Rhiannon Guppy
Franklin Artist Rhiannon Guppy does not have as much time for painting her abstract works as she might like — she spends much of it coordinating the Arts Council of Williamson County’s monthly art crawl.
This particular First Friday, however, she’ll be selling her wares at Olivia Olive Oil on Main Street.
Guppy has tried different mediums in her lifetime, including jewelry making, stitching dolls and other textile work, but in recent history she’s embraced an abstract style, focusing on raw canvasses.
Art became a daily practice in 2020, when she and her family settled in Franklin by way of Atlanta; Colorado; Rochester, N.Y.; and Washington, D.C. Originally from Leicester, England, Guppy and her two young children moved regularly due to her husband Steve's jobs as a professional soccer player and then coach.
One of Rhiannon Guppy's works
Guppy’s own creative practice involves chips and a coffee, and won’t start before 10 a.m., she tells the Williamson Scene. She often starts a painting session with playing card-sized works, which she also sells. It's a way to ease into a daunting, big white page. She’s taken to priming the canvas with clear gesso, so the watercolors can react similarly to paper.
“I like the way that they move and pool in different places,” she says of watercolors. “It’s not ever a flat color.”
Area residents may have seen her work in interior design store Onyx and Alabaster, Soho House or Centennial Art Center in the past few years. Guppy shies away from collections of eight or 10 similar works and instead enjoys experimenting with different paints and designs for each piece.
“What I've realized recently is, I don't think I'm necessarily a collection kind of person, and I'm just an experiment,” Guppy says. “Also I think sometimes, because it's quite organic how this happens, I can't necessarily replicate it over and over and over again. I'm not going to bring out exactly the same thing every time.”
She wonders aloud if painting cloud-inspired shapes is very English of her. She and her parents, who still reside across the pond, tend to talk about the weather often. It plays into a stereotype of Brits avoiding deep conversations, she says. However, as difficult as it is to be away from her parents, the sky and the weather tether her to them.
Guppy notices the differences in the landscapes and cloudscapes in each place she’s lived, but she’s careful not to name her works to any specific place. She wants the viewer to read in their own references.
“I want them to be like, 'that makes me feel like the beach that I used to go to as a kid, or that makes me feel like holidays, or that makes me feel like the sky,'” she says.
Some people see other things in the pictures, like when she was asked if she had painted the cave that Jesus is said to have risen from. It wasn’t, but she welcomes that interpretation.
“I want them to see what they want in a painting as well,” Guppy says. “It's not just what I've created, it's what you feel when you have it in your hand.”
When Guppy first got involved in 2022, the monthly art crawl would book 12 or so artists, and now it is up to 30 or 40. The council would like to host more community events, offer classes and training for artists, host more gallery shows and fundraising events, offer studio spaces, and foster more partnerships between local businesses and artists. However, it doesn’t have designated funding or staff to apply for grants.
It’s a dream, but Guppy is something of a visionary anyway. She’s grateful for the community in Williamson County, where she’s felt like she can reinvent herself and call herself an artist. It’s something she thinks people may have been critical of her for at home.
“I think in America, people have side hobbies,” Guppy says. “People are creative, and they're working. I do think it's a country where you're allowed to be creative. It feels like it's just way more acceptable and people lean into it a lot more here.”