{"id":68981,"date":"2023-08-30T09:01:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T15:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=68981"},"modified":"2023-09-19T13:09:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T19:09:29","slug":"carly-white-creativity-through-constraint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/carly-white-creativity-through-constraint\/","title":{"rendered":"Carly White: Creativity Through Constraint"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Utah artist Carly White finds setting up constraints helps her become more creative.<\/p><\/div>\n

Carly White is easy to pick out in a crowd \u2014 her red hair and bright smile make sure of that. It\u2019s even easier to identify her as some sort of creative type, dressed as she often is in a perfectly styled, colorful mix of vintage and modern pieces, frequently accessorized with a fabulous hat. Only an artist could be so bold. It might also be easy, then, to pigeonhole her as the typically free-spirited artiste<\/em> allergic to authority and anything remotely resembling a rule. But that wouldn\u2019t be quite right.<\/h4>\n

White is<\/em> an artist. She paints boldly and well, with bright blocks of color and layers of spiritual symbolism. In recent years, she\u2019s seen commercial and competitive success: In 2022, her work “Waiting but a Little Longer” was selected in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u2019 12th International Art Competition, and another painting, “Faith Deconstruction,” was accepted by the Springville Museum of Art\u2019s 36th Annual Spiritual and Religious Art of Utah Exhibition. She\u2019s young. She\u2019s talented. She gets better every day. And she could not do that without what she knows to be her most valuable tool: constraints. For White, constraints are the gates to creativity.<\/h4>\n
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Carly White’s “Waiting but a Little Longer” (Oil and acrylic, 39 x 27 x 1.5 in.) was part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ 12th International Art Competition<\/p><\/div>\n

Her journey to becoming a disciplined artist might be traced back to her teacher, mentor and friend, J. Kirk Richards. In 2020, White was one of the first students invited to enroll in the JKR Academy. For White, the school was an answer to prayer. She was pregnant with her first child at the time and wondered if raising children meant putting away her paints. If she became Richards\u2019 student, she\u2019d be expected to be in classes just one month postpartum. Her art would face the constraints of new motherhood and new assignments simultaneously. But she knew that given the upcoming sore and sleepless nights, if she decided to paint \u201cwhenever she felt like it,\u201d she may not feel like it for a very long time. So on the first day of class, weeks after giving birth, White showed up with her pump and her paintbrush.<\/h4>\n

And as a full-time student and mother, her work exploded. \u201cIn the time I was with Kirk and a new mom,\u201d she says, \u201cI made more art than I ever had before.\u201d And \u201cbefore,\u201d she\u2019d been a full-time artist.<\/h4>\n
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Caryl White, “Faith Deconstruction,” oil and acrylic, 24 x 36 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the academy, Richards focused on turning his students into creative and disciplined artists through two types of assignments. At times, White recalls, the students were asked to do things like \u201cgo outside and throw dirt on paper, use whatever material you can see, and just have fun.\u201d At other times, they were expected to dive into the precise, theoretical science of the arts with assignments like cast drawing, precisely replicating a 3-D sculpture in their 2-D sketches. \u201cHe pushed us so hard in this direction,\u201d White remembers. \u201cWhen you think you\u2019re finished, you have another 40 hours to go.\u201d White and her classmates learned that being an artist is more than unrestrained originality \u2013 it is also technique and control. Recently, she repainted and redesigned a pre-JKR project. Side by side, the precision, elegance, and taste developed through careful training is obvious.<\/h4>\n