Re: What No One Tells You About Being an Artist | Natalie Featherston
In this conversation with host Charuka Arora for our Arts to hearts podcast, Natalie Featherston takes us behind the curtain of her creative world — one built on persistence, humour, stubbornness, and trompe l’oeil magic. She opens up about what it’s like to navigate an art career, from juggling a full-time job while studying, to finding her footing after leaving the structure of school, to walking the tightrope between making what sells and making what matters to her.
Natalie doesn’t hold back. She talks about the awkward silence after graduation, the nagging feeling of not being “enough,” and the fear of becoming someone who makes work to pay bills. But through it all, she keeps showing up, pushing, and evolving.
What we learn from Natalie’s story isn’t just about technique or success — it’s about making room for weird ideas, listening to that itch to try something new, and figuring out how to keep going when the doubts get loud. Whether you’re just starting or you’ve been at this for a while, this conversation feels like a chat with a friend who gets it.
About Natalie Featherston
Artist Natalie Featherston works exclusively in the centuries-old realm of trompe l’oeil, creating dazzling paintings that combine the virtuosity of a Dutch master with a thoroughly modern mind. The Chicago Sun-Times has described her work as, “Artful beyond just illusion and trickery, they are truly masterful still lifes made with both craft and wit.”
Natalie says, “What inspires me is the creative voice, whimsy, and humour that trompe l’oeil allows the artist to express. Unlike portraits or landscapes, still life doesn’t simply exist around us. You have to build the stage for the painting, selecting the colour and textures. The result draws the viewer in and connects with them meaningfully. I’ve always found trompe l’oeil challenging, and I can’t imagine painting anything else.”
Natalie accidentally discovered her love for painting in the early 1990s after moving from North Carolina to New York City to pursue her master’s degree in music. An accomplished cellist, she has been honoured to perform at Carnegie Hall and across Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.
“Although I enjoyed making music, I wanted to do something more creative and unique, something that was altogether mine. I started drawing from the models at the Art Students League, and I was hooked.” Classes soon followed at New York’s most venerable art institutions: The National Academy of Design, The School of Visual Arts, and The Drawing Academy of the Atlantic, culminating in a six-year apprenticeship with Michael Aviano.
Ms. Featherston’s paintings have received numerous awards from some of the country’s most distinguished art organisations, including the Art Renewal Centre, the Salmagundi Club, and the Catherine Lorillard Wolf Club. Her paintings have appeared in The Artist’s Magazine, American Art Collector, Southwest Art, and Fine Art Connoisseur, to name a few publications featuring her work.
In 2021, Natalie was awarded “Best Trompe L’oeil” at the 15th Art Renewal Centre Salon, the world’s largest and most prestigious art competition for representational art. Ms. Featherston is represented by art galleries in major cities across the country, and her paintings are sought after by notable collectors, including Danielle Steele, J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Alice Cooper.
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The Detour That Changed Everything
Natalie didn’t plan to be a painter. She was a professional cellist who had played at Carnegie Hall and toured Europe before she ever picked up a paintbrush. But a move to New York in the 1990s and a whim to take drawing classes at the Art Students League quietly opened a door she didn’t know she needed.
“I wanted to do something that was mine,” she told Charuka. Years of training at prestigious schools followed, and then a long informal apprenticeship with painter Michael Aviano. These weren’t just technique lessons—they were years of discovering a new identity and taking a giant leap into something unpredictable.
the hard part for me was, getting out of school because now that you don’t have that community every day and you’re not working towards goals, all of a sudden you’re just on your own and it’s like, “Here you go, go be an artist,” and like that was hard.S4E67
Leaving the Classroom, Losing the Net
After spending nearly a decade in serious art study, Natalie described one of her most challenging transitions: finishing her apprenticeship and stepping into the professional world.
“When you’re in school, there’s structure. You have goals, you have feedback, you have a community,” she said. “But then suddenly you’re out. And it’s like—okay, go be an artist now.”
Between having the tools and figuring out how to use them in real life, this space can be terrifying. It’s where many artists lose steam. For Natalie, that stretch was more complicated than starting over or facing critics—losing a rhythm had carried her.
On Self-Doubt and That Nagging Feeling
Even after years of recognition and success, Natalie admitted she still wrestles with impostor syndrome, though it doesn’t always show up in obvious ways. “It’s when I’m working on something that’s not satisfying,” she said. “That’s when the fear creeps in.”
Her particular brand of fear? Not being taken seriously. Feeling like she’s “just making stuff to sell.” This isn’t about whether the work is good enough—it’s whether it feels honest. And when it doesn’t, she feels it immediately.
Natalie doesn’t sugarcoat this: the tension between making work that sells and making work that feels alive is a constant negotiation. For her, the antidote is usually pushing herself into new territory—taking risks with a painting, chasing an idea that doesn’t quite make sense yet, trying something that might fail.
I think my themes change, like how I paint a lot in the series. I have like comic book things I like, and then there are crayon things, and there are box paintings, and there are collages, which I have in the back of the canvas paintings and which I freaking love.S4E67
The Commercial Tightrope
As someone who makes nearly all her income from gallery sales, Natalie is upfront about the compromises and calculations that come with a studio practice that’s also a livelihood.
“There’s always this push and pull,” she said. “You want to make something that communicates something. You don’t want to make décor.”
She shared how, earlier in her career, she made floral still lifes because they sold well. The galleries wanted more, the collectors responded. But over time, she started to feel like something was missing. So she shifted course—slowly but intentionally—toward subjects that were more quirky, more difficult to define.
Natalie’s work now includes trompe l’oeil paintings of comic books, crayons, collages, and items tucked into shadow boxes. There’s humour in it. There’s wit. But most of all, there’s curiosity—a willingness to follow ideas even when they don’t have a neat outcome.
It’s when I’m alone and my fear is that people are going to think I’m a hack, which may be a little nuanced over impossibility that drops, you know like I mean, it’s nomenclature words choice to be a hack. That’s probably my fear. S4E67
What Keeps You Going?
Charuka’s final question cuts to the heart of what so many artists want to know: How do you keep doing this, through the fear, through the market pressure, through the lonely stretches?
Natalie’s answer was simple, but not easy: “I just love it. I love what I do.”
That love isn’t about inspiration or magic. It’s about making space to keep showing up, even when the result feels uncertain. It’s about staying in conversation—with the work, your materials, and what you’re trying to say.
It’s also about having people to talk to—people like Charuka and the artists in this community—who get it.
This episode reminds us that the questions don’t go away, no matter how long you’ve been doing this. They change shape.
Natalie Featherston doesn’t pretend to have it all figured out. She offers something more honest: a peek into the real rhythm of a creative life. One that includes detours, doubts, a stubborn sense of direction, and a willingness to keep choosing the work, even when it’s hard.
If you’re in the thick of your creative path and wondering whether it’s normal to feel uncertain, unsure, or unsteady, this conversation is a clear and resounding yes. And also, keep going.
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