Crystal Marie on Intuitive Collage, Salvaged Materials, and Finding a Creative Voice

Host Wendy Solganik interviews mixed media and collage artistCrystal Marie (formerly Crystal Neubauer), author of The Art of Expressive Collage and a 2018 Racine Art Museum Artist Fellowship recipient, about her life, art, and teaching. Crystal describes moving into a Chicago Little Village live/work storefront to stay near the art scene on an artist’s budget andtraces her maker roots to a craft-filled childhood. She recounts attending a university-affiliated high school, becoming a teen parent, working up through printing-industry project management, and later burning out while raising sevenkids in a blended family. Her professional art career began in the early 2000s through eBay paper packs, Somerset Studio, blog/Flickr communities, early publications and the book A Charming Exchange, then teaching at Art & Soul. Crystal explains evolving from whimsical collage to more restrained work, discovering encaustic to preserve ephemera, coping with mold-related illness that forced her to discard her paper collection, shifting to online teaching during the pandemic, and planning Fodder School projects including a handmade hair calligraphy brush challenge and texture-based collage lessons. 00:00 Meet Crystal Marie02:26 Podcast Premise and Subscribe03:49 Crystal’s Chicago Studio Life08:26 Finding the Perfect Live Work Space13:10 Early Making Roots15:35 Scholarship to University High22:04 Teen Parenthood and Survival30:06 Creativity Through Beads and Sewing31:50 Printing Career and Moving to Chicago36:51 Brady Bunch Burnout39:36 eBay Paper Hustle to Collage41:57 Somerset Studio Spark46:59 Blog Era and First Teaching Gig49:54 Discovering Encaustic Wax53:59 Basement Studio Beginnings55:29 Shifting to Abstract Collage59:24 Selling Art Online Early01:01:12 Finding the Old Work01:04:00 Book and Name Change01:06:15 Intuition and Altering Papers01:10:45 Mold Loss and Rebuilding01:16:25 Pandemic Online Teaching Boom01:19:51 Where to Buy and Follow01:28:11 Illness and Career Upside Down01:38:30 Fodder Challenge Hair Brush01:43:05 Texture Fodder Classes Wrap