Meet Michelle S. Fillmore | Oil Painter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michelle S. Fillmore and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michelle, why did you pursue a creative career?
Art as a profession wasn’t something that was encouraged for me growing up. My father loved seeing the things I could create, and he was very proud of my abilities, but I think he was very nervous about allowing me to believe it could be something I could make a living off of. I don’t fault them for trying to dissuade me. It’s such a competitive industry, and a lot of it boils down to good timing, meeting the right people who can point you in the right direction. It takes so much time to develop a reputation, to build a brand, and after all that time and effort there’s no guarantee you’ll even find success. A lot of people give up. Mortgages need to be paid, kids need to be fed. I get why parents might not want that for their children.

All that to say, it was not something I came to right away. My first real act of defiance was switching to being an art major in college, but even then I didn’t really have a plan for what I would do for work. I knew I was good at it, and making art brought me joy, but that really didn’t mean anything. Fresh out of college, I assumed the best I could hope for would be to work in a gallery, perhaps get into museum work. I moved to the Bay Area as soon as I graduated, and I got an internship at a gallery. It was then, I took a look around the gallery and thought “well shit, I can do that.” I was technically already doing it. My first workspace in the Bay was the kitchen floor of a tiny basement one bedroom apartment I shared with a 40-something year old man I found on craigslist. If my memory serves me, the kitchen had the best light.

Making art has always been a compulsion. The thing that pushed me into making art as a career was initially pure ambition, I wanted to prove to myself I could get into the galleries, the museum shows, because I wanted to believe I was actually good enough. And then it transformed into something more fulfilling. I thought I could win hearts and minds by trying to make things that were devoid of anything from my personal life, and dazzle them with my ability alone. But a friend once accused my work of lacking substance, because I didn’t put any of myself in it. And that scared me. The alternative would mean I would have to share my personal life for everyone to see, I’d have to stand in front of crowds of strangers at art openings and art talks and bear my soul to them. Which, as it turns out, is precisely what I do now, and I do struggle with it, but here’s why I’m doing it. I grew up with someone that struggled with mental illness and never once accepted it, out of pure disdain for being saddled with what they considered such an abhorrent, embarrassing diagnosis. And to be fair, schizoaffective disorder is a brutal disease, but them choosing to ignore it shaped my entire childhood. Painting any part of myself would inevitably include that part of my life.

But, then it occurred to me that if everyone treated mental illnesses a bit more like diseases like diabetes, something that was a pain in the ass but was treatable and felt less like social suicide, then maybe more people in the future will choose to address it. Maybe if I talk about how difficult it is for family members, especially ones that feel isolated, to get help for their affected loved ones, the systems we currently have can improve. Just having to live with certain circumstances for so many decades make it feel impossible that anything could actually change. I understand that feeling of hopelessness very well. So, I decided to build a painting career around things that actually mattered to me, include more of my own demons and my insecurities. The thing that drives me to paint now is a desire to normalize talking about mental health, and more broadly to celebrate a person’s ability to overcome their own prisons. To give people hope that change is possible. I’m fascinated by psychology, I love people.

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.
So I got here today by moving to a part of the country that has more interest and support for local art. Initially the plan was to try out gallery assistant work, make a career solely on selling other people’s paintings, and then I decided to cut all pretense and just go for the thing I actually wanted to do. After that, it was a lot of odd jobs that could keep me afloat just enough to pay my rent while I painted. I ended up living on my cousin’s couch at one point. Bless him for letting me do that. In fact, I owe a lot of my success to my friends and family. I was able to paint on my cousin’s balcony and my grandma’s living room while I found my feet. Eventually, I found rent I could afford in Oakland and I painted on the floor in my room. I’ve dealt with a lot of challenges to get to where I am now, but I’ve also been incredibly fortunate in other ways. The very first gallery that I submitted work to took me immediately. I cried in the car on my way home from my first drop off, I was so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the moment.

But in the year or so I supplied work to them, they didn’t sell anything. The lesson I took away from that experience was that they didn’t actually rely on painting sales to keep the place open, they relied on their jewelry. Also, it was my first sign that maybe my work doesn’t move as easily in suburban based galleries. All that to say, it didn’t dissuade me in the slightest. Sure, a part of me felt humiliated, but the logical side of me knows to take experiences like these as lessons in how the industry works, not as signs that I’m a failure. Soon after that, I met my mentor Carol and it helped discovering that she had a similar experience with that very same gallery. She let me paint at her house rent free for about 7 years. Another lucky break. It got me out of my bedroom and I didn’t have to pay for it on top of my rent. She connected me to SHOH Gallery, and I had a lot more success from that point forward. I had my first solo show there. Eventually I would branch out of the Bay Area and take on LA as well, and that road led me to Artspace Warehouse. That’s when I really started to feel like I found a foothold in the art industry.

The last odd job I did was Trader Joes, I worked there during the pandemic. That’s relevant because one of the paintings I submitted for the de Young Open 2020, titled “The Essential Worker”, was a painting of the conditions grocery store employees endured during that time, and that got into the museum show (the second painting titled “The Escape Artist” also got in). One painting I’m particularly proud of is titled “Autonomy”. It was painted in response to Roe V. Wade being overturned and that got into the de Young 2023 Open. It represents a decision I made to start painting more about political topics. My goal moving forward is to focus on the psychological impacts of certain social/political forces in an effort to expose the things that try to divide us. I paint themes of transformation to encourage people that change is possible, mental health awareness is important to me, and that will continue. Paying attention to trends, be they environmental, social or political, has a psychological impact. It has an emotional cost. I want to pick up the threads I see, all the fear and the noise, and weave together themes that will reveal all the ways we are all alike.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well, I’ll take any excuse to go to Forbidden Island. It’s my favorite tiki bar in Alameda. They have old movies playing at the bar and their drinks are killer. Rodeo Beach is a beautiful, easy hiking spot, and you get a nice look at Golden Gate Bridge on the way out. The Redwood Regional Park is also a good hiking spot, that was my go to hiking spot when I lived in Oakland. I’d have to drag them over to the de Young at some point, maybe grab lunch and eat it in the park surrounding the museum. I love comedy shows, so maybe I’d try to find a comedian my friend and I would like to go see. Cobb’s and The Punchline are good venues. Then I’d take them to get Ethiopian food because if we’re going out for dinner, we have to get Ethiopian food at some point. Enssaro is a good place in Oakland. If we get sushi, I’d take them to Yojimbo in Alameda. They have fun anime on the walls and I love their food.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’m so glad you have this section. I’d like to mention my mentor, Carol Aust, for showing me the ropes of the business. For helping me navigate everything from art concepts to emails to galleries. She showed me that having a successful painting career and raising a family at the same time is actually possible. She also helped me find the courage to paint from the heart, to paint the truth.

Website: michellefillmore.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelle.e.f/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichelleElizabethFillmore