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For today’s episode, we sat down with Todd Williams, a Nebraska-born impressionistic oil painter who discovered his calling as a child, went on to study at the Kansas City Art Institute, worked a decade as an illustrator for Hallmark, and has since spent about 25 years as a full-time fine artist represented by major galleries. His work is driven by a desire to evoke emotion at both a distance and up close, with paint quality, broken color, and expressive brushwork often carrying as much weight as the subject itself. Technically, he emphasizes the “science” of painting—values, composition, clean value planes, and his value–color–mixture approach—as the left-brain foundation that lets him later enter a childlike, intuitive “spirit of painting” mode. A major milestone was his Legacy Nebraska Collection, a five-year project tied to Nebraska’s sesquicentennial that deepened his connection to place, history, and Native American subjects, and led naturally into his current series of bold, expressive Native American portraits and Western work. His advice to artists centers on perseverance, choosing strong and simple subjects to set yourself up for success, learning from both failures and wins, and accepting the ongoing tension between painting what sells and painting what most moves you. Over time, his definition of success has shifted from financial hunger and high output toward health, spiritual grounding, contentment, and relationships—treating the studio as a sacred space and the artistic journey itself as the true destination. Finally, Todd tells us about his upcoming activities, including teaching workshops with the Indiana Heritage Arts group in Nashville, Indiana and at the Merrick County Museum in his hometown of Central City, Nebraska, participating in ongoing and future Western-themed exhibitions (such as at the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville and Settlers West Gallery in Tucson), and contributing to the traveling “Painting the Arkansas Parks” exhibition organized through the Heart of America Artists for 2026–2027.
Todd’s FASO site:
toddwilliamsfineart.com/
Todd’s Social Media:
instagram.com/toddwilliamsfineart/
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Transcript:
Todd Williams: 0:00
Set yourself up for success, you know, and because a lot of times what we do is we choose maybe not the right reference to use, or we choose not the right subject, and you know, you need to keep things a little bit more simple in the beginning, so you can kind of build confidence in that, and so again, getting back to the four value planes, if you’re doing landscape painting, those are really important, just to keep those very simple, you know, within the values and those value planes, and then everything else will kind of fall into place.
Laura Arango Baier: 0:37
Welcome to The FASO Podcast, where we believe that Fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Baier, and I’m your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips, specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights for today’s episode. We sat down with Todd Williams, a Nebraska-born impressionistic oil painter, who discovered his calling as a child, went on to study at the Kansas City Art Institute, worked a decade as an illustrator for Hallmark, and has since spent about 25 years as a full-time fine artist represented by major galleries. His work is driven by a desire to evoke emotion at both a distance and up close, with paint quality, broken color, and expressive brushwork often carrying as much weight as the subject itself. Technically, he emphasizes the science of painting values, composition, clean value planes, and his value color mixture approach as the left brain foundation that lets him later enter a childlike, intuitive spirit of painting mode, a major milestone was his legacy Nebraska collection, a five-year project tied to Nebraska’s sesquicentennial that deepened his connection to place, history, and Native American subjects, and led naturally into his current series of bold, expressive Native American portraits and Western work. His advice to artists centers on perseverance, choosing strong and simple subjects to set yourself up for success, learning from both failures and wins, and accepting the ongoing tension between painting what sells and painting what most moves you over time. His definition of success has shifted from financial hunger and high output toward health, spiritual grounding, contentment, and relationships, treating the studio as a sacred space and the artistic journey itself as the true destination. Finally, Todd tells us about his upcoming activities, including teaching workshops with the Indiana Heritage Arts Group in Nashville, Indiana, and at the Merritt County Museum in his hometown of Central City, Nebraska, participating in ongoing and future Western-themed exhibitions, such as the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville and Settlers West Gallery in Tucson, and contributing to the Traveling Painting the Arkansas Parks exhibition, organized through the Heart of America artists for 2026 through 2027 Welcome, Todd, to The FASO Podcast. How are you today?
Todd Williams: 2:53
Good, thank you, Laura.
Laura Arango Baier: 2:55
I’m excited to have you, because I saw your work, and I really thought I need to pick his brain about how he thinks through these gorgeous broken colors, and just the way that you navigate the canvas with your brush strokes is just.. it is so beautiful to look at, and I can’t get tired of just looking around your canvases, just seeing where all the colors end up, and how it creates such beautiful portraits and landscapes. So, I’m really happy to have you, and pick your brain about
Todd Williams: 3:28
it. Thank you. That’s so kind. Yeah, for me, I’ve always had, like, this dream of really wanting my work to evoke an emotion, really, to the viewer, and to be exciting on multiple levels, and so the actual paint itself to me was really exciting, and sometimes that in my mind, as I’m creating, becomes even more important than the subject is just the paint itself, and so you know, from a distance, you want your word to really read well, right? You want people to go, “Wow, I want to get up closer to that and see it, but then when they get up close and maybe even go in really close to see the details, I want them to be excited about the paint quality, and so for me that’s just.. I don’t know, something. As, as I began my journey as an artist, I wanted to try and evoke that type of an emotion to the viewer.
Laura Arango Baier: 4:39
Yeah, yeah, and I think it definitely shows through. There’s a very, like, it feels like you really care about what you’re painting, but also you don’t want to lose the expressiveness of the paint, and I can definitely see it. I really love how you treat your subject matter. It feels, yeah, it feels very delicate, but also expressive. It’s very. State,
Todd Williams: 5:01
thank you. Yeah, there is sensitivity to it, and of course, all the artists will tell you it’s really, you know, it’s about the values, and you have to get those right first, and then after you really accomplish that, what I would call the science of that, because there really is a science of painting, then you can get into more of your right brain and the creative side, and kind of let those, like, childlike enthusiasm to me is, is kind of the best way to describe it, is like you just kind of let, let the spirit kind of flow out of that, and let the work have a voice of its own, you know.
Laura Arango Baier: 5:45
Yeah, I agree, and I think that’s one of the hardest parts of pursuing, you know, an artistic career as well, is how to allow yourself to do that. Right, I feel like a lot of people hold themselves back from that state, because maybe they think, oh, it’s so silly, it’s childish, or, or maybe they’re afraid of being vulnerable, but yeah, yeah, actually, before we dive into that aspect, because I think we can totally dive into that more, I actually want to ask you, when you began to follow the path of the artist,
Todd Williams: 6:25
so you know, I got my BFA at the Artist In Kansas City, and then I ended up getting an internship with Hallmark Cards my senior year, and so that last semester it was really the first time, really, you know, at an early age I actually had some money, I was like, and so for an artist, you know, when you, when you have the dream, become an artist, and for me that dream started really early, and we can kind of get into that later, but I knew that it’s not about getting rich, you know, it’s not, it’s not the occupation that necessarily even your parents want you to become, because I remember some stories I can tell you here a bit later about my dad and sitting down with my art professor from high school, and you know, it’s like, what, you know, he wants to be an artist, and so anyway, it all worked out well, and I am very thankful for that, but it’s tough, so when I, after I, upon graduating, and had some experience at Hallmark. I kind of sent my book out and ended up getting hired from Dayspring Cards, and then I worked for them for 10 years, and they, while I was working for them, they actually became a subsidiary of Hallmark, so I ended up working for Hallmark again, and under that umbrella. So it was really fun. It was great for me to grow. It was a great time to really find my own voice, and kind of, you know, just who, what I wanted to say and speak through my paintings, because I really didn’t know. And as an artist for Hallmark and Dayspring, I kind of had to be a jack of all trades, right? I had a, you know, like, say there was a sentiment editorial written for Mother’s Day, and they would go, ‘Hey, we want you to do a painting of a woman in the garden, you know, you know, tending to her flowers, and we want you to paint it in like a Monet impressionistic style, so that would be the, you know, the direction they gave me, so that was great. I enjoyed that, but then again, it just wasn’t me exactly. And so, after 10 years with them, working full time, which was a huge blessing, I was able to step away from that and pursue fine art, and so I’ve been painting full time now for almost 25 years. At one point in my career, I had seven galleries coast to coast, all the way from Seattle, Washington to Martha’s Vineyard, so it was, it was, you know, a lot of work, but I was just really prolific. I worked really hard providing all those galleries with work, and you know, if the piece doesn’t sell there, you send it somewhere else, and voila, it somehow sells. So, sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to that, but so yeah, after almost 25 years it’s been great. I mean, I’ve had a lot of financial success, you know, some years are always better than others, but you know. It’s I didn’t, you know, getting back to the main point was I didn’t become an artist because of the money, I became an artist because I really felt like God had given me a gift and I needed to use that to my fullest potential, so
Laura Arango Baier: 10:18
yeah, yeah, and you certainly have, and consider you had seven galleries, that’s a lot, that’s a lot of work. Oh my gosh, insane. But yeah, and actually I do want to go back into the voice aspect, and that aspect that we were just talking about, you know, that childlike sort of flow approach to painting, because I find that it’s very natural for an artistic voice to progress as the years go on. So, in your career, how has your artistic voice revealed itself as you’ve painted more and more, and how have you maybe found yourself allowing yourself to also step into that vulnerable childlike, I guess, identity while you paint?
Todd Williams: 11:15
Yeah, so kind of getting back to, you know, really like the science of painting, and some of those foundational truths, as I learned more in studying art, you know, with with other great professional artists through the years, because really, you know, when I was at the Art Institute, you know, they teach you composition, they teach you color theory, but they don’t really teach you necessarily some of the aspects that goes into, like, say, mixing paint, like, how do I actually mix that correct value and that correct color, and so as I began to learn more throughout my career and began to teach myself, I kind of broke it down into, you know, these different truths or disciplines. I had the privilege of studying with some great artists, like Obama, and CW Monday, Dan Gearhart. So, you know, you kind of get all this information, and then you kind of becomes a part of you, and then you kind of add your own little spin to it, but you know really that those aspects, or that language to creativity, and specifically painting is really the same sometimes Sometimes the words that we use are a little bit different, but there’s really not anything new under the sun, right? But it’s just really taking that information and letting it really become a revelation within yourself. And I remember being in my studio, painting, and then all of a sudden the light bulb comes on after you know miles and miles of canvas, oh, that’s what Avannis meant, or that’s what you know CW meant when he said that, and so then those things are instilled within you, they become a part of you, and then once you have that, it’s almost like you know Pablo Picasso, what he had spoken, you have to learn the rules before you can break them, and so once you have that left brain knowledge, then it helps, then what you said, that childlike, the right brain, then, or really the spirit of painting, just let, let that flow, and so even with mixing, like when I teach part of the things I teach is called the VCM, it’s the value color mixture, and so within a certain value plane, say like a sky or something, we’ll actually look for that correct value color mixture, and then we’ll bend it, you know, warmer on one side and cooler on the other, but it’s really the same value, and so within that you still have that clean value playing, you know, like Edgar Payne talks about the four value planes, so for me that’s where when I solve all the issues ahead of time it then allows me to then flow out and be more creative, more spontaneous, get into the paint more, get into the paint manipulation, because I’ve solved all the other issues and there’s so much to think about, right? When you’re actually in it, and it’s tough. It’s not easy. I remember Avantis Berberian saying one time to us, as I was in one of his workshops, he said, if you wanted to do something easy, you should have become a brain surgeon, I. Yeah, because the amount of focus that we need as artists, and sometimes it’s very isolated to a specific amount of time, it’s almost like brain surgery, you know, maybe it’s only for a few hours, but you have to be just so in tune to that process, you know, in that zone, you know, into that right brain, and so to me, if I can solve all the other issues ahead of time, it helps me not get out of that zone. If that makes sense,
Laura Arango Baier: 15:35
yeah, yeah, it’s a delicate balance, yeah, because sometimes you can. I don’t know if this has happened to you. It probably has, because it’s, you know, it’s very common, but like, you might start painting, and then you start overthinking, and you start overthinking. Oh, but this, this might not be right, but what about over here? But then there are other moments where it’s almost like it’s too quiet in your brain, and it’s just also not really going anywhere, so it’s like a like that sweet spot of like, okay, this is the knowledge base that I have, like you said, you have to have that knowledge base, and then okay, How do I temper my thoughts so that they’re not overwhelming and controlling the flow, but yeah, I think also it’s just sometimes it just some paintings just don’t work. I don’t know if that also happens to you, or it’s like it’s.. I’ve tried, it’s just not working. Do you ever feel that way?
Todd Williams: 16:32
Yeah, absolutely. And those are the times too, I can feel when I just get mentally and sometimes physically tired, and I now you know, at this stage of my career, I have gained the wisdom to go, you know, what it’s time to step away, you know, maybe for that whole day and come back fresh the next day, because part of the thing, too, as the author of your painting, you know, you’re you’re creating something, and you’re so attached to it, and I have to somehow be detached from it to see it again with fresh eyes, because you’ll fall in love with, like, one area of the painting, but if that area is not correct, if those values and shapes are not correct, then the rest of the painting is now fractured, right? So it really becomes problematic if you continue in that, say that day, or whatever, that you’re working, and so it’s, it’s challenging, you know. Every time that I go to paint again, I think all of us artists struggle with, oh my gosh, you know, is this going to turn out, and there is that a little bit of seed of doubt, but you have to just push through, right? And then once you push through, the confidence comes, and then you know you kind of get into that zone, right, into the spirit of painting. This is what I like to call it. So there is something kind of magical about it, and I think a lot of the success successful artists will tell you that sometimes the paintings will just paint themselves, like, like I’ll go back and I’ll look at some of my favorite paintings, and the ones that I like the most, that are most dear to my heart, you know, other artists will also connect with that piece, but then I noticed that the public, or those art collectors, those are the pieces that they just kind of pass by, and you know, and I’m like, oh my gosh, they, you know, and those, those pieces, though, I think become this like little gems, you know, and I look at them, and then I’ll have other artists, like recently I had a show at the Western Art Museum in Kerrville, Texas, and there was two pieces I had in the show, and thankfully they both sold, but one of them sold the opening night, and then the other one sold, you know, a week later, and there was one piece all the artists loved. They didn’t even mention the other one, right? And then all the public that came and spoke to me, they all loved the other painting, and I can share those images with you later. What’s called Ken Spirits, and the other one was called Dream Raven. They were both part of my kind of Native American series that I’m doing right now, but it was just a really interesting, you know, thing to reflect on because. Of you know, how the two minds think differently, you know, as us artists, we see things differently than someone who’s not an artist, right? So, anyway,
Laura Arango Baier: 20:16
yeah, that, you know, what, that is so true. I’ve had that happen to me too, where, like, I might make a painting, and, like, wow, this is actually kind of nice, and maybe my artist friends also agree, but then it doesn’t get any attention from non-artists, and I find that that’s also very true with musicians, where a musician’s favorite music is not necessarily a song that the public likes, or they might be like that’s okay, but it just, it’s, but then the musician obviously hears it and thinks, oh my gosh, the chord progressions here, and how they did this movement, and how they did that, you know, it’s yeah, we have a, I guess, as artists, we have like that attunement to the particulars of how something is composed, and like, ah, it’s yeah, it’s hard for an untrained eye, I guess, to catch that, yeah,
Todd Williams: 21:11
yeah, and some of those paintings too, I look back on, and I’m like, I don’t, I don’t even know how I painted it, like, how, how did I do that, and because there is a process that I go through and how I teach also is where you build up like that shape, right, you find and define that edge per se and then you destroy it and then you build it back up, and so it’s kind of a juxtaposition, where, and like James Turner, you know, and let’s see, I’m trying to think, anyway, we’ll come back to that, but it’s kind of like, you know, that openness, right, the kind of the abstractness that you find in some certain areas of a painting, and sometimes as artists we’re like, oh my gosh, how did he do that, and a lot of times that is just a process of like trying things, and then you don’t like it, and you scrape it out, and then you put something else down, and then you smear it around, or whatever, and then the next thing you know, you’re like, “Whoa, I like that, and so you leave it, and how, how, like years later, when you go back and look at that piece, I just don’t, you know, how did I come up with that? I don’t know, but I really love it, so it is part of that, you know, process. So,
Laura Arango Baier: 22:46
yeah, yeah, it’s a funny, happy accidents, and they’re really hard to replicate, for sure. But I wanted to ask you, do you mind elaborating a bit on the spirit of painting?
Todd Williams: 23:00
Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, my faith is important to me, and so when I step into the studio and begin that process, to me that’s a form of worship, you know, and so it’s, you know, there’s something about the very active painting, not always the end product, but just the journey to it, the actual process of creating that I believe is his healing, it has power, and it has the ability, you know, for, for us, just as human beings, you know, to help us be better balanced, really, you know, as human beings, and so sometimes my wife will tell me, man, you’re just so cranky, you need to get back in the studio, you know, and because you know you, you have to wear so many hats as an artist, and you’re doing all this, you’re, you know, doing all that, and you know, and so it’s just, and you forget, oh yeah, I should be in the studio painting, also, and sometimes that gets neglected, and so you know, my wife’s really good at, you know, what you need to get back in there, just, you know, paint, you know, and get alone to yourself, and then when I get into those moments, too, you know, where it’s just yourself, because you know painting is really an isolated, you know, situation, and that’s really good, and you know, sometimes too, you know, just going outdoors and painting in plein air, there’s something about that that I just feel more in tune to my own spirit, but then also the spirit of God, and just. Helps me be more grounded and kind of come back to that balance that I need desperately, and you know, in the world in which we are right now, there’s just so much negativity all the time that it becomes, you know, you have to just shut that off, right, and you have to kind of escape into your own world, and so that happens when, when you get into that painting, and you enter into that zone, and that right brain, to me, that’s when it really is about the spirit. So,
Laura Arango Baier: 25:41
yeah, yeah, I totally relate to that, because there’s a, you know, there’s so many aspects of painting that is very, it’s almost ritualistic, right, where you take your brushes, you take your paints, and it’s usually the same sort of steps, and it, I find that I also move towards my work a lot more differently when I treat it as more of a sacred space, and just, oh yeah, this is my easel, because it just makes it more special. It makes it gives it more of like a feeling of a spiritual feeling. So I totally relate with that, and it is, there’s.. it feels easier to get into that zone when you do treat the space in that sense as well, at least from my experience. So, I totally, totally agree with, with that. And it’s such a safe.. it’s a safe place, it’s sanctuary as well for artists, since we’re such sensitive people. It’s like, okay, no, I need to hide away for a bit, and you know, untangle all the knots in my head for minutes in my safe space, and then I’ll go back to society, you know.
Todd Williams: 26:51
Yeah, and it takes a while to kind of get into that, right? When you first enter into your studio and you start painting, and so you want to preserve that, you want to make sure nothing interferes with that, and so that’s why again it’s important to kind of try and solve all those issues, you know, more of the left brain thinking, get that out of the way, and so when you get in there, all you can just stay in that right brain the whole time, you know, and and then when you step out, you know, maybe that’s a good time to take a break, to you know, step away, go outside, go for a walk, you know, whatever it may be. I know a lot of times after I finish my paintings, it’s so important to see, like we were talking about, because of the author, you’re so connected to it to see it in a different aspect, right? You know, so you know, as artists, we’ll turn them upside down, we’ll get it through a mirror, we’ll get other people’s opinions, you know, people that we trust. I pop them in a frame, I’ll put them up on the wall, and so when I come in and have breakfast in the morning, and I’ve started on a new piece. I can kind of continue to look at the piece, I can squint at it, I can really just try and analyze it, you know, again with fresh eyes. Now I’ve stepped away from that specific painting, and I’ve moved on, but now I can see it later, you know, maybe it’s a week or two later before I have to send it out, so you know it’s always good. It’s hard for, for all of us artists, I think, you know, because we tend to kind of like procrastinate a little bit, that the deadline comes. Oh no, I got the show coming up, and you know, my painting is still wet,
Laura Arango Baier: 28:44
yeah. Yes, it’s so interesting. I feel like a lot of artists, we procrastinate, but it’s because we know how important it is, so we feel the pressure of, oh man, it’s got to be good, it’s got to be good. But then it turns out all right, you know? I don’t know, you just end up really, really tired, and then you have to recover for a few days, and that sucks, but yeah, yeah. And actually, I wanted to ask you, is there a question that you’re currently chasing in your work? Is there something that you’ve been recently searching for on your canvases?
Todd Williams: 29:20
Well, you know, I think a lot of artists, if they’re honest, they would probably tell you, you know, that there’s, there’s, there’s this, what would be the term, the correct, there’s this battle sometimes to me of like painting something that that I really am excited about, and then also painting something that will sell, and I noticed, and it wasn’t. Always this way, but here recently, like, so, so back in the day, let’s just say, hypothetically, okay, you know, back in the 90s, right, when I first really started painting, you know, as an illustrator, and then went professional in the early 2000s and I remember just talking to other artists and stuff like that. If you did a great painting, I mean, it was just like boom, boom, boom. I mean, you just selling paintings all over the place, and now it’s not so much about a great painting, it’s actually doing something that connects with the viewer, and so now the subject becomes just as important as the painting itself. Obviously, you know, as artists, you know one of my number one things is design, and I, if I, if I’m not happy with my composition or design, there’s no reason in painting it right, and whereas before I just like plop down and paint whatever’s in front of me, and really don’t give any concern to that, but now I really take my time to really make sure that that design is as powerful as possible, you know, based on the subject, you’re a little bit limited, but anyway, that’s to me always a challenge, you know, even at this stage of my career, and so I’ll have ideas, and then I’ll kind of live with them for a while, and then I’ll kind of tweak them a little bit, and you know, bend them here or there, and so there is that little bit of balance between my artistic, creative endeavors, and then also I need to make a living, and you know, paint something that will connect with people, so some artists will say, well, that’s just smart business, and then other artists will say, well, you’re selling out, so you know it’s there, is that challenge, and so for me, I still deal with that, I guess. When you ask that question, that’s kind of what kind of popped into my mind, so
Laura Arango Baier: 32:21
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Todd Williams: 35:19
yeah, you know, you know, just to step back a little bit, you know, it really is a blessing, you know, to be able to say, hey, I can provide for myself and my family by creating artwork, and that alone is a blessing, right? I mean, so I’m thankful, I’m grateful for that. I really truly am. And so we, as artists, we just have to continue to have that thankful heart, you know? No matter what stage we’re at, and the key is always is perseverance, really. It’s not giving up, right, and so for the artists that are watching, you know, today this is that’s really the key. It’s it’s not anything other than just the miles and miles of canvas, the the success and the failures, and all those combine into knowledge, and so one of the things I teach when you approach a new painting is knowledge versus observation. You bring all that knowledge that you have, you know, all those failures, all those successes into your next piece, so that gives you that leg up on the next composition, on the next piece, and so you have to use that to your, your, you know, to your best ability to again solve all the issues, make it easy on yourself. A lot of times, too, when, when I teach workshops, I just got done teaching a workshop in Fredericksburg, and with the DK Fredericksburg art group there, and just a wonderful group of artists, and it’s, but the struggle is always a lot of times the same, as you know, set yourself up for success, you know, and because a lot of times what we do is we choose maybe not the right reference to use, or we choose not the right subject, and you know you need to keep things a little bit more simple in the beginning, so you can kind of build confidence in that, and so again, getting back to the four value planes, if you’re doing landscape painting, those are really important, just to keep those very simple, you know, within the values and those value plans, and then everything else will kind of fall into place, but anyway, this kind of ramble there for a second.
Laura Arango Baier: 37:56
Oh no, but it’s, it’s actually very relevant to my next question, which is perfect, which is actually, when was the turning point for you, where you realized you could make a living as an artist?
Todd Williams: 38:10
Okay, so I want to just share a little story with you, real quick. I ended up doing this entire series in my home state, Nebraska, called the Legacy Nebraska Collection, and this is this is one of the collector set books that I did, and you know we put this together, and so you know it has a really nice pearl encasement, and we had printed 1000 of those and they ended up all selling out, and so I ended up doing a second edition a few years ago, and then we kind of did a different cover on the book for that, but I mean that was really one of the highlights in my career, but what was kind of funny was my wife wrote the editorial bio for that in the introduction of the book, and we went back to my third grade teacher and interviewed her, because it was really back then my mom had got me this set of colored pencils, and I was kind of just taking them, and I had a poster of a tiger on my wall, and I was like, “wow, and so I sat down, and I had this large piece of cardboard, and I did this drawing of a tiger, and colored it in, you know, with all its stripes and stuff, and as I was doing it, and I was laying on the floor, my mom came by, and she’s like, “Wow, you should take that in the show and tell, that’s really good. And I’m like, “What, really? And so the next day was Friday, and I don’t know if you remember, we used to have show and tell on Fridays, and so I brought that in and showed it to my class and showed it to my teacher. It and they just went on and on about it and raved about it and I remember walking home that day and I was carrying this large piece of cardboard and it was like as big as me really and with the Nebraska wind and on the plains I mean I was like whoa then started like coming away from me and but I just remember walking home that day, and I was like, man, I, I really want to be an artist when I grow up, you know, and I almost like, in my heart, I was just like praying to God, and I was like, God, I would, I just would love to be an artist when I grow up, and so when we were doing this bio for the book, we reached out to my third grade teacher, mrs. Hauserman, and she said, “Todd, I remember that day, and you know, of course, this is whatever decades later, right? And she’s like, “I remember, and I looked, there was a.. I think it was a second or third floor was where, where we met, and, and I only lived a few blocks from there, and so I would walk, you know, back and forth to school, and she looked out the window, and she saw me walking home, and she said that she also prayed for me that day, and I was just like, what, and I just like, there was something that you know surpassed, you know, what we can see, right? And that just really touched me. And so, to me, that was that was really the point, and it’s really weird to say, you know, went all the way back to the third grade, but then that was instilled in me. Then later, when I was in high school, my art teacher there, David Jorgensen, he sat down with my parents, and he was like, you know, I was a senior in high school, parent-teacher’s conference, and he was like, I really think Todd should go on and study art, he really has a gift, and my mom was like, oh my gosh, this is so exciting, and my dad’s like, what really, and so he goes, yeah, he repeats himself again. My dad’s like,”What really? And so, anyway, I went on to study at the Central Community College in Columbus, Nebraska. They kind of baby stepped it a little bit, you know, right. And then I transferred to the Art Institute in Kansas City, and I, as I mentioned earlier, I then got my BFA and did an internship with Hallmark Cards, and then right out of graduating I ended up getting a full-time position with Day Spring Cards, and then we moved to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, me and my family, my daughter was a year and a half at the time, and so it was just such a, you know, great transition, you know, for me as an artist, and then after working for them for 10 years, I stepped away to pursue really my own voice, right, to really be professional fine artists, and but before I stepped away completely, and with the mentorship and influence from CW Mandi, he was helping me and looking at my work, and he said,”Todd, I really feel like you’re ready, and so it’s actually 1999 when I approached the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, I had won a scholarship to study at the Scottsdale Artist School, and while I was there, I mean, there’s just like a mecca of galleries, I thought, you know, here’s my chance to maybe get into a gallery, and not only did I get into Legacy Gallery, but I ended up getting into the Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe through my connections there, because they, at that time, they had a gallery in Scottsdale, so that really was really.. I remember we went back to the hotel, and my wife and I, and our daughter, and I gave them the good news that I actually got to, you know, top galleries in the United States, you know, here in one fell swoop, and we’re jumping up on the bed, you know, hey, holding hands, jumping up on the bed, and celebrating, and it was just, you know, a beautiful time, and so that to me was really, again, just a great stepping stone, because once, once I got into those two galleries, I continued to work full time. I went to my wife, I went to my family, and I said, you know, I really need to dedicate some time separate from 41 Working 40 hours a week, and so they allowed me every Saturday to get into the studio to produce paintings, you know, for those galleries, right. So once that started to really flow, I started to be able to provide for the galleries. I felt more confident than in stepping away, which was basically three years later. I mean, I love my job at Dayspring. It was so, so great, and I love all the people there, and so it was hard for me to step away, but once I did, that very first year I doubled my income. So, I mean, it’s just, you know, anyway, I feel like that that was a turning point, and then the second turning point was really in 2011 you know, we kind of went through the recession of 2007 2008 you know, there’s a little bit of hangover, and so a lot, some of my galleries were kind of slow, and you know, we weren’t selling a whole lot, and so I was going home to Nebraska for my mom’s birthday, which was in May, and this was 2011 and I had already done a series of paintings and had some solo exhibitions with my series from Vienna and Prague. This painting right here is the St. Charles Bridge from Prague, and then I ended up doing another because I was so successful, that was at the Meyer Gallery in Santa Fe. I did another series from Italy, and then I was like, okay, I love doing these series of paintings. How about I actually end up doing a series from my home state of Nebraska? And so that’s when this idea came to me in 2011 to kind of go into the different counties of Nebraska, and I started in my hometown of Central City, Nebraska, which was Mary County, and then I started with some of the surrounding counties in doing those, and I sat down with Michael Smith, he was the executive director of the State Historical Society of Nebraska, and this was 2012 and I was sharing him with my idea, my vision of doing this series of paintings, so he, he goes, Well, when do you expect to have all these paintings done? And I said, well, I’m going to give myself five years, so 2017 Well, that’s when he was like, oh my gosh, well, you know what 2017 is? And I said, no. He said, well, that’s Nebraska Sesquicentennial, and so I was like, okay, Susque, what, what’s that term, and ended up just everything kind of fell into place, he put me in charge, or in contact with the Nebraska 150 Commission, because that was Nebraska’s 100/50 statehood anniversary, and then later I was able to meet with the governor and the First Lady, and they were just like, we love what you’re doing, we want this to be a part of our celebration for Nebraska Sesquicentennial, and just everything kind of started to fall into place, and so they really selected me then to be the exclusive artist to represent the state of Nebraska, and that took five years of my life, and so in 2012 I went to all those galleries. At that time, I did have seven galleries that represented me nationally, and I had to say to them, I said, I have this unbelievable chance, this, you know, opportunity, you know, for myself as an artist, and just because of my love for my home state of Nebraska to do this, and they were all very much in favor of that, and he encouraged me and said yes, you know, we support you in this, go for it. And so, for me, as we traveled throughout the state, excuse me, Nebraska PBS station ended up doing a 60 minute documentary, also, and so they would travel around with us, and as we would go into the different counties, you know, meet with each county historical society, we’d also meet with some of the local historians, and so what I was trying to do was gather information to find out really. What would be the one thing if you had to just pick one thing to identify with that county within the state, and so that was hard at times, and, and very interesting, the whole business side of that, the sponsors, the logistics of that exhibition, because it ended up being 123 works of art. Well, what do I do with all those paintings? And then it was going to be a statewide traveling exhibition in 2017 you know, during the Susque Centennial celebration. So there was a lot of logistics things there. There’s things on the business side that you know we, I can probably talk about for hours about how that came about. But anyway,
Laura Arango Baier: 50:53
that sounds very stressful,
Todd Williams: 50:56
though. That’s a lot.
Laura Arango Baier: 50:57
Oh my gosh, yeah. Because it’s like it’s a beautiful idea, and it’s amazing also because it’s something I’ve been thinking about in the last few weeks, which is how there’s this thing that happens through an artist, an artist’s career, where, like, at the very beginning, you know, we reach out and find opportunities, but then there comes a point where we start making our own opportunities that makes sense, kind of like how you did, you’re like, oh, well, I should just paint my home state, because I mean, my paintings over there did great, so I want to, you know, do something for my home state, and then, bam, you get all of these, it’s like, it’s like opening Pandora’s box, except, of course, it has much better things in there, but it’s yeah, you just, you had your own, you know, you made your own opportunity by accident, and it really just comes from like that hit with inspiration, and then you just go for it, you just ask the right people about it, you start investigating, and suddenly you get a lot of people on board, and I think that’s a huge testament to the importance of following that instinct and following that inspiration, and just make your own opportunities, because, like, they’re not going to fall on your lap willy nilly, you know. We all hope, we all wish, but that doesn’t always happen like that.
Todd Williams: 52:13
Yes, that’s that’s really a good point. I’m glad you brought that up, because to me it was kind of a god thing, because I didn’t really plan for all that, right? I just kind of wanted, just from my own heart and passion. I just had always thought, wow, you know, I’ve done these series in Europe, but I would love to do a series in my home state, and then when that’s once that started, it kind of ended up into something even greater than I had originally purchased, and now, or it really thought of, but for me that really has then moved into, in a very natural way, my next series, because when I was in my home state of Nebraska, and learning some of the history, and going into the counties, I learned a lot more about the Native Americans. Right, I learned a lot more about their story, and how important it was to not only the state of Nebraska, but a lot of states, you know, within the United States of America. And so I just love that. I love some of the history, I loved learning more about it, and so that kind of wanted me to dive into it even more. And part of the Legacy of Nebraska series, I did do several Native American pieces to represent some of those counties, and so it’s really became a natural evolution to now do this next series, as which I’ve been currently working on since then, and so I wanted to kind of do just, you know, faces, you know, and I, I’ve always loved portraits, I love faces, but I never really tackled that very much, I always did. You know, in the beginning, you know, they, a lot of this, you know, if you go any type of any academic, you know, school, or you know, go over into Europe, you know, and and join in on some of those academic art schools or workshops, or whatever. They always tell you to start with the still life first, right? You’re dealing with one light, one light source, you know? You got your highlights, mid tones, you got your shadows, so it’s very simple, right? You know, keep everything as simple as possible. Then, as you can successfully accomplish that subject, you move to the landscape. Once you kind of then get that honed in, then you kind of move to the figure or portraits, right? And so, for me, I’ve always wanted. It to do more figurative work. I’ve always wanted to do more portrait work, and so that’s kind of what that led into with my current series within more of the Western genre, and specifically some of the Native American subject matter.
Laura Arango Baier: 55:19
Awesome. Yeah, and that’s.. I feel like painting is.. I like to say it’s a gift that keeps on giving, where there are endless things to learn, just endless.. you think you.. if you think you’ve learned it all, you.. you’re wrong, because the more you.. you’ve.. you paint, the more you realize there’s so much more to know, and it’s a lifetime or more of learning, and it’s.. it can be very daunting, but I think that’s great. I love those portraits, the ones with the red background, or the.. it’s.. they’re so.. yeah.. or the blue background. It’s very beautiful, because there’s a starkness to them and an expressiveness at the same time, or they’re very. like their presence, you know,
Todd Williams: 56:03
yes, and it, you know, to me too, as an artist, you want to do something that stands out a little bit, you, you want to be unique, but it’s hard to be unique when everything’s already been done, right? So you know, but you kind of keep trying, you know? You just, you have to just keep trying, and I know the most successful artists, like a lot of galleries that you know, directors and people I used to work with, gallery owners and things like that, they would say, you know, Todd, you just, you should just do one thing and just stick to that one thing and just do that one thing well, that way you can be known for that one thing, and I said, well, and it’s probably because of my illustration background, you know, too, it’s just painting multiple different things, and having to be like I said, a jack of all trades. I had a, I had a paint in acrylic, watercolor, Karen Doss crayons, you know, pastels. I mean, you know, we did silk painting, we did etchings, I mean, we did everything, you know, just whatever you can think about for two dimensional artwork, you know. I’ve done it, and you know, maybe I was kind of good at that, but I wasn’t great. And so, yeah, there is, there is that, there is that truth. If you just paint the same thing over and over and over and over again, you’re going to get really have a lot of knowledge for that subject, but it’s really, then I, that’s why I like to do things in a series, you know, like I’ll do a series, and then once I feel like that series has kind of reached its, you know, moment in time, then I’ll kind of move on to something else, and maybe it’s a slight, slight tweak here and there, but, but I do notice that I do notice that within the commercial realm that the most successful artists will pretty much paint the same painting over and over again, but they just change the composition, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the same subject matter, I guess, is what I’m trying to say, and not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know, because there is the business side of things, but for me, I do want to challenge myself, especially at those times where I’m feeling kind of blase about things, like, okay, well, what am I going to do next, I really want to challenge myself to try, and you know, not necessarily reinvent myself, but just create something that maybe that I don’t see out there right now. So,
Laura Arango Baier: 58:54
yeah, yeah, and I like, we mentioned earlier, it’s those two wolves, there’s the one that’s like, I want to try all of these new paintings and new things, and then the the other wolf, it’s like, well, but galleries want you to create a product that they can rely on, because they’re a business, and you’re like, yeah, I know, I totally understand that, I think that’s what we all kind of have to face at some point, because we’re not, we’re not stagnant creatures, right? We’re not gonna, I mean, sure, maybe someone out there is blessed enough to really want to paint the exact same thing forever, but I, I highly doubt that, because I feel like, as humans, you know, you evolve, we change, we age, we experience new things. It’s impossible to always paint the same thing forever, just because of that, you know. We’re always going to evolve, we’re always going to change, and therefore our work is naturally going to do the same as well. So, I think it’s, it’s a little bit funny, because the. Salaries, and you know, buyers, they want something that’s exact, something that’s always going to be the same, something that’s always reliable, and, like, yes, we can rely that this artist always paints these trees really well with the sunset, but then, of course, that artist might be like a little bit tired of the trees with the sunset, because I feel like I’ve already, you know, done it a lot of times, so yeah, I think that’s one of those hard parts of like trying to step outside of that gallery’s comfort zone and have that conversation with them about, well, I want to explore this direction a bit, and coming to, you know, some sort of compromise about it as well,
Todd Williams: 1:00:43
and I think if, if you know, if I’m, if I’m honest, and if you talk to other professional artists and they’re honest, they’ll tell you that we go through seasons right within our career, and sometimes it is important to build those relationships and kind of paint what they want, right, and so you obviously need to make money, you need to be successful, you need to provide for yourself, and you know, provide for your family, and and so there there are those decisions that you know during that season of life that it’s it’s important that you probably, you know, choose those wisely, but then later, you know, you’ll go through other seasons and stuff like that, where you know there’s more important things than money, you know, and what are we going to do, like, like, I, I’m by far not rich or anything, but I make a good living, you know. I’m able to provide for my family, you know. I have a good home. How much money do I really need to be happy? And what, what is more important, you know? And so there’s for, for me, it’s the difference between striving and being led, and so I always just kind of really want to not strive in what I’m doing, but be led in what I’m doing, you know, and again, that just comes from, you know really seeking right, you know what, what seeking wisdom for really what what is the proper direction for your career, and each person is going to be in a different season, and so it’s always good to you know make those decisions and have that wisdom accordingly to what season you’re in.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:02:46
Yeah, yeah, and I love that, because that segues perfectly into my next question, which is, How has your definition of success evolved as your career has progressed?
Todd Williams: 1:03:00
Yeah, that’s, you know, answered that, I guess, in some ways is, you know, as you know, again, I’ve been paying out professionally now on my own for 25 years, I guess you could say, even those 10 years was still, I was still a professional artist, even though I was working for a company, you know, like Hallmark and Dayspring, but yeah, it really.. when I did that Legacy Nebraska series, to that entire collection of work, I loved it. I mean, it was so great. I mean, I started it, you know, when I was in my 40s, and then when I ended it, I was 50, and I was like, what happened to my 40s? But you know, I love painting so much, you know, and I like, I was telling you about the seven galleries, and I would get into the studio and my wife would come in and hey, you gotta eat, you need to eat supper. Oh yeah, I guess I should eat. Okay, and then she’d go, you know, it’s like midnight, I’m going to bed, you should probably come to bed. I’m like, well, I’m just going to paint for a couple more hours, and then the next thing I know, the sun’s coming up, I mean, this, this would literally happen to me, and I’m like, wow, but you know, you just get into it, I have, you know, just have so much, so much passion, and so much love for it, the time just flies by, and I don’t feel tired all the time, but now I’ve done that kind of caught up with me a little bit, and I had some shoulder issues, actually in both shoulders, and and so I had to start listening to my body a little bit more, and so now I’ll paint, and then maybe the next. Day, I won’t paint, I’ll kind of give my body a little bit of break, you know, not that I have to, but I’m just trying to be smart about it. And I avoided surgery, I didn’t have to have surgery, like I talked to some of my other peers and stuff, and they’ve had, excuse me, shoulder surgeries, and you know, other things have happened, you know, throughout their career and stuff like that, and I’ve always been careful. I don’t like to take medication, I like to be really natural, and you know, everything I take or what I put in my body, and so just to me now at this point my career, my health is really important to me, and so my art is still really important, but I have to listen and have wisdom about that, and then also then when it comes to the finances, you know, we’re at a point now where you know we’re more secure in our finances, I guess you could use the term I’m not as hungry as I was when I was younger, and that hunger can be great, that can help you know feed you and your success, but yeah, so that has changed for me, and I don’t produce as many paintings, you know, every year like I used to, but that’s okay, you know, I’m okay with that, and I’m very selective now on what I choose to do, like the different shows I’m in, the different galleries I’m in, you know, all those things, there’s so many opportunities for artists out there, which is great. I think there’s no better time to be alive and be an artist than now, because there’s more people that have knowledge of the arts, there’s more art appreciation, there’s so many great things that are going for us right now as artists, and there might be a multitude of more artists out there, you know, producing and wanting to become artists, but that’s great, I embrace that, there’s enough room for all of us to be successful, there really is, so it shouldn’t be a competition, but for me, like, I have more contentment in my heart to just live in the moment, and I think in one of our earlier discussions, my, my daughter Jessica has been able to help me, and it’s taken a while, but to set, sit back, relax, you know, and enjoy the moment that we have, because I think sometimes I’ve always been this person that I’m always doing this, so I can then attain that later, and I miss out on this, the moment that I have right now, and when I did the Legacy Nebraska collection, that did help me, though. It helped me, you know, when I stepped away from the galleries, and I began to just kind of travel throughout my home state. I did really enjoy that process, and it’s really about those relationships that I built as I look back now. I think those relationships were more important to me than even the work that was accomplished, and so I always, you know, if I have an opportunity, I always like to tell people that art, when you’re actually painting, it’s all about relationships, because you have to relate that one value next to the other value, you know, your darkest dark, your lightest light, that edge, you know how sharp or hard is that edge compared to this soft or even lost edge, here, you know, how what’s the highest chroma in your painting, and where should you place that, and then being selective on that, you know, because if you have so much chroma everywhere, it’s kind of chaos, right? And so something needs to kind of play the lead, you know, I want my paintings to be poetic and have that great power and centrality of focus within it, and so you have to use much reserve, but for me that came really from just, you know, stepping back, you know, and really analyzing things, you know, thinking more and painting less, and try and live in the moment and enjoy the moment, because before you know it, you know it’s gone, and so, but where I wanted to go with the relationships was there. Are only really two things that have eternal value in my mind, is our relationship with God and our relationship with each other. Most relationships will continue and have eternal value, and the things, these other things, you know, they are what they are, but just enjoy the process, you know, enjoy life now, where it’s at, and that, that would be the best advice I could give, you know, any, any artist listening today, it’s just enjoy where you’re at, and, and it’ll come, you know, keep working hard, keep persevering, don’t give up because you’ve been given that gift for a reason, so keep going, you got this, you know,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:10:54
bravo. Yes, yes, I like to say that the journey is the destination, yeah, because it, it really, like, you know, when you start living in a moment, like you’re saying, it really makes you.. I don’t know, it feels like you relish it more. There’s, there’s more feeling in it, and sometimes, you know, you can look at a painting you did and look at a certain spot and be like, I remember exactly how I felt when I painted that spot, or what I was listening to, or, you know, or the conversation I had with So and So at that moment, and you start, you know, kind of embedding your work with your memories and the moments that you felt at that time, which is really beautiful too.
Todd Williams: 1:11:35
Yeah, that’s so true. I remember some of my trips, like, as you were talking, or reminded me of when I took a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, and I had a gallery there, and I was painting, and like when I got back home, and I had those plein air paintings, like those were just so precious to me, because each one held a memory, and so I ended up doing like just larger studio paintings based on my plain error studies, so I could keep those, like, and I still have those, you know, for my own personal collection, and CW Monday told me one time, too, like, even with, you know, you see my some of my European collection behind me, this is part of that, some of those solo exhibitions that I had at the Meyer Gallery, and I was just like, he was just like, you know, after all those series of pieces that you do, hold back a couple paintings, you know, keep some for yourself, you know, because that’s your maybe that’s your retirement, you know, maybe that’s a painting later, you know, right now it’ll sell for 10,020 years from now it’ll sell for 50,000 you know, you know that’s our hope, but yeah, I like to hang on to some of my paintings for my personal collection, because they do mean so much to me, and you’re right, it’s attachment to that moment in time,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:12:59
yeah, that’s that’s very smart, and also very, yeah, that’s I should start doing that too. Just start keeping some of my better pieces, and once I have like a good breadth of them,
Todd Williams: 1:13:13
don’t have to sell them all.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:13:15
Yeah, that is, that’s a good point. I think, of course, at first, when you’re early career, it’s harder to have that, just because I feel like when you’re starting out, it’s a lot harder to get like really, really, really good paintings, of course, and then as you start building that up, then it gets easier, but yeah, yeah, and then speaking also of exhibitions and shows and workshops, do you have any shows, anything coming up that you’d like to tell us about?
Todd Williams: 1:13:43
Oh, yeah. Well, I actually will be teaching with the Indiana Heritage Arts Group in Nashville, Indiana, and that’s part of the Brown County Art Gallery, also, and they’re celebrating their anniversary, and I was really honored, because I don’t know if you know much about the Brown County Art Group, but they had basically a colonization that was taking place there at the turn of the century, and you should, should Google that, Brown County artists, and similar to what was going on in Taos, right, you know, a lot of people are familiar with the Taos artist colonization in the early 1900s but the same thing was going on in this little town of Nashville, Indiana, which they call Brown County, and anyway, they asked me to come and teach a workshop there to their members, and so I’ll be doing that here later on this month, in May, and then I’ll be going back to my home state of Nebraska to Central City and teaching a workshop there in with the. Barrett County Museum, and last year was the first year that I did that, and they weren’t actually officially open, but they’re actually open now. It’s a brand new facility that they were able to get funding for, and so for me to go back to my hometown, you know, it’s just really great, and you know, my mom and dad still live there. My wife’s mom still lives there. You know, we have siblings that live there, and so that workshop is going to be june 29 30th, and july 1. It’s a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, kind of leading up to the Fourth of July weekend, so all that information is on my website, Todd Williams Fine art.com You can kind of go under the info. There’ll be like a workshop section specifically for that. As far as shows go, you know, I don’t really have.. we just got done with the Western Art Museum with the Roundup, which is an annual show that I do every year, and then I’ll be doing a four-person show with them in 2028 and that’ll be in September of 2028 and so that’s, you know, some pieces that I’m working on now, and kind of setting aside the Settlers West Gallery kind of represents me, I’ve been a part of their miniature show, and last year I was part of their, their fall show that they do, and that’s in Tucson, Arizona, and the other thing is I am the executive director of a nonprofit art group here in Northwest Arkansas, and we, about three years ago we started a process where we went into some of the state and national parks, and we held plain air events, and so at those plain air events we would give out cash awards, you know, we’d have prizes, merchandise awards, they would paint for, you know, two or three days, and then we’d have like an exhibition, and then award ceremony. So we did that at seven different locations throughout the state of Arkansas. And then this year, in 2026 in January, that body of work, it’s a 50 works of art with 25 artists, it has their plein air painting. They selected one of the plein air paintings from one of the parks, and then as a study, and then they also then a did a studio painting based on that smaller plein air study. So it’s kind of like a fill to finish exhibition where viewers can come in and see that process of the artists that kind of go through, and then that’ll be traveling throughout the entire state of Arkansas for 2026 and 2027 So this is kind of the book that we put together. Also, it’s a celebration of nature and art, painting the art itself parks and Governor Huckabee Sanders, she wrote a really nice two-paragraph quote for us for the exhibition, and then Shay Lewis, who’s the executive director of the parks department and the secretary, he also wrote the forward for a book, and we kind of used some of those quotes, you know, in the exhibition, and we have that show opening up, and it’s called Arts on Main, it’s a museum in Van Buren, Arkansas, and we have an opening reception on that on may 15, but you could go to that website if you’re interested, it’s Heart of America artist.com and that’s plural artist.com so Heart of America, so
Laura Arango Baier: 1:19:14
yeah,
Todd Williams: 1:19:14
a lot of stuff going on, so it keeps me busy,
Laura Arango Baier: 1:19:17
yeah, yeah, and I’ll include all of the links in the show notes as well, so if anyone’s interested, they can just go to the show notes and find the links there. But yeah, thank you so much, Todd, for the conversation and for the inspiration. And yeah, it’s.. it’s.. I have a lot of notes now.
Todd Williams: 1:19:38
Thank you, Laura. I appreciate it.
Laura Arango Baier: 1:19:40
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