gradyrule / Heather rule grady

I cannot remember a time when I didn't draw or paint. I still have a doodle started in middle school that I filled in over the years and pencil drawings from high school; watercolors and drawings, pen and ink and sketches from college and grad school. Oh, and the acrylic and oil paintings that decorate our home. I wish I had the sketch of Norman Rockwell’s “The Runaway” I did in 6th grade. But so it goes.

inspiration has always been everywhere but also a bit fickle. When I was kicked off a confessional at Santa Maria del Popolo because the priest needed to start confession but I was not quite done drawing . . . when sketching “El Angel Caido” and writing My Spanish Sucks because a lovely man with his son stopped to take photos of me but I could not converse. . . the muses can be quirky.

My artwork has mostly been for me. A few commissions throughout the years, but mostly I have drawn and painted because something popped into my head, the monkeys posed, I liked a view, something made me smile or laugh or think in a new way. Or, I simply loved watching the water move or the the sun’s cast on the pavement.

I love art. I love learning about art and artists. I love detailing the world around me and dreaming about what could be. Sometimes images pop into my head or something swirls around in there and just needs to get out and find its voice.

It took a changing political climate to churn the juices that produced 26 sketches over 8 months featuring things I wanted to protect, things I was (and am) concerned are being attacked, taken away or diminished by those who do not understand their value. It took a phenomenal husband and partner who let me know it was time to paint the ideas and share them. And, he told me, I should share some other things, too. The passion has always been within, but the time, the ability to put myself out there, . . . needed a push.

As for inspiration, I find it everywhere. I am inspired by artists who drive movements forward and build their own worlds that explain and contextualize, make us laugh and question and want to do, be or feel something. Goya, Geisel, Rockwell, Degas, Bernini, Caravaggio, Turner, Delacroix, O’Keefe and so many more who redefined the world because they observed, thought, painted, and changed it.

I may not change the world, but I hope I bring something to those who view my work, be it motivation, joy, comfort, anger, hope, love, or any other myriad of emotions our being human allows us to be.