Day 99/100: Amy Chackel
Encouraging an Art Teacher from the Pacific Northwest Who is Busting the Talent Myth
Today, as part of my 100 Days of Encouragement Project, I’m celebrating Amy Chackel, a high-school art teacher from the Pacific Northwest who advocates for passion and practice over “talent.”
Born & raised in the greater Seattle area, she currently lives in Bothell, 10 minutes from where she grew up. For as long as she can remember, Amy has loved art — first drawing, then painting. As a small child, she would tell people that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. Through middle school and high school, she carried a sketchbook everywhere, drawing from imagination and from life.
Despite this passion, she got the message somewhere along the way that being an artist for a living was not a viable career, so she kept drawing as her “little hobby.” It wasn't until college, when a professor encouraged her artmaking, that she revisited the subject in a more serious way and ended up majoring in Interdisciplinary Visual Art.
Though her college training gave her some foundations, she believes that her most significant growth as an artist came from her self-directed art practice. Her passion for art drove her to explore, collect inspiration, discover techniques, and build her skills through trial and error.
Despite being an art educator and having this personal passion, she also suffered from “imposter syndrome.” Like so many artists I’ve spoke with, she didn’t feel like “the real deal” and struggled to call herself an artist. Her friends and family would have said she was an artist straight-away, but she had marginalized her personal artmaking as a hobby.
Then 2020 and the COVID lockdowns hit. Everyone was isolated, and she started a 100-day art project hashtag challenge on Instagram, making watercolor and ink portraits, mostly of her kids. Her second 100-day project focused on painting from life. Creating every day was invigorating, and that's when she really started to see herself as an artist. It feels so central to her identity now that she is amazed that she ever resisted the “artist” title.
Currently, Amy loves working in gouache because of the quick and easy set-up/clean-up, the ability to paint plein air, and the beautiful matte finish and rich color. It works well for painting around her family when she’s squeezing some art in during her baby's nap. But she hopes to explore oil paints this summer, which she enjoyed in college.
She is inspired by color, stories, people, and day-to-day moments. Painting regularly has not only improved her skills, but also awakened her sense of wonder. She loves seeing the world around her through artist's eyes and then trying to capture something special through paint. And she is passionate about art, learning, and teaching art to others. She believes that this passion will keep growing, because there is always something new to learn and more amazement to discover.
Amy wants the world to know that she’s not talented – in the sense that she doesn’t some special gift bestowed on her as one of the lucky few at birth. She wants people to understand that art is a learned skill, and patience and perseverance are where the keys to success really reside. The only way to get better is through practice, and lots of it! After more than 30 years of pursuing art in various forms, she’s still learning and improving every day!
How You Be an Encouragement
Please check out Amy’s work on Instagram, follow her, and send her some encouragement today by commenting on one of her posts or sending her a direct message.
Instagram: @art_chack
© Amy Chackel, more scenes painted from life
