Corey Wash Walks on the “Sunny Side”

Don’t forget to log off. That’s the gist of “Sunny Side,” Corey Wash’s commission for the Palm Springs mural wall, which gets a refresh every spring in time for Desert Gold, our Coachella-season shindig. The painting, a riotously colorful ode to communing with nature, isn’t just a call to get off your phone, but more broadly to take a step back and think about what matters.

After a decade of non-stop hustle as a model, illustrator, painter, art director, filmmaker and a few other odd jobs, it took becoming a mother for Wash to realize there’s more to life than collecting accolades. “So many of us get caught up in our careers or our relationships that we leave little-to-no time for ourselves,” the bi-coastal multi-hyphenate says.

That’s not to say she’s out of the game — far from it, as you can tell — but that she’s seeking out moments of “solitude, ease and comfort” to keep the burnout at bay. In one of those moments, after a week of painting with her friends under the desert sun, she sat down with us to discuss her road to becoming an artist, a mother and everything in between.

Tell us a bit about the different media you’ve worked with.

As a multi-disciplinary artist, I’ve painted, illustrated, directed, modeled, designed and built installations, designed apparel and home goods. I realized that my passion to tell stories has expanded my visual practice. And my media inspire one another. I often look for ways for them to coexist.

I’m usually able to meld media for my exhibits. I always look for ways to tell stories that engage all the senses and bring the viewer into the world I’m building. My last exhibit, “PANACEA,” was a combination of visual, sound and touch.

Did you always want to be an artist?

I didn’t know I wanted to be an artist. As a kid I changed my mind a few times and then I wasn’t really sure. In my late teens, I was really drawn to fashion and originally moved to New York to model. 

I used to make art as a kid with my mom. Both her and my father are illustrators and painters so I was always surrounded by someone making something. That was the start of my journey, watching my parents. I always had a story that I wanted to tell, it was just a matter of which medium I chose to tell it. 

I used to write poems and short stories as a kid, [though I wasn’t] really sure of what I wanted to communicate as a seven-year-old. I think at that time I just wanted to experiment with different forms of expression. That continues to drive my practice today.

Say more about your journey into painting and creating.

Before deciding I was an artist, art was a therapeutic and exciting thing to do after school or work. It was always something that was a part of my life.

My journey started when I moved to New York, something I did as a hobby that developed into a passion I wanted to do full time. I ended up moving back home for about a year and it was in Baltimore where I worked on my paintings for my first New York solo show.

I don’t recall the exact moment, but I do remember when I decided to expand my color palette and my reasoning for color choice in my work. My use of color is based on the emotion and the energy I want to portray. When I’m drawing or painting about someone being isolated, I’m using a lot of blues and grays. When I’m feeling upset or down and I want to make work about it, I write it down, either in my journal or my iPad, or I’ll just sketch out an idea for later. My feelings inform my work, even when it’s indirect.

You became a mother about five years ago. In what ways has being an artist affected your approach to motherhood and vice versa?

Being an artist has affected my approach to motherhood because I like to get creative with how I show up for my kids and myself. I look for ways to feed their curiosity and engage their senses in exciting ways that will create healthy habits.

I usually paint at night when the kids are already asleep (I’m a night owl), but there are times when they’ll come into the studio and we paint or draw together. They come with me to exhibit openings and we have museum days. They are immersed in the art world just as I was as a kid. My parents exposed me to art at a young age and that definitely played a huge part in shaping who I am today, so I want to pass that on to my children.

Tell us about “Sunny Side,” your mural at Ace Hotel Palm Springs. Is it a self-portrait in a way?

Sunny Side is about the necessity of mental and physical rest. As a multi-disciplinary artist, wife, mother and so on my day-to-day is usually filled with checking off to-do lists. The term “strong black woman” used to be something I aspired to. In some cases it still is, but now I’m at a point in my life where I want solitude, ease and comfort. This piece reminds me to prioritize that.

Describe your artistic process.

It usually starts with either the idea or the message: what do I want to say and how do I want to say it? Or I know what I want to make but what am I saying? Once I have one, I start researching the other to find some sort of inspiration. Sometimes both the message and the idea are already there. Then I sketch out what I want to make and start forming the final piece of work. This can take anywhere between two hours and two years, depending on the complexity of the idea. I’m also no longer in a rush to put out work, so I’ve been enjoying taking my time experimenting.

A lot of my more recent works have been autobiographical, speaking on the changes that motherhood, marriage and adulthood bring. I speak on my feelings of isolation, anger, my interpretation of the state of the world, et cetera. Outside of myself, I find inspiration from everywhere and everything. I don’t limit what I can use as a catalyst for my work. That usually keeps the ideas fresh and flowing.

Art practices can be restful at first but when practiced professionally over time, can become a source of burnout. What are some of your self-care practices?

I’m still working on the boundaries I place on myself. I do experience burnout in every area of my life thanks to capitalism, sometimes it’s not directly from my practice. I have days where I decide to do nothing but rest, I have days where I want to explore and check out someone else’s work instead of working on my own. There are times when I switch media for a while. These are some of the ways I try to listen to what my mind/body is telling me.

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