Today we’d like to introduce you to Angela Pitts.
Hi Angela, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Even as a young kid, I was a natural observer. Quiet and reserved, I enjoyed noticing details and creating drawings, paintings, and crafts. As a teenager, I discovered the camera and enjoyed taking pictures of my home, my life, and travels. During my senior year in high school, my parents divorced, and I was left dealing with extreme loss right in the middle of a huge life transition. So, I ended up turning to the visual arts to work through my underlying grief. Specifically, photography, as I imagined it catching time and freezing it, much like I longed to do in my childhood. College was the first time I was able to experiment with the darkroom and understand light in a new way. I fell in love with making images, printing silver gelatin images, and learning about the visual arts. Before that, most of my artistic expression was in music, so the visual arts felt like a new exploration for me, and I knew I wasn’t done learning at the end of my Bachelor’s degree. Studying photography in graduate school helped me develop more artistic and digital skills which helped me eventually set up a family photography business.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I continued with my Graduate Studies and moved from Baylor to University of North Texas to continue my focus in photography. During that time, the shift from film to digital was an inevitable direction, so I learned the digital side of photography and made more work about grief. Something about nostalgia has always been a theme in my work, and during that season, my grandmother and her sister were both diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the same time. I was curious about how each daughter would take the news. How each of us would cope with the reality set before us. The thing about Alzheimer’s is that you transition back in time. She shifted to a time before we were. She traveled back and thought she was young again. She wouldn’t remember me, but she always remembered her mother. So, I had each daughter write their name, their mother’s name, and the words ” I will always remember where I came from”. Even in the fear that we might one day have the disease, we would always remember her. That was our declaration.
After achieving my MFA, I started teaching at Dallas Baptist University while simultaneously building a family portrait business. I was eager to be successful and threw myself into producing work for others. It kept me busy and kept my creative process alive, but ultimately, I burned out. On top of that, my personal family was growing, having 3 kids in 4 years. My children have brought new life to someone like me who is obsessed with the past. They challenge me every day and I photograph them every single day. I noticed that even in the midst of some of the most precious times of my life, having my babies and seeing them grow, I was still grieving. Grieving some of the artistic dreams I had had, or the goals I had set for myself that had to be set aside for a time. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade the time at home with my little ones. They are my heart and soul, and the best creations I will ever participate in producing. But these small bouts of grief I was seeing in myself, and some of my friends inspired new work. Deciding to become vulnerable and open up about those feelings really inspired the work I completed in 2019, during an artist residency with Art House Dallas.
When the pandemic hit, I was once again at a crossroads. Tired of the digital mediums, I turned to painting murals on the walls of my home during quarantine. I absolutely was healing my own burnout through each brush stroke. It really changed my perspective and last year, I partnered with a fellow artist friend to complete a massive mural in Downtown McKinney, called No Place Better. I am venturing into this new work of murals, but also embracing mixed media, using textile, paint, and photography all to express my artistic vision. I’m excited to see where it leads.
I will say, knowing that I can pivot to different forms of expression, from photography to paint to textile work has freed up my creativity. I know now that I don’t have to fit in one category. I can make art in many different ways, and still be me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As of now, I am a muralist and mixed media artist. A day that I get to paint, it is always a good day. I will forever be a creator and learner as I make artwork by combining unexpected mediums and techniques such as hand stitching, cyanotype, and watercolor painting. Investigations of emotions, trials, and growth are thematic throughout my bodies of work. I work with fabric, image transfers, and alternative processes with photography to tell stories through my pieces. I find value in the printed images, antique quilts, and simple needles and thread. I believe there is power in starting meaningful conversations about our need to live authentic lives in community with one another and to share our suffering and struggles from day to day. I am most proud of the mural No Place Better in McKinney because it broke so many limited beliefs I had put on myself originally.
What’s next?
I hope to have more opportunities to paint murals, I participated in the Millhouse Mural Fest in McKinney in June 2022. I want to continue to make and sell art and open up for more commission opportunities. I’m currently the Visual Art Lead for a non-profit Art House Dallas, whose mission is to bring creatives together for the common good of the city. We host events for visual artists, musicians, and writers in the Dallas area. The Art House Dallas community has elevated my own artistic endeavors and I’m thrilled to be a part of the team now.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.angelacristonpitts.com, www.arthousedallas.com
- Instagram: @angelacristonpitts
- Facebook: @angelacristonpitts
