Today we’d like to introduce you to Zoë Finkelstein
Hi Zoë, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I have been making art for as long as I can remember. As a child I was always drawing in my notebooks, making sculptures out of trash, and tagging along to art classes my mom went to. My high school art teacher Mr. Crawford taught me how to oil paint and encouraged me to continue my art education. This brought me to St. Louis in 2016 to get my BFA in studio art from WashU. I improved my craft, explored many new techniques and media including fabric marbling and sewing, discovered what I wanted to make work about, and fell in love with Saint Louis. I realized that art is what I want to do with my life, but didn’t really know what that would look like. I graduated with my BFA in 2020, and with all the pandemic uncertainty I decided to stay here where I had friends and mentors.
I got a part time job working retail at an art supply store, started taking commissions from friends for paintings, had a small piece in my first “real” art show after college, taught one-on-one art lessons, and sold drawings for cheap on my instagram. I had a studio space in my apartment, and then transitioned to renting a shared studio off of Cherokee street. Because of that space I participated in my first art market, which was the 2021 Cherokee Print Bazaar, and met my good friend and future market booth-buddy Eden. In 2022 I quit my retail job, started working in my studio more frequently, taught more classes, and had pieces in a few exhibitions; I had a lot of important breakthroughs in my work that year because I was dedicating more time to my studio practice. As that year ended and the next began, I moved studios again to somewhere I had a little more space and privacy, and started working as a studio assistant at Slow Goods Studio. I began to incorporate my sewing work in my painting practice. Eden and I started vending at makers markets together; we shared a booth talking about and selling our work. I learned the constant push and pull between making work I feel inspired to make and making work I think people want to buy. I started thinking about the difference between making prints to sell at markets and making paintings to be seen in galleries. I’ve spent the last couple years trying to find a way to balance the two, and that’s definitely still a work in progress. I’ve gained more confidence in my work, and as a result I have been applying to more shows. 2024 was my first year really putting work into regularly vending at markets with Eden, and I met so many new people, talked about my work a lot, and made a lot of new connections. And now, today, I find myself settling into the rhythm of this routine. I make art in my studio and at home, I work at Slow Goods a couple days a week, I’ve got even more markets on the calendar for 2025, and I’m starting a new spreadsheet to better keep track of the exhibitions I’m applying to. I feel good about the future, and I feel good about the now.
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?
I don’t think any road in life is totally smooth, there’s bound to be obstacles. I’ve had many, but they’ve lead me to be where I am today and for that I’m thankful. Some of challenges have been interpersonal; friends, roommates, and studio mates have come and gone, and I’ve had to learn to set stronger boundaries and take a step back when I need to. I lived by myself for the first time, and got to figure out who I am as a person in my own space without the influence of others. And once I felt ready, I had to put myself out there and find new community. Now I am surrounded by such good friends and family who support me and empower me to be my best self. It’s been a hard road to get to this point though. I tend to be very hard on myself, so I’ve had to battle listening to my brain tell me I’m not good enough, that my work isn’t worthwhile, and that everyone secretly thinks I’m doing everything wrong. Those internal struggles feel so palpable, it can be difficult to snap myself out of that internal cycle of negativity. I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety my whole life, and during times when the mental illness is more overwhelming, it can be especially difficult to put myself out there to network and make connections that would help my career. It’s important to have studio visits and get feedback on work that’s in progress, but sometimes I just can’t get past my internal walls to reach out to people and invite them into my space.
When you’re new to something, it can seem like everyone around you is so sure of themselves and know exactly what they’re doing. You might be full of second-guessing and insecurity. But over time you learn that everyone’s in the same boat. We’re all just faking it till we make it. We pretend we know what we’re doing until eventually we figure it out, and there’s no shame in that! That’s something I need to remind myself of often.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a visual artist working in a variety of media including printmaking, painting, and fibers. People know me for making large, bright, abstract mixed-media paintings on unprimed canvas, and for incorporating sewing in some of these paintings. I call these “stitched paintings,” and they’re made by cutting up and stitching pieces of my abstract paintings into an object akin to a quilt top, which is then stretched over wood bars and wired for hanging. I think my stitched paintings set me apart from others; I haven’t really seen other people using canvas in the way I do, incorporating sewing in that way. It feels new in an exciting way.
People also know me for making drawings, prints, and paintings of ghosts with boobs. I call them titty ghosts, but a lot of people like to call them boooooobies. Those are what grab people’s attention at makers markets — they’re almost guaranteed to provoke some giggles or a “my friend would get a kick out of these” or “oh you’re the ghost girl! I love these!”
I also make marbled fabric. The process is so therapeutic and the results are beautiful. It took a lot of experimentation to find the best way to do it; I learned about all the different materials and which to use in which qualities for various applications. I’m really proud of the work I’ve put in to refine my technique find my own way of doing it. One of my favorite moments this past year was spotting someone wearing one of my marbled bandanas out and about in public. It made me feel really good to know that something I made is cared for and worn with pride by someone I didn’t know.
I’m proud of the way my work has evolved over the years and how it always has some element of me-ness in it; I’m proud that my work is very obviously *my* work. If I look at a full gallery wall, my pieces stand out. Once you know my work, I think you can spot it. I’m proud of the attention I pay to my craft, and the emotion I pour into my work.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Taking risks is important! It’s necessary to try new things that are out of our comfort zones. We learn from our failures — that’s how we grow as people. Life is full of opportunities to take risks, big and small. We can learn a lot about ourselves through the risks we take, and the ways we adapt if those risks don’t pan out. I like to think I’m a risk-taker, but they’re calculated risks. Reasonable risks. Nothing totally out of left field.
The biggest risk I’ve taken in recent years was leaving my retail job before I had a totally clear idea of what I was going to do besides spend more time making and trying to sell my work. Usually, my risks look more like cutting up a mostly finished painting that I feel medium-good about in the hopes I can rearrange it and stitch it into something amazing, or running new kinds of painted materials through my sewing machine and hoping I don’t break something. If I don’t take risks within my art practice, my work will stagnate, and that doesn’t feel good. I need my work to evolve with me, or I’ll lose my connection to it. I know it’s time to change something when I feel bored with my process, when I feel like there’s nowhere else to go within the bounds of a certain body of work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.zoefinkelstein.myportfolio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/napnaptimetime/
