Maria Pace Wynters
painting
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How did you get into the industry?
I am still kind of trying to figure out how to get into the industry of art. Really, I am at the very beginning stages of my career.
Two years ago when I turned 40, two things happened: I found the courage to start making art simply because I wanted to make art, and I realized that if I didn’t want to go back into the workforce, I better make this art thing viable once and for all. So I started to work every day, even if it was only for 15 minutes. It is amazing how much you can accomplish if you take that small amount of time to create. That short time motivates you to come back, and it keeps the wheels turning. If you are working consistently, as often as possible, even if that is just for 15 minutes a day, you will start to see something happen. Picasso said it best: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.” These are words I live by.
Fifteen minutes turned into longer and longer amounts of time. This wasn’t always easy with two little children, but I figured out creative ways to paint when they were around. My studio is in the loft alongside their playroom, so we would play pretend together while I was painting. Not exactly losing myself in my art, but I was willing to take what I could get. I became addicted to creating art and I realized that something had been missing all the years that I had stopped myself from making art.
Once I allowed myself to create, I found enough courage to put some of it out there for others to see. I had always been pretty insecure about putting myself out there. I had done paintings over the years but unless you came to my house, they were pretty much unseen. It is hard to create knowing that your audience is limited to your house. By using online resources, I was able to get my art seen and build my confidence slowly. At first, I was able to hide and be more anonymous. It was like sticking my big toe in the water first: I could tentatively see how people reacted to what I was doing. It really was the best of both worlds.
The two best things that I did online were get a shop on Etsy and start blogging about what I was doing. It took a few months, but since May 2008 I have had over 50,000 visitors. I am building a brand and creating a following of people who are interested in not only my art but my creative process as well. It is truly cyclical: the more I put online, the more inspiration I get back. Magic.
Did anyone inspire you?
I have always loved certain artists’ work but over the last couple of years I have fallen in love all over again with Degas’ colour palette, Toulouse-Lautrec’s black line, and Mary Cassatt’s block prints. I love the Japanese influence on the impressionist work, the palette of the Fauvist. I love paintings with patterns, fabric and texture. I love figurative painting. I love de Kooning’s chaotic brush strokes and Picasso’s angular figures during his blue and rose period. Matisse’s Green Line. Emily Carr’s totem pole paintings. Gauguin’s The Yellow Christ. Egon Schiele’s draftsmanship. Klimt’s sense of design. I am so in awe of the beauty these artists have created.
Writers have inspired me as well. Julia Cameron inspired me to come to the page even when I didn’t want to and reminded me to fill the well. By sharing her adventure, Elizabeth Gilbert inspired me to start really living my life – and she made me laugh along the way. Eckhart Tolle helped me quiet the thoughts and kept me in the moment.
What do you feel makes you stand out from the rest?
I find it so amazing that I am actually pretty good at promoting myself. I think the secret is that I believe in my art so much because it is honest. My art is truly me, and I think that people can see that. My paintings are not contrived; they are from my heart more than my head. When my head gets too involved, I know that I am in trouble.
Two things I hear over and over from people is that they love my use of colour, and they love my ability to make a subject that could be total saccharin, anything but.
What have been your challenges?
The art world has always been a scary place to me. I went to college and university but always felt a little timid putting myself out there, that the world’s motive was to exclude rather than include. I had that struggle internally for years. It paralyzed me, stopped me from creating, and pretty much made me miserable. It took 18 years for me to realize that if you love it, then don’t let some vague world or fictitious people stop you from fulfilling your dreams. In reality, I have been embraced in many different art circles. I am now a member of NOA (Night of Artists) and dailypainters.com, and have upcoming shows as far away as Montana and as close by as the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts.
What do you feel is your speciality?
I love to draw/paint faces. I think that must be considered my speciality, but at the same time, I don’t consider myself a portrait artist. I am more interested in capturing a feeling or evoking an emotion in the viewer than trying to get a likeness.
What is new or cutting edge?
Using technology to create art and get your art out in the world. Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am to be living now. I use every tool I can get my hands on to help me. My iPhone is the best thing that ever happened to me. I am constantly taking reference photos of patterns, materials, or wallpaper I might want to use in my paintings. I also upload my current paintings, write my blog, check my email, and manage my Etsy store. It is amazing!
Anything else?
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
– Pablo Picasso
When I was a little girl, I would do art any chance I could get. I loved to be creative and was always encouraged by my mom. It was fun. I enjoyed doing it. In fact, there was nothing I liked better. It was never a chore! It was never dull.
So, what happened? When I was a teenager, I romanticized a lot of things: marriage, children, getting older. Visions of Picasso danced in my head: I saw my future self eating dinner and then taking my fish bones and making a clay relief. I would have a bohemian house with piles of art and reference books on the dining room table. I would paint alongside my toddler. Look at us painting together for hours at a time. I won’t go as far as to say I imagined myself wearing a striped black and white t-shirt and shorts, but I will say that I was totally out of touch with reality. First of all, toddlers require constant help when they do art, and their attention span is all of, oh, let’s say, 15 minutes. If you are lucky.
Also, I can’t stand stuff all over the place, let alone my dining room table. I need that table to feed my kids and I don’t want their grubby little fingers all over my good books! Not to mention I don’t even like fish very much, let alone a whole fish with bones. I guess as I got older, so much stuff got in the way of the pure process of creation. I had a constant dialogue going through my brain. Is it good enough? Who will like this? Is it too commercial or illustrative? Or not enough? Is the palette too cold? Too dark? Too muddy? How could I tap into the pureness of what I was doing if the whole time I was doing it my head was questioning whether I should be doing it all? I don’t know who initially put these questions in my head. College, university, people of influence all played a part. The fun in art definitely was no longer part of my process. I no longer felt excited to create. It was just so much pressure: creating art that everybody likes is really hard.
Now, it has come full circle. As a mother, I watch my girls create, and I am inspired by them. They don’t worry about the outcome. They just enjoy the act of making something. Anything. When it is done, it is done, and they move on to the next thing. They don’t dwell on it. It is about the process, not the product. Sure, we all want to create art that we like, and that other people like too. But if that is all we focus on, it becomes a chore – and where is the fun in that? It is so nice not to be in that angst-ridden part of my life. At 42, it is so great to re-associate art with fun, and know I can still learn new stuff even if it is stuff I knew at the age of three.