Welcome to my podcast Creative Momentum with Meg Dunley where I interview creatives about their process, routines and inspiration.
Season 1: The Chateau Season
This first season of the podcast, The Chateau Season features creatives I interviewed during my writing residency the Chateau d’Orquevaux Artist and Writers Residency in France. The episodes feature writers, filmmakers, visual artists, verbatim storytellers and more. Each episode gives you insight into the creative mind, taking you behind the studio doors to hear about process, routine, inspiration and wisdom. These pocket-sized episodes are to encourage you on your creative pathway.
Episode 5: Coral Noel Yang
Coral Noel Yang is a Taiwanese-born abstract landscape painter, now based in Auckland, New Zealand. What I find fascinating about Coral’s work is how she bridges Eastern and Western artistic traditions. She grew up watching her mother create traditional Asian water ink paintings, and found her own voice through the Western technique of pouring liquid paint onto raw canvas, inspired by American expressionist Helen Frankenthaler. Coral approaches her art deadlines by creating collections and setting goals, three months and beyond. By doing this, it helps her to complete her projects.
Her process is deeply connected to nature and travel, and she photographs landscapes then translates them into these incredible abstract works using transparent layers of acrylic and mixed media. What really struck me, though, in our conversation was her approach to goal setting as a creative, and it aligned with my thinking about coaching and goal setting for creatives. She uses a beautiful metaphor of creativity being like rain that needs riverbanks to flow properly.
Have a listen to find out more.
Interview Transcript
MD: Hi, Carol.
CNY: Hello, Meg.
MD: Let’s just start by introducing yourself and where you’re from.
CNY: Yes, I’m Coral Noel Yang, and I was born in Taiwan, but now I live in Auckland, New Zealand.
MD: Excellent, excellent. Can you tell me what your creative discipline is?
CNY: Yes, I’m an abstract, semi-abstract landscape painter using acrylic and mixed media, sometimes oil or soft pastel. And my practice is I pour liquid paint onto raw canvas and then make lots of transparent layers and build them up. And I feel like raw canvas is kind of like our skin, you know, like soak the sun and the rain and allow emotion to be really resonating and then feel like a garment you can wrap around yourself.
MD: I love that. I was actually going to ask you about your creative process. Do you want to tell me a little bit more about that? Like I’m looking at your table here and you’ve got drawings, little drawings, you’ve got small pastels. Yes. Tell me how you kind of come into each of your works of art.
CNY: Yes. So currently I work mostly in response to nature and my stories and travels. And so, I love to take a lot of photos and bring them back to studios and I will sketch them first with pencil and looking for the abstract shapes, the organic forms of the terrain, you know, the rolling hills or the reflection in the water. And then I will create my colour palettes for each piece of work.
Sometimes it’s more like true to nature. Sometimes it’s more fanciful, more surreal kind of colour palettes. So, I like to do small colour sketches first to figure out the values. And then once I feel I’m ready, I will get onto the bigger canvas.
MD: Beautiful, beautiful. I’m going to show some photos as well of the work that you’ve done because it is absolutely stunning and amazing colours in it. Tell me a little bit about your routine for your creativity.
CNY: Yes. I kind of keep a routine that will keep my physical body and my emotional space really uplifted. So, I like to wake up and do journaling and then yoga, stretching, sometimes a nature walk. And then I will, you know, have my, you know, a bountiful breakfast with lots of proteins and fruits and then get to my studio.
And I try to get to the studio, do the creative work before I get to my admin and business side. So usually it’s in the morning, I will go to the studio and I start working on pieces.
MD: Who or what is your creative inspiration?
CNY: I would say, you know, of course, artists, you know, like a master or masters in the history, especially the Renaissance, like da Vinci, Michelangelo, because they really resonated with human stories. And also, my mom. My mom is a very established and incredible Asian water ink tradition artist.
So, I grew up with her and seeing how she does, you know, huge paintings on rice paper. But I realised I cannot do it on rice paper because I’m too messy. So later on, I got connected with Helen Frankenthaler, an American expressionist artist in the 20th century.
And she did this like oil pouring on raw canvas. That’s when I discovered I can use this Western medium, very robust practice, but convey my ancient roots and aesthetics and sensibility.
MD: I love that.
CNY: The melding of it all.
MD: If you were to meet someone who was just at the beginning of their creative journey, what pearls or wisdom would you want to share with them?
CNY: Well, I think, Meg, you know as much as I do. I think the number one thing is allow yourself to play. To be the little kid, you know. Yeah, I have to remind myself again and again. I started painting like full time because I lost my brother. And so afterwards, I just didn’t, I didn’t have the drive to, you know, to do the filmmaking of that kind of high-pressure work.
And I discovered if I just carry a little watercolour sketch and go to the nature, you know, seaside or riverside, I can just do a little sketch. I just feel so connected with my own heart and my happy place. So, I feel like being able to find something that you can feel your heart come alive. And then you can feel that little kid in you have that safety or freedom to express, you know, yourself. That’s the most important thing, I think. Yeah, it’s to create that safe, nurturing environment within yourself.
But also, you know, it’s like, you know, come here to the residency. I met you guys. I met you, Meg, and all the other artists. And then you have created space for me. I feel like you helped me. I can process my emotions and feel free, you know, and be inspired, but also feel really supported, like being seen and affirmed. And I think we need people like that.
MD: So having, I guess, like a community of other creative people who understand.
CNY: Yeah, and also look for coaches, mentors. Yeah. I have done that again and again. Yeah, I know. It’s just, it will help you to, you know, take the bounds and leaps. Yeah. And find your voice and create that space. And it just shortens your journey because they have the tools, wisdom, and insight. Because a lot of times it’s our mindset, right? And it’s all similar. It may, you know, sound, surface differently, but pretty much, you know, quite universal. Yeah.
MD: So, play, community, and coaching?
CNY: Yes.
MD: I love that. Is there anything else that you would want to share about creativity?
CNY: Yeah. I do think it’s very good to have a goal. Yeah. To set up creative milestones. It doesn’t have to be big, but I think it’s really great to have dreams and aspirations. And I feel like to have a three-month milestone, I say, this is what I’m going to set out to do.
Even though I might not achieve it, but it becomes like a container for our creativity. This is what I heard once, you know, our creativity is like the rain coming down from the sky. But if you don’t have the riverbank to contain that water, it sort of just spurs out, you know. But then if you have that riverbank to hold that, it will flow. You will see that. And I think we need that affirmation ourselves. Yeah.
MD: How do you set goals for yourself as a creator?
CNY: Yeah. Because I’m a painter, so I like to create in collections. And I find a theme that really, really, like, I felt really resonated with the theme of the story. So, I will say, you know, in three months, you know, within this three-month time, I’m going to create a collection. And then usually I will have an exhibition or group shows or a large art fair that I set myself a goal to attend, you know. And yeah, sometimes you don’t get it. But I think that progression really, really will create that momentum. So, I like to give myself those goals.
MD: Yes.
CNY: Thank you.
MD: Thank you for sharing.
CNY: Thank you for the opportunity to chat.
MD: Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed that interview with Coral. I loved her insights about creativity, needing structure to flourish. That image that she created of the creativity being like the rain from the sky that needs riverbanks to contain it so that it can flow really resonates. It’s such a beautiful, poetic way to think about why we need goals and deadlines as artists, not as constraints but as containers to help our creativity move forwards. Her approach of working in collections with three-month milestones, always aiming for exhibitions and shows creates that momentum that she talks about.
And I was moved by her reminder to allow yourself to play. Play is really important to me. To be like a little kid, especially knowing that her full-time painting journey began after losing her brother, which is where she discovered that simple watercolour sketches in nature could reconnect with the joy in her own heart.
That combination of play, community, coaching and purposeful goal setting. That’s a framework that any of us as creatives can learn from.
Coral Noel Yang, Visual Artist
You can find Coral and more of her work here:
* Email: coralnoelyang@gmail.com
* Website: coralnoelyangart.com/
You can find out more about Helen Frankenthaler, the artist who inspired Coral here
If you liked this episode, please do like, comment, share and subscribe. It helps artists to get more well-known and helps others to be able to find ways to connect into their own creativity.
x M
