 “Spotlight Q&A” — Maggie Cole
This issue’s “Spotlight” is on a unique lady with an interesting work ethic and some great advice!
Maggie Cole is a painter, working with a variety of painting and drawing materials on a variety of grounds or surfaces (canvas, paper, wood, vellum, mylar, yupo, styrene); her work is classified as “mixed media”. She strives to embue her work with symbolic and mysterious meaning. Her work is predominantly abstract. Viewers often find a sense of familiarity with “things”in her paintings and are not sure if their intuition is correct… this sense of familiarity is intended.
Maggie studied at the Victoria College of Art, Bill Porteous’ Art Studio and the Victoria School of Contemporary Art. She is a now a full time artist; her children grown, she and her husband Norm currently reside in Victoria, BC. Be sure to visit her website at www.maggie-cole.com.
Heather Yuen of A&CNet spoke with Maggie when she was in Calgary for an exhibition of her work at the Kensington Riverside Inn.
HY:
Tell me about your start in painting and art.
MC:
I was always inclined toward the arts although I had no training in art in school…. In those days, if you did well in school at all, you were placed in an academic stream and the arts were not options available to you. I took classes as an adult sporadically over many years. Back around 1980, we purchased a sheep farm in Mechosin on Vancouver Island. I learned a lot about sheep and textiles…. first about marketing the wool, then I learned to spin the wool, then dye it and knit it. I studied textile design with Judith MacKenzie for several years. One day she said, “You know, I think you really are a painter, you should go to art school”. I started by taking evening classes at the Victoria College of Art. I applied to be a full time student and was accepted in 1992. After 2 years there, I studied with Bill Porteous for a year. He started up the Victoria School of Contemporary Art and I attended there for several years as a student, instructor and a volunteer. It was a very special time…. I focused on painting but was exposed to a variety of art forms and took part in seminars and the rich life of an art school.
HY:
What do you think was the impact, if any, of being a “Mature Student”?
MC:
I was 50 when I started in art school and if anything, I think it was an advantage. Once your life is established you can focus on art, rather than finding a way to support yourself and a place to live and dealing with “life”. As well, I think a mature person, having lived so much of life, has more to “draw on”.
HY:
How did you balance raising a family, running a household, going to art school and painting?
MC:
I’ve always been an organized person… I prioritize and plan a fair bit. There were times when I had to be the “dragon lady”about it… I always saw it, though as my job to make sure I had the time I needed … it wasn’t my family’s job to give it to me, I had to make it happen. In a way I had to train others, and myself too, that this was important.
HY:
What do you enjoy most about painting?
MC:
That’s very hard to answer in a meaningful way…. I do know that it’s NOT the “idea” of being an artist… I don’t object to the label at all but I don’t paint so I can say “I’m an artist”… I actually prefer to call myself a painter but people think I mean painting a house. I enjoy making things of course, and I love the fact that what I love to do is also my job.
HY:
What, if anything, would you change about being a “creative person”
MC:
I’m not sure what you mean…
HY:
When asked this question, some people talk about not being able to change anything because they are almost controlled by “the creative muse”, if you will.
MC:
I understand the idea of being controlled or a conduit… I find that to produce really good art, I need to get into a state where I can be a conduit… I have to just start working, let the tape in my head run out (the one that says “you can’t paint” or “why are you doing this”, etc., etc.)… then the work flows better… I can’t walk into this state, I have to work into it. Now that I know it will happen, I can deal with the process of getting there… If I’m on a roll, I can enter it more quickly.
HY:
Are there any things you‘ve found that make it easier or harder to get there?
MC:
No… not really. I just have to start working… just show up and do it… Then I get something back. If I’m preoccupied or scattered, it’s harder.
I find this is not play… It’s work…even when I become a conduit and things flow…it’s still work.
HY:
Do you ever experience burnout? How do you handle it?
MC:
Sure I do…more than burnout, sometimes I lose my enthusiasm. Usually it happens when I’ve been working too hard and I realize I have to stop for a bit… like the analogy of a vessel that’s drained and needs to be filled up.
HY:
Anything help fill it better than others?
MC:
Nothing in particular… Mostly I just need to stop painting and do other things for a while… take a week or two off…
HY:
Do you worry about not getting started again?
MC:
No… I know it may be hard to get going but I know, too, that the only approach is simply to start painting. I usually have a list of things I want to try. There are always several things on my list so I just start in. Sometimes I start one thing and move to another if the first isn’t going well but I can’t say I’ve ever really had trouble getting going.
HY:
How did you get started selling your work? Where? How did you know where?
MC:
It just happened for me. I was encouraged at Art School to exhibit some prints I was working on, so I had a two person show with a colleague of mine which went well. Then I applied for a solo show at the Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria which was well received… always encouraging! As a result of pulling together that body of work I began to show my work at Fran Willis Gallery in downtown Victoria.
What I learned from all this is that you have to seize the opportunity when it comes your way. You have to say “yes” to an opportunity (like the first time I showed my work or this event in Calgary) and do the work to “make it happen”. Don’t wait. There are no guarantees however and I have my pile of rejection letters too… It’s all part of the job.
I also think you can’t take the failures OR the successes too seriously or personally. Don’t let the people who jury the shows determine who you are… Create what you create. Take every chance you can to show and sell your work, do the work required to make it happen but don’t get so caught up in it that it totally runs your creative life. If that’s sounds a little contradictory, it is! But that’s the creative life.
Another contradiction is that you don’t want to start showing your work too soon either… It takes time for the artist to gestate and mature in their work. Some people put off showing their work when it would be good for them and others move too soon and should wait a bit. Showing is part of being an artist, too.
HY:
So how do you know when it’s time?
MC:
Two things…
1 — Find someone in the business who’s judgement you really trust.
2 — I think you have to develop trust in your self… You are the only one who can nurture what you have… Others can help nurture you along but mostly you have to do it yourself.
HY:
How do you market your work?
MC:
I went the “gallery route” because I want to spend as much of my time as I can painting rather than focusing on selling the work. There are other options though… I had some work in a “design store” I guess you’d call it… And there are the community shows and sales. I find I can’t sell enough work that way and as I said, I’d rather have others selling my work and I’ll paint.
HY:
Do you have any formal “marketing” plans?
MC:
In a way, yes in that there are several things I have put in place.
1 — “Getting my ducks in a row” — Pulling a portfolio together, business cards, CV, etc. as I did for the solo show.
2 — Getting my website done.
3 — “Girding my loins” — Following up on leads.
I spend one day per month on these marketing tasks… Nothing happens if I don’t do anything so I just pick away at things that I need to get done. I can give up one day a month easily.
HY:
What, in terms of business insight, have you learned to do or not to do over the years?
MC:
DON'T PROCRASTINATE. I keep telling myself to get the business part of being an artist (the 3 tasks mentioned above) done as quickly as possible. It is less work that way.
The trick is to cover off the business aspect without it becoming dominant…making sure there is time to create the art work, too.
Another trick is to market your work and yet not create more demand than you can meet to everyone’s satisfaction. It is a kind of dance to create enough demand but not too much at one time.
HY:
I know you have a website. Has your site affected your business? In what ways (good and bad)?
MC:
So far, it’s a bit of a plus. People can go there to see my work. It can stop a negative impact in that if I contact a gallery or person and describe my work, they may not really know what I mean… They can go look and see and decide if they are interested. I don’t sell from the website now and don’t foresee that soon. But it could be a significant factor in the future so I’ve set it up now so I’ll be ready.
HY:
You’ve lived in a variety of houses over the years. What sort of workspace arrangements have you made? Did you always have a studio?
MC:
I’ve always carved out a space… I’ve re-arranged the “normal” use of rooms in a house to make sure I had a creative space or studio… For example, in my current home the official living room and dining room is my studio and we used a different space to create our living room. We’re moving to a condo soon and I have rented studio space from a current neighbour.
It’s VERY important to have a dedicated work space…however small. Going to the studio is like me going to work. Others, and me too, seem to respect my creative time better.
Some people use the lack of space as an excuse to NOT do their art… Make a space somehow and if necessary, adjust the type of work you do to fit the space… i.e. if you only have a small space, don’t try to paint huge canvases. I work with a lot of media types so I need a lot of space. I have lots of materials and I work with them in different ways…some flat on a table, some on an easel. I also find I have to be able to clean up the space easily…store materials I’m not using, store finished works somewhere else. I can’t create in chaos… My house may be chaos but NOT my studio. When I change to a different type of media, by cleaning out my space I somehow clean out my mind, too, so I can focus on a new theme or way of creating.
I was given an interesting tip about storing completed works — I had just started working in a studio where there was a lot of my completed work around me and I was telling a mentor that I was having a hard time getting started in this space. He said get your old work out of here… And as soon as I did, Bingo! I was off and running… Somehow looking at the completed work, even subconsciously, was keeping me rooted in past work.
Editorial Comment:
We’d like to thank Maggie Cole for her openness and candour on her experience as an artist and sharing her tips, advice and wealth of wisdom.
We at A&CNet offer a variety of services that can help you “get your ducks in a row”, too. We have Business and Marketing Services to help you with business cards, CV’s and other marketing materials.
As Maggie mentioned, she has website to help her market her work and to be prepared for possible future web sales. A&CNet offers a full range of Web Design and Hosting Services. We have several website templates, packed with features, at incredible prices... Or we can custom develop a website for you. We also have skilled technical people who can optimize a website you may already have, to ensure you are ranked high in the search engines and always found when potential customers are searching.
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