Interview with RUNA ROSINA MENGES

Welcome back to the Black Sheep Pen, this month's interview is particularly exciting as the artist, Runa Rosina Menges, comes from my (new) hometown. I really love Runa's painting style, I've featured some of her work on other blogs after falling in love with them. So much colour and energy. Runa also does animations, her latest is worth viewing here on YouTube, and she also sings and plays music. As you might imagine, Runa is also an inspirational teacher, a lot of the art coming out of her classes is energetic and very cool!

Please enjoy Runa's insights and art here this month.

Runa's self portrait

© Runa Rosina Menges, 2009

What inspires you in your creativity?

In the case of painting, there are many different ways of getting inspired for me. Sometimes I have a walk through a flea market, searching for nothing special and find an album filled with old black and white photos by acciddent in between all the other stuff. In these moments I am touched by the fact that nobody remembers those pictured persons anymore and feel the need to remember them my way, even if nobody else does. And sometimes I recall a memory of a family story and I just have to start working with it. The paintings you see here deal exclusively with the topic of family and show some memories of my childhood.

What is the process you apply to being creative in your field?

I´m not a sketchbook-person although I was always told an artist has to sketch everything before painting. However, I´m rather a person who writes down the ideas that come to my mind and it has never happened that I read those notes without knowing what I meant afterwards. I have a small studio under the roof of the house I´m living in. Its very important for me to work at home and I´d never want to live without my tiny studio, especially because it’s a room I can always retire to and work all by myself in, although I love peoples’ company in general. There are lots of nails on the wall, which is drowned in paint, so I can put on every size of canvas. When the moment of standing in front of it has come, planning the painting occures very quick. I draw the scenery on it, sit down for a few minutes ,staring, and if I agree with what I´m seing I start painting. Most of the time I´m not planning the colours to use at all and trust my senses to decide. When I´m having a “break” I sit down on the sofa in my studio again and gaze at the painting, always finding some parts that have the option of getting done much better, so most times the break doesn’t last for a very long time because I´m starting painting again, and gazing, and painting and gazing. Sometimes it happens that I already say to myself in the beginning: “Runa, this painting wont work out!” But I could never leave one unfinished, so I go on working and working until I feel contented with it. When I look at my painting and reach the feeling the scenery has come alive for me, I know I´m finished and I surprise myself very often.

Where does the confidence or motivation come from to keep doing what you do?

When I studied Fine Art at the Academy of Art and Design Offenbach I often brought my work to the lessons like everybody else did and we had a conversation about everybody’s tableau. In the beginning it often happened that I felt so proud of what I’d worked on because to me it meant a big step everytime. But as it always happens, there were critics that didn´t help me to move forward in any way and there were critics that helped me seeing my own work from another perspective. After feeling a bit dejected about the negative critics I felt new energy pushing me forward and worked on and on. The day came when I was so confident of my own work most criticism didn’t influence me anymore. That was the moment I started working free mindedly. An artist always produces something very personal and his/her art is a part of the artists personality. My paintings also represent a very personal part of myself. There will always be people who can’t accept me as a person. Why should I feel insecure if somebody can’t accept my art?

How do you evaluate your success as a creative person?

It depends on if you are talking about the financial or the personal success. (; For me everything is very exciting currently. My last “success” was my diploma when I finished studying. Now I´m starting to get connected to reality out there. I was never a dreamer so for me it was clear, it would be hard after finishing at the academy. At the moment I´m searching for new exhibitions to take part in and sending my animations to a lot of film festivals all over the world. I have several jobs dealing with art and I´m even working as a lecturer at the Academy I studied at. I don´t know if I´ll be successfull on the art market in future, if I´ll earn lots of money with my paintings or animations, but there’s one thing I´m already successfull with: I do what I always loved and I take the risk it offers.

Where should people start, when they don't know where to start?

The starting point always depends on the goal and theres no general recipe for it. As I´m teching painting to kids I always realise how freely kids paint. So, if you are a grown up: Try to turn off your brain before you feel the urge to create a masterpiece!

© all images and text Runa Rosina Menges

Thanks for sharing with us Rosina. I also find art is a very interesting and useful way of making and maintaining connections with the past. The creativity challenge for this month therefore is to create some kind of art work that in some way reflects the ways you have developed as an artist and a person over the past 10 years.