How would you describe Staci Cross? Empathetic, maternal, creative, curious, complicated, intuitive, affectionate, active, anxious and wishful
What is your earliest memory of making art? My earliest memory of making art was in kindergarten when often times I would feign a stomachache so I could skip recess and stay inside (avoiding the hot/humid Corpus Christi, TX weather) in order to continue using the finger paints and watercolors. Worked like a charm.
Did you study art or is it inherent? Both. I come from a creative lineage. My mom is an interior designer and I’ve always loved color, but I took every opportunity to continue the process in school. Took art as an elective every year, and as an adult, I studied at the Brentwood Art Center in Santa Monica.
Do you have words that you live by? Words to live by: don’t take yourself too seriously, drink a lot of water, laugh as much as possible, and keep your ear to the grindstone.
Best advice you ever received in regards to your career as an artist? It would have to be the entirety of a book called “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. It pushed me out of the amateur zone and into the professional world. Every person on the planet should read it, not just artists.
How do you define success? I define success as the physical, spiritual and emotional self living in perfect harmony.
What advice would you give putative collectors? I would say to ask yourself how do you want the art in your space to make you feel? Ask yourself “do I want to feel centered? Energetic? Controversial?” And go with what you love. There is no right or wrong.
How would you like to be seen as an artist years from now? I would like to have a healthy trajectory in the art world where collectors, galleries and other studios welcome my work into their worlds.
Why make art? I make art because I cannot NOT make art. It boils up inside and it must come out. Also, its nice to know that something I created might find its way halfway around the world creating an emotional response (either positive or negative) in a person I’ve never met nor will ever meet.
The future is _________? The future is resilient.
Do you have a place/person/thing that you visit for inspiration? My studio.
If you could have dinner with 3 artists living/dead who would be at your table? Obviously Picasso, Basquiat and Helen Frankenthaler
Three things you can’t live without in your studio? Besides paint and canvas I would say music, floor space, and my industrial size fan.
