A Profile of Rosie Winstead

In many cases, an artist’s home reflects their artist’s work. The same may be true for Rosie Winstead, a mixed media artist who lives and works out of her 1917 home nestled within the Rountree neighborhood.

Winstead doesn’t really like to refer to herself as an artist per say. “Art is just kind of a room for me to go to,” she says. “The term artist, it cheeses me out.” Yet her career tells another story. Winstead began her professional creative journey illustrating greeting cards and selling them at Artsfest. Hallmark picked up a series of her designs, and from there she began working on her first children’s book, Ruby and Bubbles. She was new to the craft and says she had no idea what she was doing, but the title was picked up, and she earned a two-book deal. Eventually the process of making books lost its luster, and Winstead knew she needed to go another direction. She started to lean toward oil painting, a creative process that she says has  felt freeing.

Today, Winstead’s workspace is a bedroom on the first level toward the back of her bungalow. Hanging in the corner are simple tear-outs of different artists and works that have inspired her along the way. A yellowed newspaper article hangs on the wall about sculpture artist Louise Bourgeois’s townhouse in New York, the space where she lived and worked. “The article about Louise Bourgeois just inspired me to let the paint drip,” says Winstead. Winstead’s space is simple and utilitarian. The hardwood floors are covered in paint, creating a wild and beautiful mess. “Now it’s leaning into the hallways and the kitchen, little paint drips,” she says. Piles of categorized clippings from Time Magazine are stacked below the table loaded with paints, brushes and magazine piles. She uses those for collages.

Working from home may have its fair share of distractions, but Winstead sees them as interruptions that are a call for a break or inspiration for a new story. In that way, she finds it easy to work from home. “That’s where my inspiration is,” Winstead says. “Family, art, it’s all just pieced together.” 

When Winstead needs a moment away from her work, she can easily escape. She’s taken a break to do a load of laundry, to take a walk in the alley or to just sit on the front porch. She says she needs her home to feel at ease.

You can view some of Winstead’s recent work at Obelisk Gallery (214 W Phelps St, Suite 101, Springfield). “My newest series was inspired by migration and the unity of animals and how they work,” she says. “In a time when everyone is going their own direction, we are all animals and we deserve a safe place.”