Today we’d like to introduce you to Norah Levine.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Visual creativity has been integral to my life for more than 30 years. It started in high school with a camera, led me to undergraduate school for photography, and eventually to a job at a custom photo lab in Santa Fe, NM. That environment gave me access to seeing how professionals created and worked, and was invaluable to shaping my next steps.
I built a career primarily photographing pets and children, extended that into teaching pet photography, and wrote a book on the subject. My love of nature, animals, and humanity’s connection to all of it has been and continues to be at my creative core.
What I fell in love with first was the darkroom. The magic, the surprise, the physicality of it, rolling film, developing prints, the enlarger. There was something about that process that felt alive. I’m grateful I learned in the film days. I learned to speak the language of photography from experience.
Digital opened many doors and I embraced it, but somewhere along the way I lost that physical experience. The embodied act of making has always been a vital ingredient of my practice.
I always loved painting. When I realized something was missing in my creative experience, I was drawn to take a course in encaustic, a painting medium made from molten beeswax, damar resin, and pigment, fused with heat to create luminous, layered surfaces. One module in that course explored integrating photographic imagery with the encaustic paint. I knew I’d love it. And I did. I wasn’t interested in giving up image making. I wanted something more in my practice.
Photography and encaustic are not two separate things in my work. They are collaborators. My photographs expand into the painting, informing decisions, shaping the piece. I don’t want one seen before the other. They’re meant to be taken in as a whole.
There is a thread running through all of it, a commitment to and experience of magic.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road.
It took me a long time to allow myself to call myself an artist. Starting an entirely new medium more than 15 years into a career focused solely on photography felt risky, and at times threatened my sense of identity. My initial work was primarily photography with very little painting. Over the years that ratio has shifted, and so has the way I see myself.
Encaustic itself can be quite challenging. Photographers are known for loving control, and this medium has required a lot of letting go. That was hard. The work I create can also physically demanding. I work in Austin, Texas, and in the summer, working with melted wax and torches takes real energy. While the work is extremely durable, it is precious — it can’t be shipped in extreme temperatures, which is a challenge every encaustic artist faces.
Then there’s the business side. I didn’t become an artist because I love selling. Having my work on walls feels like putting a piece of myself out there, and that is extremely vulnerable. But the more I do it, the easier it gets. This is what I have to do because I love it too much not to. I feel most alive when I am creating, and the business of it is an evolution I’m willing to keep working on.
In the beginning, the visions I had couldn’t come to fruition because my technique wasn’t there yet. As time goes on I’m experiencing more freedom in my creative process. I will continue to learn and be challenged as I push myself.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a fine art painter working at the intersection of photography and encaustic. I specialize in embedding photographic imagery within layers of molten beeswax, damar resin, and pigment to create luminous, textured works where the two mediums function as collaborators rather than separate elements. My subject matter centers on nature, animals, children, and scenes of wonder, vignettes of magical encounters that invite the viewer to bring their own meaning.
What sets me apart is the depth of my photographic roots. I bring decades of experience as a portrait and pet photographer to every piece. The photographer’s eye is always present: composition, light, gesture, color.
What I am most proud of is the evolution, both of the work and of myself. Moving from a career photographer to a fine art painter required letting go of a deeply held identity, and finding that encaustic didn’t abandon my roots but expanded them. The shift in ratio from primarily photographic to primarily painterly, without losing what made the photography meaningful, is something that feels so good to me.
I think of my pieces as small sanctuaries. Works for collectors to bring into their homes that offer a deeper connection to themselves, to nature, to calm, to beauty.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Highly sensitive, always moving. Loved the woods, imagination play… I danced. A lot. I was funny, Loved deeply. I loved exploring.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.norahlevine.com/
- Instagram: @norahlevine
- Youtube: @norahlevine
