It was a particularly stormy night. Courtney Marshall watched lightning filled the skies, her heartbreaking with every crack of thunder as her parents’ divorce was finalized.
She turned toward her bedroom, picked up a paintbrush and attacked the blank canvas with a large black brush stroke. The solace she strived for could only be achieved by the shades of purple, blue and black to match the turmoil in her heart and the night sky that seemed to turn an irrevocable shade of gut-wrenching pain.
She needed her best friend more than ever at this time. She needed her art.
“It artistically stung ever since, and so I’ve been painting and drawing a lot more,” Courtney said, recalling that difficult time when she was just 17. “For a year after that, all my emotions have been really etched into all my paintings.”
The emotions most comfortably showcased in Courtney’s work come from the pent-up anger and the absence of a complete family.
“I draw muddled people a lot since then,” Courtney said. “So definitely, the darker side of things.”
Courtney paints in abundance to express her darker feelings, the ones she won’t vocalize.
“My art has always been a way to express my emotions, even the nitty-gritty,” Courtney said, “and that’s why a lot of the art I make is a little dark, just because it’s a lot of expressions.”
She paints her emotions; the severity of her feelings escapes with every brush stroke. The colors on her paintbrush are an accumulation of glum, representative of her anguish.
“Just because I’ve been through a lot, I naturally gravitate towards blues, grays and purple,” she said.
Now in her early 20s, Courtney has not lost her faith in fantasy, fairytales and dreams. Her pieces are a combination of that heady darkness and a light at the end of the tunnel all blended together to tell a story.
“Even though there’s darkness there’s still magic in that,” Courtney said. “There’s a story definitely in a lot of my pieces.”
The inherent positivity within her inspires her to incorporate shine and sparkle into her life and her art. “I’ve been trying to do the opposite, so I try to work with orange, yellow, and red recently,” she said.
Courtney strikes a balance between continuing to refine her art and proudly showcasing it simultaneously. The quizzical looks from people around have also been a driving force in Courtney’s life to prove her metal.
“Everyone around me has always been a little iffy about me pursuing art,” she said, adding that it makes her want to “strive for it harder, to prove some people wrong.”
Courtney attended Spokane Falls Community College, where she was committed to carving out a career in art. This ethic has led her to exhibit her artwork in various professional capacities. For example, she painted all the plaques for Conley’s Place Restaurant in Spokane Valley. Her artwork has also ventured into the digital space, featured on “ArtUpon,” an online art gallery.
“I’m stepping in and out everywhere,” she said.
Courtney’s art is not just a hobby but a passion she pursues in multiple ways.
“I have an Etsy shop where I sell stickers and make digital art,” Courtney said. “Sundays are my art day, and that’s when I work on my digital art.”
To enhance her business acumen, Courtney began teaching art after graduating college at a paint studio called Painting with a Twist, where she would move away from her own style and repaint what has already been painted.
Recently new doors have opened for Courtney. She moved to Moscow and got a job teaching art a preschool in nearby Pullman. She has also dipped her toes into publishing through coloring books she designed and is selling on Amazon. And she is planning to restart her Etsy shop, which she had to shut down during her move.
Courtney is excited about her life and the idea that she gets to create it her way on her terms.
“I’m still young and have definitely grown a lot,” she said. “I’m a lot happier now, and I’m just starting to make my own life.”
Her boyfriend who was deployed to Kuwait has returned home and to his studies at the University of Moscow. And as soon as she is more settled, Courtney will join him. One of her goals is to further develop her art career. She hopes to do that at UI, where she plans to study digital art.
Though the move has been at times “chaotic” and a big life transition, Courtney doesn’t go a day without painting for herself. It’s where she finds her joy.
“Even though my inspiration came from something so dark, it’s not so dark anymore,” she says.
“There is a happy ending.”
Michella Chowdhury graduated from University of Idaho. Her story won first-place in a feature writing class. N
By Michella Chowdhury
As Featured In: Winter/Spring 2023
