share what has worked for her in her own practice.
Developing a Consistent Art Practice
Pallavi shares that while she was always making art, she wasn’t always consistent with it.
Her job required her to travel a lot, so she started by carrying a small sketchbook and drawing and painting on these work trips abroad. So if I talk about consistency, when I was making, I was always making art but I was not consistent. And when Uber started in India, she would watch random videos during her 45-minute commute to work so she decided to start drawing her hands and feet during this duration instead.
She noticed that she was getting better and that pushed her into taking up a 30-day art challenge, then Inktober, then a 100-day art challenge. After her son was born, Pallavi would paint and draw in the pockets of time when her son used to sleep. Seeing a marked improvement in her skills motivated her to continue putting consistent effort toward her art practice.
‘I realized that there is nothing like talent, you know. Everything is consistency. Consistency and discipline, these two things if I can do it, anything can happen. If you want to run, if you want to work out, like anything, it is only consistency and discipline. And if we can continue that then it will get better…Like you eat every day, like you sleep every day, I feel like art for me is that way, it’s every day. Now it’s not a question, but I feel like there are three things that can really help you build a consistent art practice and I always share this with everyone.’
Pallavi’s 3 Tips to Build a Consistent Art Practice
- Have a workable workspace
Pallavi shares how for artists, it is really important to have a space that they can keep dirty and don’t have to clean again and again. Because art does create a mess and the need to clean your workspace every time you create can become a roadblock to creating itself. ‘In Mumbai, I had a balcony converted to a room which was just by the side of my bed, so it worked perfectly. I used to keep it dirty, I didn’t have to keep it clean.’ - Don’t pursue perfectionism, Let your sketchbook be bad
‘And the second thing that you can do to develop consistency in very small steps is don’t pursue perfection, just make anything. Let your sketchbook be bad. I think for the longest time I used to stop the sketchbooks if I felt that there was a bad thing. But now I just move the page and I’m like, okay, I have to continue, I have to continue.’ - Attach your new habit to an existing habit
Pallavi shares that the most important tip to develop a consistent art practice is to attach your art practice to a routine activity. This is something that is mentioned in Atomic Habits by Austin Kleon, which is a book on time management.
‘Like when I drop my son, I speak of workout, when I drop my son I wear my sports shoes. So now I’m down, I have dropped him, he has gone, I have to run. It’s very obvious. And for art I do something very similar. I just have my paint brush by my breakfast table. So now it’s there, I have finished my breakfast, so I have to pick up my brush and keep it in the studio. And when I’m in the studio I have a working table, so let me do 10 minutes and then go take a bath. So you get the drift.
Our brain does not want us to excel, it just wants us to survive. So, you have to trick your brain in some way because our brain doesn’t want to do the tough things. So if you attach it to a regular habit which you will not leave, then you can trick your brain into believing that this is a regular habit and then ultimately it will give up. The monkey brain will stop working and it will believe that this is your routine and you will do it.’
You do not have to be in a good mood to create
‘And I also don’t agree to this whole narrative that you have to be in a good mood to make art.’
Pallavi shares how one of her life coaches, Katerina Folkman, opened up her mind to the idea of creating art in a bad mood. introduced me to this. ‘So I was talking to her one day and told her that I am in a bad mood, I was going through the whole postpartum thing of having my son and I was in one of her programs, and she told me, ‘then just make some art, just throw paint on the canvas’. She particularly said to throw black paint on the canvas and I actually did that, and I liked it. So that’s when I realized that I don’t have to put this pressure on myself that I have to be in happy mode or I have to be in Zen mode or peaceful mode, and then make art. Because see, once the art is made by us, it goes into the world and people interpret it in any way. I have realized that I can be in a sad mood, make a painting, and people will interpret it as happy. So I realized that it’s not correlated and that’s when every day I started making art. I think it’s been five years. Every single day I make art, irrespective of wherever I am, whatever I do, however bad an idea I have, and it’s the best feeling ever. Forget about the result, I mean it’s the best feeling ever.’
Developing Your Authentic Artistic Expression
‘So initially I started with the copying phase and I used to look at the artwork, look at paintings, photographs and copy and all of that. But then obviously you hit a point where you know that you are you’re getting towards something original. And I talk about this, what I call as a creative lineage. So like we have mother, father, grandfather, great-grandfather. So every artist I believe has a creative lineage. It’s like how Picasso says that there is no original art, and Austin Kleon also says in Steal Like An Artist that everyone has artists who are like them, who have been before them, who will be after them, and who are with them. So I think as artists, we need to find people who are like us and they need not be exactly same.
And so I started finding these people and I realized that these artists, I love them for a reason. And probably I am like a mix of all these artists because I truly believe there’s no original art. And now people come to me and say your art is like that and like this, and honestly when I was doing it, I had no clue. But then yes, I am probably a cocktail of a lot of artists. I think everyone is a cocktail of a lot of different artists.’
I love the idea of a creative lineage that Pallavi introduced me to. And I think not only artists, but all humans, are essentially a sum of all the experiences and people that they have in their lives. So even as artists, we are bound to get influenced by the things and people we surround ourselves with, one can’t help but absorb from their environment because that is their data bank. Creativity is not generated in a void, it is pulled from this databank of experiences that we have in life.
How moving countries affected Pallavi’s art practice
If you follow Pallavi on Instagram, you too would’ve noticed how beautifully she has embraced the change of moving to a different country and how she has integrated herself into a new community through her art. I noticed her becoming locally active through taking in-person art classes, contributing to her community as an artist, having her work at local stores, and even having a solo exhibition of her work in Taipei recently.
When I asked her about how moving countries has affected her art practice, I loved the raw honesty Pallavi brought to this interview. She outlined 3 major shifts in her art practice owing to shifting countries:
- It provided her with a blank slate
‘Initially, I was very sad, I was worried. And because I had just started making my base in India- I had done two gallery shows, and people were knowing me, I was being known by curators. I was very sad that I have to start from scratch in a country that’s not English-speaking.’
Pallavi identifies herself as an introvert and as the kind of person who was always thinking, ‘ki log kya sochenge? That if I put an opinion on social media, what will people think? I was always thinking about that. And it felt like someone gave me a green light, like you know, do what you want. It was like a blank slate. I felt like no one is seeing me now, so I can do anything I want. I think that was the biggest thing- I did not know anyone, no one knew me. I felt like I’m starting my life from scratch so I can be anything I want. And now I want to be an artist.’ - She started building a community
Having this blank slate liberated Pallavi from the pressure of expectations. She didn’t realise but she started building a community through her art. It was only when she witnessed the kind of turnout that she did during her first solo show in Taipei, that she realised the depth of the connections and community she had created.
‘I realised that art is exactly the opposite of what was told to us. We say that art is about isolation, maybe for the art masters it was. But today, art is about community.’ - Exploring new people, places and experiences
Pallavi commented how our social life, having the same circle of friends and doing the same things in our social life, can limit us. While she acknowledges the importance of having a strong circle of friends and family, and she is deeply connected to hers, she adds that it can potentially limit us from exploring new people, places and experiences.
Selling Art Online vs. Selling Art In-person
Pallavi elaborates on how the experience of selling art online and offline is completely different.
She was pleasantly surprised by how intimate her interactions were with people who had come to view her art. She comments on how when we are showcasing our art, how the viewer interprets the art can be completely different than what the artist had intended to convey through their art.
‘You can write anything down below as a brief. It doesn’t matter. Once it leaves your studio it has a life of its own, it has its own soul, and it’s going to go to the person who actually calls for it. I have realized that in the conversations, even if I try to drive it to what I had thought of (while) making the art, I always saw that the person came back saying that this is how I connect with it. And that’s when I realized that I don’t have anything to do with it now. Now the only thing I have to do is just stand in front of that and say okay I have made this and then let them just speak about it.’
She shared this one interaction she had with a collector who bought the sunflower painting of hers for the latter’s daughter and the way that the collector explained the interpretation of Pallavi’s art, they both ended up in tears. ‘Not once I felt like I was selling something, not once I felt like I even tried to tell her (to) buy it. I did not tell her how I made it and it was like, she just took it. And I feel like that’s how art would sell, right? That happened for multiple paintings in my solo show and it just happened so organically.
So I feel like offline is the most beautiful experience and India stops us from that community experience because of the way the elitist model is built around art. But I feel like what helps is the vanity galleries.’
‘So I believe it’s very important to be in the offline system, I also believe that it is very elitist.. But you need to find those galleries that will connect with you, those companies, those cafes, you know, all those kind(s) of experiences that will happen with you.’
One mindset shift that has been a game-changer for Pallavi’s art practice
Pallavi shared that the two things that have really helped her are:
- She has stopped judging people. No matter who it is, famous personalities, or non-famous personalities, she doesn’t talk about people in a negative way.
- She has stopped caring about other people’s comments and judgments. Simple, it’s like give and take.
‘I let anybody speak anything about me, I don’t speak with anybody, anyone, anything. And I feel it’s so amazing that you see everyone nicely because then you try to find something good in that person, you know.
..And when I stopped taking it personally, I have liberated myself from the thoughts which were chained to my mind. I am free now.
..I feel like when I know when to cut the negativity from my discussion, I feel like that has really, really, really changed everything for me. And everything I felt was connected to that.
The fact that my art doesn’t sell was connected to that, the fact that what did people think about my art was connected to that. Everything was connected to the fact about people, right? Because ultimately we are community and we are with people.
Because unconsciously we change ourselves to suit the society.. you’re changing your personality, then how will your art be original. You cannot get your best version of yourself out because ultimately art is you on paper.’
This is not just advice for art but advice for life! When we talk about other people and when we pass judgment, they don’t care. They have no idea that we’re talking about them, that we’re judging them. Those thoughts are just going on in our mind and all the negative energy that is stemming from those thoughts is flowing in our body. The people we are judging and talking about are not affected by it in the slightest.
When we understand the depth and magnitude of the recurring actions in our lives and when we can identify the patterns, we come to the realization of how a seemingly small thing is actually impacting every area of our lives.