Please book mark this site and check back I am making big changes, see below:) Thanks.
Rebekah Higgins is a visionary artist who uses art and eclectic shamanism as tools for personal, spiritual and social healing and transformation. Her work can be as poignant and deep as it is whimsical. She works with our divinity and our humanity, spirit and flesh with equal devotion. Her prolific range of works are made cohesive by her strong intentional palettes and the visible evidence of drawing. Her personal explorations into the nature of consciousness have led to understanding the deeper responsibilities that come with increased sensitivity to connectedness. She likes to make work that starts a conversation that can continue without her and then go make another one. Some people now call that a social object. She still calls it art.
Rebekah is the youngest of eight children born of Scottish immigrants. She is a first generation American, being the first in her family to be born in the states. Born of an engineer father and an artist mother she is equal parts analysis, intuition and conflict.
She has always been an artist, teacher and healer.
She makes large-scale limited edition prints of hand drawn type, imaginative realities and various types of hand held sized ACEO's (artists' cards, editions and originals). She is a professor of art and design and provides services in energy and shamanic healing and coaching, consulting and public speaking on the topic of any of it. Her favorite place to be is where these areas come together to party.
She completed her formal studies at Pratt Institute, has taught as several Philadelphia art schools and is currently a full-time professor.
NEWS FLASH: NEW VISION STATEMENT
I have the ambition to ultimately put 50% of all of my income to community projects. I am not able to do it yet, but am taking big steps towards that goal. (Please check out the "Shelter Babies and Former Street Kids™ project.) I would like to make a foundation for us, a freely offered "TED talks for freaks" that focuses on consciousness research, healing, art, innovative design and creative processes. I would like to support the research and use of plant medicines. I want to start a non-for-profit art and design center dedicated to the human spirit and beautifying, inspiring and solving problems on micro and macro levels. I want to help animals and be a better steward of the universe. I want to keep healing. I want to make God proud. And I am inviting in the finances and community resources to make it all happen.
Let me confess...I don't see the Buddha in everyone, especially when looking for a parking spot. I have a pretty little house and I like raucous parties, oysters, delicious wine and choice handbags. I think life should be enjoyed without guilt. I can be greedy, petty, jealous, hypocritical and guarded. I have not been above pimping myself. I think being an artist requires both nobility and selfishness. Then why am I trying to do what I know my father would think is crazy talk? Well, I seem to just be getting over that head-stuck-up-ass virus that’s been going around and experiencing an ongoing acceleration of deprogramming from the cult-ure. The system we live in is unsustainable...not just in terms of physical resources which everyone reading this is aware of, but also unsustainable for emotional, intellectual and spiritual health...and we are asked to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." Pretend and pretend and pretend then just go eat something. The pursuit of more without higher purpose is not OK, it is exploitation, we are going to implode on our fucking selves...I want to stop pretending and do something differently. Anything. Something. Now. I have never been a political animal and I don't have it to get behind everything I want to. It takes me forever to write (right about now I wish I had taken the required girls’ typing class rather than having staged a protest to get into woodshop) and I can’t sing a note. I am just an artist and what I can do is make art more purposefully and send the rest of the world a “Get Well Soon” card. Once you take the red pill there's no going back...apparently I was drunk and took two.
See this awesome talk by Terrence Mckenna about culture and the role of art
We are all better able to do our jobs when we can focus on the work without being invested in the outcome and yet as a culture we are constantly forced to focus on the um...outcome. Crazy right? I'm not saying facebook all day and don't produce anything. I mean be completely invested in DOING the work, success or failure be damned. There are countless studies showing that working directly for incentive, grades, money, reward etc kills creativity. It is the roach motel for higher-level problem solving. How can creating new illnesses for existing drugs to increase profits be considered "more productive" than the chemist toiling away, maybe without immediate results or any results, to produce actual cures?...or the artist who provides beauty or changes the way we see things? How in the HELL did we let ourselves get here?
Things started accelerating for me personally when rather than waiting for permission to be an artist, for someone to pay me to be an artist, for me to have the time to be an artist or be well enough to be an artist, I simply decided to BE AN ARTIST.
Good start, but then I figured out that the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” notion is a LIE too. It isn't the whole picture. Yes, step into your calling, yes, work your ass off, but you know that story, that one about company fabulous that started by two guys talking over beers and setting out with $5 and a chicken recipe? It is true, but it’s not the whole truth. Their family lent them $25,000, a friend did their identity package for the promise of chicken wings and uncle Harry helped them get their first ten clients from his man club AND they worked really hard to do something remarkable. Successful people making a difference, including artists, do not achieve their success alone. I am actively seeking help...community...collectors...funding... sponsorships… donations...uh hem, money. I hope the day will come when we won't need it anymore, but in the meantime it is our current means of exchange and I want to do more with it. I would also love consultants and mentors and information. Know about a grant, gallery or free exhibition space that would be a good fit? Are you a lawyer who can donate services to help me establish a 501c status or help with intellectual property? Let me know. Asking for support is weird, like something artists’ shouldn’t do and I feel pretty damned nervous doing it. I don’t know why as a tip jar on each counter is now ubiquitous. My corner store even has one and all the girl does is ring up your chewing gum. Hey, I get it, if that tip cup isn't there no one leaves...a tip. Just like I open my fridge every morning and find milk without thinking somewhere out there there’s a farmer and a sore cow. At least I bought the milk. All that eye candy we enjoy on the internet is made by someone. I know in order to do bigger things I need to ask people to pay their art bill, and it needs to become more natural.
I am ready. I am looking for ways to finance a short leave of absence from my job to finish two series completely and set the next goals in motion. Awesomeness requires community and support. I cannot believe it has taken me until my 40’s to understand that! I am applying for grants and finding individuals and foundations that recognize that art is important enough to support financially.
Dependence, independence...interdependence. I might just be a grown up.
I don’t know how it’s all going to happen yet as I work 2 full time gigs and am continuing my studies, but I want to sail it on out there. In the meantime, please consider paying your art bill. I know it's all modern and free thinker like to want art and intellectual property to be available to the public for nothing. It's a great ideal to do away with the monetary system, but most artists are not Disney or Microsoft and in the meantime WE ALL have rent to pay. If you need to stick it to someone, stick it to the MAN, not the peeps. Feed your artists. So until the day actually comes when we are living in praise-based economy, your comments and credits are always welcomed but artists...this artist... needs your money. We need to be funded as much as possible outside of or on the fringes of our current BS system, so we can make work with integrity in place of or at least in addition to art for selling soft drinks. The way to do that is through individual private collectors, donors and sponsors. No other profession is expected to give everything away for free. You pay your plumber, lawyer, mechanics, porn sites, waiter, internet provider… you get it. If you like my work or what I'm trying to do with it, then make a right now decision to buy it or donate so I can keep doing it, everything helps so please don't wait...and if you see other artists work that you like or if you share it please provide a credit and a link to their site and consider finding a way to “tip the artist." They need it as much as your bartender, actually they probably are your bartender.
Casting my bread on the waters and expecting to get a sandwich back. Cheers.Prints of recent works are available for sale, please see the gallery.
“Typographic illustrations”
Hand drawn Spencerian letter forms finalized with digital tools. They are intentionally irregular with letters hand altered so no two are exactly the same. While as a designer I have salivated over the clean refinement of digital work environments I also love drawing and the tactile feel of traditional mediums. While an artist never loses their eye on the computer, sometimes they lose their hand. It has been an ever evolving process for me to marry my hand skills and my computer geekdom. (It seems that this hand drawn type thing I’ve been doing for years has gotten all trendy like, damn).
“Fleshbots”
Conceptualized during meditative and dream states they represent a whimsical notion of what might happen, evolutionary speaking, as a result of long-term exposures of living creatures to the cheap plastic junk from superstores. They are large-scale pieces made through an iterative, layered process of analytical drawing, painting, digital colorization, then painting and drawing again. A colleague of mine describes these works as “very skilly.” I have 2 of these completed, 2 in process and ultimately plan to make 10. They require humor, technical acumen and large chunks of time to complete.
“Shelter Babies and Former Street Kids”
This current series of 2.5”x3.5” works were born out of the sketchbook drawings made at the animal sanctuaries I volunteer for. They embody directness and economy of line, mixing the sensitivity of the gesture drawing with bold, simple color and texture that is applied with pantone film overlays or digital media. Unlike the shocking images we often see associated with animal cruelty, I made the decision to focus on the positive outcomes of animals when they are afforded care. Each piece has a backside with the title and a little quote or story about the image. They are made to be shared, interacted with and portable. The fit-in-your hand size is purposeful in provoking a feeling of intimacy. I have approached the animal art genre from a unique place by using this small format, solid observational drawing, restrained color use and simple storytelling. I focus on mixed breeds, shelter and even injured animals. Subjects not typically represented. (Blind dogs are beautiful too, but we don’t see them on wrapping paper). In a genre where it can be too easy to be cheesy. These go deeper.
Some of the pieces will be reproduced at high quality and left in appropriate public spaces for individuals to take. I am incredibly passionate about this series and am donating the proceeds. In an art world filled with feigned angst and overly contrived ploys to be different, this is a project about simple kindness. Made of study, idealism and love to raise awareness for no-kill animal sanctuaries. It is to be an ongoing series of small collections consisting of 9 pieces each for a total of 54. I have 18 completed.
Enjoy.
