Gathering Inspiration From Artist Anna Hultin
Originally Published in Rooted. Grab a copy here to see all the dreamy pictures! ❤️
Gathering Inspiration From Anna Hultin
Tell us a little about yourself.
My life revolves around raising my children, making art, and teaching. In our home in Loveland, Colorado, my family and I use our tiny city lot, to explore our connection to land. The plants we grow there both nourish our family and become the subjects of my work, accompanying my thread paintings (or embroideries) of the vast plains just beyond the city border. Life, art, and land have become inextricably entwined in my life. As a busy, homeschooling mom of three, I find it a reflective process to sit down and spend time with each hand-stitched creation I make. My art and my life, aim to savor the little moments of mundane, overlooked beauty of each day.
Can you share with us your journey as an artist?
As a third grader, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I kept sketchbooks full of drawings of imaginary places and moments of beauty (mostly inspired by the story Sense and Sensibility, which captured my imagination as a young girl). My grandma taught me how to paint around this time. When I am picking out thread colors, I can still hear her voice reminding me to find the darkest darks and lightest lights to keep a full range of value.
Somewhere between third grade and my senior year in high school, I lost sight of my artistic ambitions and no longer considered it something I wanted to pursue past a part-time hobby. As a student busy writing my college essays about why I wanted to become a landscape architect I found myself in a humanities class I absolutely hated. To my great delight, my counselor told me that I could get out of that class if I took an art class instead. The next day, I found myself in a drawing class. Pretty soon, all I could think about was the grid drawing we were working on. When I finally got to class and picked up my pencil, it felt like my whole world stilled and silenced. I was hooked. My teacher submitted that drawing for a scholarship, and to my surprise, I got it! Before I knew it, I was registering for classes toward a BFA in Drawing and Art Education.
After graduating from CSU, I created large-scale conceptual drawings and installations and was very much involved in the gallery community in Denver. After my first son’s birth, I wanted a change. I didn’t have a studio at the time and creating large scale installations didn’t feel feasible anymore. I also needed the mental break from conceptual art so I decided to pick up a needle and thread with the simple desire to learn an age-old craft. Something my grandmother might have done in her time. Little did I know where it would lead me! When I first started, I focused mainly on realistically depicting plants and trees in the style of botanical illustration. I did a few abstract landscape studies with embroidery (much like what my old drawing used to be), but I was never fully happy with them. During the start of the pandemic when we were isolating at home I started working in the studio much more and my work rapidly evolved. I started incorporating more of my abstract landscape ideas and my current style became cemented.
Can you describe your embroidery style and share some of the unique processes you use?
With a background (and first love) in drawing I think of thread as line and approach embroidery as drawing with thread. When I first picked up a needle I only bothered to learn three stitches (the satin stitch, backstitch, and French knot) and used these basic stitches to make the thread do what I wanted it to. I am not a perfectionist (just take a look at the back of any of my hoops for proof), but I’ve come to think of this as a superpower. It frees me to try out totally untraditional ideas. I’m not afraid to make my stitches five inches long, or to see what will happen if I use yarn instead of embroidery floss or leave strands of thread hanging outside of the hoop. Because of this, I have developed unique ways to build compositions and use fabric collaging, watercolor, layers of tulle, or wool roving in combination with embroidery to create abstract landscapes.
Where do you find your inspiration?
When I first moved to Colorado as a middle schooler, I was horrified by the lack of trees, the lack of moisture, and by the incessant presence of the sun and horizon line. Over time, I slowly started absorbing the landscape, accepting it for what it was, and eventually (to my own disbelief), I started seeing beauty. Fast forward 20 years, and now I see beauty in every grass, shadow, and rock of this windswept landscape, but not where one might expect. Many look to the grandeur of the mountains for their inspiration. I look to the subtle shades of brown in the native grasses for mine. In this way I have connected to the land where I live. This need for connection to my place in the world drives all of my work.
What opportunities have occured from your art?
When I picked up a needle and thread eight years ago I never thought it would lead to the things it has! I have had the opportunity to go to San Francisco to film classes with Creativebug, work on a permanent installation for the Denver Children’s Museum, make an embroidery hoop for NBC Sports (that was one of the more random opportunities!), fly to Madrid to film classes with Domestika, and last but not least to publish a book about my work (coming out in October). I was honestly a little embarrassed about my embroidery during the first few years I was doing it. As a recently graduated art student, picking up a “craft” and opening an Etsy shop was something I judged myself harshly for. It turns out that it was the start of something beautiful in my life, and I’m not embarrassed about it anymore.
Tell us a little bit about your online courses.
I consider myself just as much of a teacher as I am an artist. I have always loved teaching, and have a degree in Art Education (along with Drawing). Sadly when I did my student teaching, I absolutely hated it (that is a story for another time). I promised myself I’d never enter into the public school system because I knew it would quickly kill my artistic soul. Because I really do love to teach I jump at any opportunity to do online classes or short term workshops. So when Creativebug and Domestika reached out to me, it was an easy “yes!”
Both companies found me through Instagram, and they both had similar models where they brought me out to their studio to film the class. It was an intense experience to be under the lights and on camera, but I actually loved the process. What’s nice about filming a class is that you can stop at any point and rephrase something that didn’t make sense.
I filmed my Creativebug classes in 2020, and those are really focused on my non-landscape work. One class covers stitching evergreens, the other is about thread painting flowers, and the final one is about how to incorporate pressed plants into embroidery. In my Domestika class I teach students how to make an abstract landscape. It covers everything from gathering inspiration, to sketching, to using nontraditional materials like watercolor, all the way to a finished piece.
How do you find the time to create?
To my surprise, when I had my first baby nearly eight years ago, I became more productive with my art than ever. The daily rhythm of rising early, taking care of my children, and then working during their naptime has led to the creation of countless works of art in the past seven years. I am also a homebody. My ideal day involves drinking a cup of coffee, working in my garden, going on a walk, and working in the studio. My husband is the same way, and I think that this kind of life helps me make the time to create art because it keeps our time pretty simple and uncluttered. I’m also very good at keeping boundaries around “rest time” in our home for all three kids, and this is when I do my work. After all this time, I still look forward to it every day.
Looking back, what are you most proud of accomplishing?
I think writing a book has been my proudest accomplishment! When I signed a contract with my publisher about two years ago and I knew I had nine months to hand in a 40,000-word manuscript and a few months after that to create thirty different embroideries to be featured in the book. I honestly didn’t know if I’d be able to do it. Lo and behold, I wrote it, I stitched them, and am so proud of myself! It was an intense process that was a lot different than my usual studio work, but it was so fun, and I can’t wait to do it again.
How does your faith influence your art?
While my work isn’t religious in theme, I do see it as a reflection of my faith. Christ looked onto the most desolate and miserable of mankind and sought love there. I think this is a practice that we can do not only in relationships but also in how we love the land around us. Looking for beauty in the overlooked parts of a landscape, to me, reflects an attitude of awe and reverence towards every living thing that is part of creation.
I also lean on my faith for how I approach my art as a career. One of my favorite quotes is from Corrie Ten Boom, who said, “Hold all things loosely, lest it hurt when God pries your hands open.” This idea has shaped the way I see my art career. I love getting to do what I do, I’m so proud of the opportunities I’ve had, but at the end of the day, if I’m holding onto it too tightly, it will hurt when I have to let it go. This helps me see what I do as a gift, and not something I have to strive for, and it’s helped me have a healthy relationship with my work.
