Today we’d like to introduce you to Grace Cocciolone.
Grace, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was raised by an artist and a musician. Privileged to always have basic art supplies in the home – and to be firsthand witness to many different angles of professional creative pursuits. My family frequently mingled with professional creatives based in Detroit and throughout SE Michigan – this deeply shaped my understanding of community and connection. At 11 years old, I made my first sale to a stranger, while assisting my mom’s booth at the Eastern Market. By 13, I was regularly working for my mom’s business, the Mindful Art Center, curating shows, creating marketing material, and assisting with vending and with workshops. At 15, I dropped out of high school due to health issues. With the extra time at home, I began seriously focusing on developing my own artistic style and skills, with a professional creative career in mind. At 18, I moved out of my parents home in Westland and went to Ypsilanti, and started to get involved in the creative communities there. In my 3 years living there, I continued to sell my art in galleries, at events, and privately. I also began a DIY venue in the heart of downtown, where I hosted a short season of open mics, concerts, and vendors. I also did work for several musicians and writers in the way of creating supporting visual material, as well as project planning and management for album releases and book releases. While struggling to maintain work and housing in Ypsilanti due to the continuation of aforementioned health issues, I ended up in Detroit for two years, where I held a short series of long-form video interviews of local artists, and also began exploring larger canvases and new styles and techniques with my own art. As of writing this, I have only just secured stable housing with family in New Jersey. Here, my plan is to refocus on building my creative career and getting involved in local community, while continuing to regularly visit and engage with community and opportunities in Detroit.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
For most of my life I have struggled with chronic pain and increased risk of injury due to severe scoliosis. This was the primary reason for my dropping out of highschool, and it has also significantly limited my ability to maintain full time work. In turn, this has contributed to housing insecurity. Despite always having the privilege of access to creative tools, materials, knowledge, and inspiration, my access to physical space in which I can use these privileges and create larger and more involved works of art has been limited. I have had to evolve my processes to accommodate this, often meaning expediting and batching my creative processes and completing works (and cleaning up after myself) as quickly as possible.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My primary artform is analog collage. Since 2018 I have been collecting images from magazines, coffee table books, and textbooks, creating maximalist compositions that typically explore human and spiritual identification with contrast, of life and death, pleasure and pain, etc.
My secondary artform is Celtic knotwork. I use a traditional method to create my designs, involving a 3-layer grid system, learned from books. I do everything by hand, typically using multiple layers of transparent paper or a lightbox to achieve my finished pieces. Lately, I’ve been using gel pens to create bright modern color schemes.
I also have a passion for all kinds of fiberwork, my mom primarily being a fiber artist herself. I am still in what I consider the early experimental stages of developing my style and skills with fiber, and most of the fiber work I do is for personal use and practice.
My 2D artworks often arise as personal meditations. I rarely ever go in with an idea of what the finished pieces will look like, or be about. As I create, I interpret, learning more about my own subconscious as I go.
I’ve been told that my works naturally encourage people to think about things in different ways, challenge taboos, and help connect logical thinking with emotional feeling. Creating art often feels selfish to me – it’s this type of feedback that tells me that my own meditative process is making an important difference in other people’s lives. I hope that my work helps others find confidence and positivity in their own honest self indulgence and expression as well. I hope my art can be a reminder that discomfort isn’t always bad, often it comes from growth.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
My childhood cat, who lived 10 years, was named Lucky. Luck is a very important concept to me. Though ever ethereal, I love trying to grasp it logically. I like to believe that luck can be harnessed by following the flow of opportunity. I also believe that it is simply a “glass half full” way of looking at the occurrences in one’s life, which results in a positive placebo effect, regardless. The Parable of the Horse is very relevant to my concept of luck. I think everyone has an abundance of good luck – it just depends on how you choose to look at things.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.gracekellyeverythingelse.com
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/gracekellyeverythingelse
