Painter Leticia Herrera moved from Mexico to the U.S. to start a new life, and a new art business. Here is her story.
ABI: What is your background, and what event caused you to start taking your art seriously?
LH: Painting has always been a very important part of my life, yet I never fully believed that I could make a living out of my number one passion. So, I was off and on with my painting throughout the years.
I was never involved with painting as much as I would prefer until the unfortunate death of one of my best friends. She died of cancer in a matter of only two months. That triggered my desire to get more involved with my artwork. I asked myself this question: “If I had only two months left of this life, what would I really want to do?” The answer was easy. Since then I have been taking my art very seriously. Even though the path has been difficult at times, I am very happy and feel very positive every day by doing what I love to do!
ABI: Tell us about your current body of abstract work and how you developed it.
LH: In my current body of abstracts, I am frequently working with horizontal and line forms, using colors and texture and in many of my paintings. I recently started to use water media. The patterns, colors and lines reflect the roots of my cultural background.
Also, I am focusing more on the viewer’s reactions and feelings to the paintings. I name each one of my paintings with a unique name that could be anything that the viewer wants to see, wants to feel. I think every person in this world is a unique universe, so everything is relative to the eyes of the beholder, especially in expressive abstraction.
ABI: You have been very pro-active in promoting your own artwork. How did you do this, and what was the response?
LH: Things really started working really well for me when I decided to put on my own show. I had very little money in my wallet and lots of bills, but I took the chance anyway. I went for it, did everything myself.
I also started sharing my work with my friends on my art page on Facebook, and I let people close to me know that my passion was my art. My show was very successful. Friends of friends went to my show, as well as people that I have not seen in a very long time, and people around the community also came.
I was very surprised by the response I had. That gave me a lot of confidence. Since then things have been happening in a very positive way. I cannot wait to put my next show – I am already working on it!
