Bringing my Art to California By Alyssa Blount
Bringing my Art to California
By Alyssa Blount
Some choices change your life to the core. My family and I moved here from North Carolina in September and it’s one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. In the last few months I’ve experienced some big culture shock. But I’ve also discovered a community that’s uniquely appreciative of my artwork.
My name is Alyssa Blount and I’m a professional artist and mother of two. My husband is the new manager of the historic La Venta Inn. We moved here for the fantastic opportunity at La Venta and the first thing that I noticed about this slice of California was the beautiful amount of diversity. In the Charlotte region of North Carolina, I never once heard someone speaking Japanese. I never saw more than one type of mushroom in the grocery store. But here, the playground is full of different languages and different people. And the Asian grocery markets have more varieties of vegetables than I ever thought possible.
Just like there’s more diversity in people and vegetables, there’s more diversity in styles of art and creativity. You can see this in little things, like how high-end neighborhoods in the Carolinas had less architectural variance from house to house than in this area. Uniqueness is appreciated here from the homes to the gardens. It’s okay to be a little different. Last night, I went out to Handel’s Ice Cream in Redondo Beach and I felt comfortable wearing my leather boots and stylish jacket. It might sound strange, but in the south, I may have gotten some questionable looks for dressing up at an ice cream shop. Funky beauty is not only accepted here, but it flourishes here.
The art community in Palos Verdes is especially welcoming. I am in the early stages of meeting the impactful and fascinating artists and art collectors on the hill, and I’m overwhelmed by the kindness and warmth this community has towards art. It’s a breath of fresh air!
I was trained as an Appalachian weaver as part of my work-study at Berea College in Kentucky. I later graduated with a degree in psychology and art. My art has evolved and I am now a resin artist. I preserve flowers such as funeral florals or wedding bouquets. I first started working with resin in 2015 as a way to add gloss and complexity to my paintings. But then I started to play with the idea of using resin in sculptural formats, preserving dried flowers suspended in space.
While I was able to follow the recipe book for weaving rugs, I had to go through a painful process of trial and error to develop my process for resin art. For example, I found that I often have to use a blow torch to properly warm the resin. My craft is unusual in that there is both natural and chemical elements just as there is a traditional component to the flowers and an untraditional component to the resin. To reduce bubble and resin wrinkles, the process often takes a few weeks, as I pour the resin layer by layer. My artistic process is more than just preserving the flowers and using the right tools and resin. It has to do with arranging the flowers in a display that balances both color and composition.
To arrange my florals, I’m constantly thinking of the rule of thirds. I have an old chalkboard where I play with the florals beforehand to map out the arrangement. For some of my art pieces, I’ll arrange the florals into a mini bouquet before immersing the bouquet bit by bit with resin.
I’m a mom of a toddler and an eight month old so life can get a bit crazy. Nico, my toddler, started his first day at preschool in Rancho Palos Verdes last month (we’ve been searching for the right fit, and we love the school we found!). This means more time for art, and I’ve already begun meeting some local florists who service weddings and other events in the South Bay.
The market here has the breadth and creative depth needed to support my full time work and I’m thrilled to dive into the community. Thank you for your warm welcome thus far, and I’m thrilled for the future.
The next time you have florals from a special moment in your life, please think of me.
Alyssa Blount
Bio
I've always been passionate about showing emotion through my medium. I remember being 8-years-old and constantly told, "You need to color in between the lines!" But I never did. I liked to blend colors and make my own lines, and I'm still doing this today.
I was born In Des Moines, Iowa and I now reside in South Bay, Los Angeles, California. I attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and later transferred to Berea College. I earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology with a Concentration in Art from Berea College in 2015. I then moved to NC and was an early adopter for the resin art movement. I now work to share my raw, emotional paintings to start REAL conversions with my audience. What does it mean to preserve an emotion? I want you to FEEL when you see my work.
In this fast-paced world, we often by-pass the beauty swirling around us. We walk by the small flowers next to the sidewalk and the fleeting blooms on the trees. We forget to savor the colors cascading all around us. I want to capture this fleeting beauty and allow my audience to focus on it with purpose.
I am always experimenting and I’m currently working to sell my work online via NFTs.
I have two styles of art: "fluid" and "layering." The fluid style involves an intensive and precise resin process, while the layering style is a liberating process using chalk pastels and acrylics. With both styles, I aim to create miniature worlds where meaning grows as the viewer looks deeper into the canvas. I narrow in on an emotion, often one that's especially hard to verbalize, and express it through the interplay of mediums and colors.
My fluid style is the core of my floral resin work, where I preserve floral memories from weddings or funerals. I encase precisely dried florals into a beautiful resin mold.
My compositions often appear simple at first, and hard to grasp. But with the starting point of the piece's title, meaning emerges. The matching lines and angles slowly solidify; the designs beneath the paint become visible; and suddenly the viewer comes to see what I try to show: a feeling. Similarly, our own feelings are often deeper, more complex, and harder to grasp than we like to admit.
I'm especially interested in commissioned pieces for private homes. Finding where I can translate my client's visual and emotional wish into reality is a rewarding experience. If you're interested in learning more please contact me!
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