Renee Dumont

To be honest with you, it's the people in my life and the support that I've gained. Beginning from when I was a child, my mother loved art, and even when I went to college, she always helped me to study. When I was struggling with art history, she would make it fun so that when I'd sit down and have a test, I'd kind of laugh my way through it. My husband loves art and I always call him my best critic. He's in the graphics industry, so we can connect those two worlds. Sometimes people discourage you, like 'oh, you want to be an artist?' They don't see the value in it. But my husband's passion is probably just as much as mine, if not sometimes even more. If I didn't have him, I don't think I'd be where I am. I also had a mentor early in my career - I worked for a man who was very military and very serious. He would say 'you paint what you see, kid!' and really get on me. That created the very foundation because he made me work hard and showed me this is not something that's a hobby you're gonna play with - this is something very serious and you're gonna have to work hard at it. I was fortunate enough to bump into that opportunity very early in my career.

I think it's all about emotion - where our emotions stem from. For myself, it's a combination, almost like a connection of romance with flowers and mature trees. It's my surroundings, my connection, my love for my surroundings, the emotions, my faith, my challenges. I would say to somebody who wants to be creative is to find what's very deep and that expression of what you're trying to convey, again based on our emotions. For me, there's no negativity - I know some people like to show something kind of gloomy, but mine is always uplifting. My very desire is peace and something that's uplifting in spite of our everyday challenges. That's what I would tell them - speak their deep emotions, but for myself, I'm always trying to convey something that's going to be peaceful, calming, uplifting, in spite of living in this chaotic world.