Bayou Artist | NATALIE STURGIS
ARTICLE BY Lakelynn Honaker
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KELLY MOORE CLARK
From doodles in the school pickup line to portraits made from discarded objects, Natalie Sturgis finds inspiration in the unexpected. Through her playful, unconventional art, she has transformed a lifelong creative outlet into a growing career dedicated to making people smile.
For Natalie Sturgis, art is key to her survival. It’s both an outlet and a compulsion. From drawing in the school pickup line to seeing the potential in ‘trash’ at Waffle House, Natalie’s art courses through all parts of her life. Over time, she’s come to understand that her art can serve a function for not only herself but for others as well. It’s no longer just a means of surviving but also of thriving. Through a chain of small events her confidence has grown, proving that there is an audience for the art that even she admits is “weird.”
Art has been present in Natalie’s life since long before she could or would have defined it as a passion. Natalie’s interest in art first emerged during her childhood. “I remember being a small child with a sketchbook in front of a TV and drawing what was on TV,” Natalie said. She also recalled memories of her father’s doodles. Being an engineer, her father didn’t often have the chance to be creative in his work, but he still found time to make art a creative outlet. His determination to integrate opportunities for creativity into his ordinary routines played a role in shaping Natalie’s relationship with art. She said, “There were boxes full of his sketches because, while he was at work, he would sketch a little drawing of a person or some of the people and bring them home.” In fact, Natalie even still has letters that have his sketches on them. Even now, her father’s sketches are a reminder that art does not have to be confined to a studio or a finished canvas but can be spontaneous and a part of daily life.
Born and raised in Slidell, Louisiana, Natalie moved to Monroe after graduating high school and originally enrolled in the nursing program at the University of Louisiana Monroe. However, after just one semester in nursing, she decided that it was not for her and changed her major to graphic design. “By the time I graduated college, I could have had a degree in every single art thing that they offered because I stayed so long in art,” Natalie said. Her desire for art was immense but undirected in the beginning. Natalie ended up graduating with a degree in photography. Although she doesn’t use her photography degree explicitly in the art she currently creates, the degree provided her with a firm foundation in the fundamentals of design and image composition.
As Natalie carried the creative skills she learned in college into the world, she started to realize there are people out there other than just her that could enjoy her art. When she started posting the doodles she would do in the carline waiting for her kids after school, she developed a following. “I would make up these elaborate tiny paragraph stories for them,” she said, “and people fell in love with them.” What began as a way to pass time became something that other people were looking forward to every day. This was Natalie’s first glimpse into the possibility that people could connect with and appreciate her art. She said, “That’s what started the fire.”
This confidence boost led to the pivotal moment when Natalie would enter to win a one month showing at the Creative Exchange micro gallery in Ruston. She did win. She said, “That ramped my drive up big time.” That was when she realized, “Oh, I can do this.” Seeing firsthand that people outside of herself could find joy in her art was an eye opener for her. It fueled her passion. Her art was growing to be not just an emotional outlet keeping her “sane” but something that connects with an audience.
To Natalie, art was never a means of making money. It was always a means of expressing emotions and getting out of her head. Seeing that other people were intrigued by her art never changed that. It only elevated her desire to make art because she saw it could have a new purpose: making people happy. From there, her desire to share her art with the public only grew. She started sending her pieces to lots of different galleries and shops and she realized, “This is kind of fun.”
Natalie’s process has evolved from just doodles in her car to being something much greater and “weirder.” She describes a shift in her creative journey when she turned 40 and claimed, “When you hit 40, you stop worrying about what other people think.” She said, “I didn’t care anymore and that helped. That helped a lot.” This turning point highlights that artistic growth is not only about developing your craft but shedding the external expectations and allowing authenticity to guide you.
Natalie isn’t afraid to see the potential that surrounds her in everything that she does. Being a multi-media artist, Natalie sees things that most people would label trash and says “Hey! That would make a good mouth.” She combines that ‘trash’ with clay and paint and creates something no one else could have ever envisioned. Her art is never about perfection, at least in the traditional sense. Perfection to Natalie is defined as “evoking a smile or laugh.”
Natalie described herself as being someone who’s “always going to see the positives and keep smiling,” as someone who “doesn’t meet a stranger.” These traits really impact her desire to share her art with people because she has seen firsthand how her art can make people laugh and smile, and that’s exactly her goal.
Natalie’s motivation behind her pieces is not necessarily traditional. She mentioned that sometimes she will be going about her day and be like, “Oh my gosh! That’s a cool looking human.” Natalie admires the unique features that some people possess and finds inspiration by looking at those around her. No two people are the same, and those individual qualities make each person a unique source of inspiration. Natalie notices details about people and translates them into vibrant, highly textured portraits of them.
Natalie can’t define one specific part of her process as her favorite. “I love the spray paint part,” Natalie said at first, “but then again I love it all,” she added. The entire process brings Natalie joy. There is nothing that she does that she absolutely dreads, but one aspect of the process Natalie finds especially rewarding is the sensation she gets from creating a real thing from an idea. Natalie said, “I love getting it out of my head.” For her, the joy to create does not root in the desire to make a finished product but simply to bring life to the ideas inside her head and make them real. Her inability to choose one part of the process as her favorite speaks to the fact that she views her art as a complete experience rather than just a path to a finished piece. The process is very organic for her with each part intimately connected to the next, which makes it hard to separate individual steps. In a similar way, Natalie finds it difficult to separate her personal life from her artistic life, which is reflected by the blended portrayal of all aspects of her life on social media.
As her social media reflects, art is so integral to her life that Natalie is continually creating not only from her own ideas but also from her kids’ ideas. “The kids think that I can create anything,” she said. They might say, “Hey can we make this?” And Natalie will make it happen. According to Natalie, “Imagination is always being played in my everyday role of life.” Because she feels creative all the time, Natalie can find creative potential in the most unexpected places. She said that “finding ‘junk’” to put in her art is what makes her feel the most creative. Rather than seeing discarded objects for what they once were, Natalie sees their potential to have a second life. Natalie is able to look at a bottle cap and say, “This bottle cap’s going to make the perfect eyeball.” Her ability to see that potential and give her ideas physical life enriches her own life by making her smile and giving her something to be proud of. “Some people get a good chuckle out of it, and that makes me happy too,” she said.
Watching her art be enjoyed by the public and seeing her audience grow has been a tremendous motivator for Natalie. It has led her to accomplish many great things just this year alone. From having features in magazines to being nominated for and becoming a finalist for Northeast Louisiana Arts Council’s Visual Artist of the Year to even being commissioned to create an album cover for a band, Natalie’s art has grown to be something that is greatly appreciated by an ever-growing number of people and is accessible through multiple galleries. She has pieces at The Good Daze, Creative Exchange, and Twin City Tattoo, as well as Eclectic Finds in Slidell.
In the future, she hopes for that success to grow. She said her next step would hopefully be to have “a piece in a New Orleans gallery.” A dream she deems unattainable now is to have a piece of her work in a New York gallery, but you never know what the future could hold for an artist who is always creating.
