If you want to reach rock star status, make friends with rich people..if you want to succeed as a working artist, make friends with the gods.

A conversation with artist and writer Christine Palamidessi

From Christine Palamidessi’s Pineapple & Plaster series

A few weeks ago, I sat down with the artist and writer Christine Palamidessi to talk to her about her life as an artist, what it takes to maintain a sustainable creative practice throughout your life - whether as a writer or as an artist - and what she is currently working on.

I have known Christine almost all of my life. I have photos of her visiting my mom in Miami when I was several months old. It was then that she informally dipped my head in the ocean and became my godmother. I love that Christine and I have been connected through this act throughout my entire life. She was always someone I looked up to as a young person because she’d led such an interesting and successful life as a writer and artist.

Our conversation takes us on the journey from when she realized she was drawn to the arts, to her time in New York City among artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and others that she knew while living there. Then she talks about writing and how different it is from working with your hands as an artist.

One of the most interesting pieces of wisdom that she shares is understanding your role as artist in this world. I love her philosophy on how the majority of artists aren’t on this Earth to be “rock stars” (ie famous) but that our roles are to feed and nurture our culture and communities through the inspirations we’re receiving from “the gods” (or through our intuition, if you’re not into the divine).

Many of us pursue our creative work in a production-centered way because that is how our culture promotes success. “Greater Productivity” means that you are ambitious and driven and likely to “make it”. The Internet reinforces this upon us via its algorithms that reward more and more content (even Substack is not immune to this). But to maintain a lifelong connection to your creativity, you can’t really approach writing and art with this in mind, especially if you have to work a full time job that is separate from your creative work. It is unsustainable.

There’s also this other thing, which is the need to be validated in some way for our work via rewards or recognition. But Christine makes it really clear that if you want to be famous you need to get comfortable networking and making friends with the wealthy, because those individuals are the people who buy and produce your work, who are the traditional cultural gatekeepers in many fields, and who can elevate your status.

Now, new media routes are a bit different than traditional ones…but I think she understands the economies behind these industries really well, having spent her life working in them. I don’t think the new media path is as free from the traditional one as we’d like to imagine it is.

I also love that she understands how the Internet has altered writing, making it so much more ephemeral and disembodied than it was prior to the 21st century. That’s something I could spend weeks talking about because it has drastically changed not only writing, but fundamental truths that underlie how we think and how we act as well.

This disconnection from the body has made the act of writing even more cerebral than it was because it no longer requires the connection between the process of putting pen or pencil to paper. And the work on the Internet can seemingly overnight disappear (though we also know that nothing on the Internet is gone forever).

Check out this fascinating interview and then check out her artwork below:

Below are a sample of works that Christine talks about in our discussion.

From the Pineapple series she mentions, which originated as a novel:

Torso series:

(Recent work) Vessel series:

Christine Palamidessi is an artist whose practice spans writing, filmmaking, sculpture, and printmaking. Her sculptures and paintings are held in homes of private collectors in Italy, France, US, Dominican Republic, Saudi Arabia and Brazil. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in Boston, Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Woodstock, Vermont, England and Italy; and in Boston’s State House. Her memoir “Grandmothers” is engraved on granite monolith installed at Jackson Square in Boston. She is the author of two novels, one memoir, and a collection of fiction and academic writing. She is the fiction editor of the academic journal Italian Americana. Her written work appeared in Andy Warhol's Interview, New Woman Magazine, New Video Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Italian Americana, Aethlon and Stone's Throw. Palamidessi works and resides in Cambridge, MA.

Enjoyed the artwork and interview? Let me know by hitting that heart below. Got questions you’d like to ask Christine? Drop them in the comments.