Featured Artist Cary Goldberg

Artist Cary Goldberg presents a collection of joyful, highly patterned abstract drawings. Visit her website to see more of her work.

 

 

I knew I wanted to be an artist when I was eight years old.

 

 

My dad worked as a typesetter and would bring home reams of newsprint to draw on. One summer day, I was sitting on the back porch drawing with my crayons when my mom called me in for lunch. So, it’s noontime and I head indoors, leaving my crayons out in the midday sun. When I came back out, there was a beautiful mess of color where my crayons had melted on the paper. I don’t remember what I was drawing, but I can still feel the rush of creation.

 

 

Fast forward to my junior year in high school. I knew I wanted to go to either Pratt or Parsons in New York City to study design. Unfortunately, my art teacher convinced my parents that art was not a career for a woman—hard to believe but true—so I ended up majoring in Art Education. Even before I graduated, I realized that I really, really hated teaching.

 

 

My life took off in a completely different direction. I lived and worked in the music industry in New York and Los Angeles and enjoyed a fabulous forty-year career hanging out with legendary rock stars, going on tour and attending awards shows.

 

 

Still, I longed to be creating. I had continued drawing, took a few graphics night classes, applied to and was accepted to the California College of Arts and Crafts. But I put all that on hold because ultimately my life was too much fun and far too fulfilling to make a drastic change.

 

 

Until it wasn’t. That need to create just wouldn’t be ignored. Nearly twenty years ago, I bought some Copic markers and began to draw abstract forms and complex patterns. I fell more in love with color than I ever had been. I began working small, eventually moving on to larger pieces.

 

 

As I created, I called upon the universe to tell me what my drawings were about and realized that I was expressing my metaphysical and spiritual interests through color.

 

 

I recently began to take my abstract technique in a more figurative direction. My company name, Contrary Cat Art, is in honor of the four cats I’ve had in my life—all of them very, very contrary.

 

 

 

At art shows, people kept approaching my booth expecting to see art featuring cats. I finally capitulated and begin drawing first cats and then dogs. Now dog owners want me to capture their pet’s specific breed in the vibrant, colorful style that is the hallmark of my work!

 

 

I love turning my work into useable art as featured on my website as Artsy Products. I sell scarves, throw pillows, kimonos, mugs and much more. As I head into “retirement,” I am excited at the prospect of launching a second career creating and selling the work I love to do. I wish I could find that high school art teacher and show him that art is, indeed, a career for a woman.

 

Artist Cary Goldberg invites you to follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

 

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