Meet Phyllis Chumley Martinez | Artist and Teacher

We had the good fortune of connecting with Phyllis Chumley Martinez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Phyllis, why did you pursue a creative career?
I feel like art chose me. Many of my earliest memories involve making art. I’m the youngest of five kids from a poor family that moved to the city from Appalachia following WWII, and our family culture was to make what you needed instead of going to the store. I was always making “art” with whatever was available. I modelled people and animals from mud, carved animals from sticks, sewed dolls and clothes with scrap cloth, and I drew and painted pictures on every page of the newspaper. I never wanted to be anything except an artist. I eventually got a BFA with a focus on printmaking and ceramics, and then freelanced in illustration and graphic design until my children were born. The irregular hours (and the even more irregular remittance schedule of some of my clients) became unmanageable. I began to work as a substitute teacher and discovered that I absolutely loved teaching early literacy. I taught kindergarten and first grade for the better part of 20 years, always including art instruction as part of my classes. I never stopped drawing and painting on my own, but was unable to truly center my artwork. When I retired, I began to see myself as an artist again. I returned to figure drawing, painting and printmaking. A few years ago, I impulsively decided to sculpt some of the forms from my paintings, so I bought 25 pounds of clay. That led me to purchase a second hand kiln, and nowadays most of my work is in ceramics. I find working with clay very fulfilling – it feels like an artistic home. I’ve participated in group shows and recently had my first solo show at Shoebox Projects. It’s gratifying to pull the parts of my life experience and interests together in my current work.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am proud to be the first artist in my family, and I think that my background sets me apart. My people have been in southern Virginia for more than 200 years, mostly as landless agricultural labor. My mother was born in a log cabin her father built and started in the tobacco fields as soon as she could work. She insisted on going to school, becoming the first in her family to graduate from high school. My father served in the Navy during WWII, leaving him physically wounded and psychologically traumatized. My parents moved to Baltimore after the war, so my siblings and I were the first generation to grow up in the city and, at my mother’s insistence, to go to college. At the same time, we were low income; our home was full of alcoholism, physical and verbal abuse, and sexual abuse I have trouble remembering but can’t forget. Going to college changed everything for me. I learned to look at the world in a completely different way from my extended family. In some ways, it’s a painful, incomplete break. The class perspective I come from is embedded in my genes: I anticipate being kicked around, kicked out. Like many migrants, I don’t fit in where I grew up or where my parents came from. Like many first generation college grads, I’m not at ease with the class shift that comes with education. And I live with PTSD from my childhood abuse.

It was easy for me to give up my illustration career and become a teacher in my early 30s because I was raised to despise selfishness, be industrious and put others first, and to pretend bad things didn’t happen. I’m proud that I taught hundreds of people to read, but while I was a teacher, the artist in me ached like phantom pain from a lost limb. Since retiring, I’ve worked hard to claim the right to be an artist and make authentic art. I’ve educated myself about internalized trauma and CPTSD. I’ve persisted in developing my technique, voice and perspective to create work that speaks to my reality: finding allegories for trauma and violence, addressing the cancer I’ve dealt with over the last few years, telling my story with honesty and humor. I’m an emerging artist at an age when many people have established careers. I’ve had to summon the confidence to submit my work to shows, but I recently won a juried show leading to my first solo show at Shoebox Arts. I’m hard at work in the studio again and feel more myself than I have in years. My central lesson has been to keep orienting to the art that comes from my core, to trust my art to tell my story, and to be industrious: keep working.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I love Los Angeles because it is so big that it has room for everything and everyone. I like for first time visitors to LA to see the city from the Observatory so they can begin to understand the layout. My husband grew up in City Terrace and for years worked in the post office next to Union Station, so I’m fond of downtown and drag guests all over, to eat in Little Tokyo and then to the Central Library, the Broad and MOCA, Grand Central Market, even Olvera Street (our kids were baptized at La Placita). Visitors need to experience Santee Alley and if they sew, Michael Levine’s. My guests have to put up with my taste for art and science: I love the Natural History Museum and the Rose Garden. The tar pits are unique to Los Angeles: guests won’t see anything like them anywhere else, and they’re right next to the beautiful Pavilion for Japanese Art. I’ll drag them to the Getty and Getty Villa, and we’ll also be going to the Long Beach Aquarium, MOLAA, and the Bolsa Chica estuary, the tidepools in Little Corona and Laguna, with a visit to the Laguna Art Museum, too. Maybe a whale or dolphin watching tour on a zodiac boat from Dana Point. I love botanical gardens and the Arboretum, so the Huntington Library is usually included, and before the fires, a hike through Eaton Canyon to the waterfall. Who knows when that will again be possible?

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have two. When I retired from teaching and returned to making art, the remarkable faculty at Cerritos College supported me as an artist. They helped to hone my skills and encouraged me to be confident, so I thank Hagop Najarian, Andrea Bersaglieri, Sergio Teran, Audra Graziano and Anthony Gonzalez. Kristine Schomaker and Shoebox Arts have been essential to learning how to show my work and develop community.

Website: under construction

Instagram: @Fyllys

Facebook: PhyllisChumleyMartinez

Other: Fyllys.art@gmail.com