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The FASO Podcast
187 Maureen Dunlap — Set Yourself Apart
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To start off the season, we sat down with fine artist and former software developer Maureen Dunlap. Maureen shares how a childhood immersed in traditional oil painting, guided by mentor Arthur Maynard, eventually wound its way through typography, photo typesetting, and front-end development before circling back to a full-time art career. Maureen talks about rebuilding her painting practice after years away, moving from fast alla prima pieces to highly detailed, indirect paintings that draw on Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Pre-Raphaelite, and Baroque influences. She describes her richly layered seascapes, lace-draped still lifes, and narrative figurative works that often live in ornate vintage or trompe l’oeil frames, all infused with her whimsical titles and maximalist sensibility. Maureen also opens up about the realities of being a full-time artist later in life, balancing joy and financial stability, diversifying income with small works and jewelry, navigating social media and online sales, and her growing desire to teach the next generation of painters.
Maureen's FASO site:
Maureen's Social Media:
facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083217888057
Maureen's Jewelry Store:
instagram.com/the.wonder.cabinet
You have to set yourself apart in some way, because there you're right now, you're like a drop in the ocean of artists. You look, just look on Instagram, but yeah, I mean, I love the academic style, but there's a lot of people doing it, but you got to make yours different. I like to make mine somewhat different in some way, so you got to figure that out.
Laura Arango Baier:Welcome to the Faso podcast, where we believe that Fortune favors a bold brush. My name is Laura Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips, specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. To start off the season, we sat down with fine artist and former software developer Maureen Dunlap. Maureen shares how a childhood immersed in traditional oil painting, guided by mentor Arthur Maynard eventually wound its way through typography, phototypesetting, and front-end development before circling back to a full-time art career. Maureen talks about rebuilding her painting practice after years away, moving from fast alla prima pieces to highly detailed indirect paintings that draw on Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Pre-Raphaelite, and Baroque influences, she describes her richly layered seascapes, lace-draped still lives, and narrative figurative works that often live in ornate vintage or trompe l'oeil frames, all infused with her whimsical titles and maximalist sensibility. Maureen also opens up about the realities of being a full-time artist later in life, balancing joy and financial stability, diversifying income with small works and jewelry, navigating social media and online sales, and her growing desire to teach the next generation of painters, reminding us all to set yourself apart as an artist. Finally, Maureen tells us about her upcoming group show in the main hallway of Golden Belt Arts in Durham, North Carolina, running October through December. Welcome, Maureen, to the Faso podcast. How are you today?
Maureen Dunlap:I'm very good. Thank you very much for having me.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, I'm excited to have you, because the first thing, of course, that I notice when I see your work is how absolutely gorgeous it is. I love your reinterpretation of that Art Nouveau style, and just, it just feels like you have a very whimsical personality.
Maureen Dunlap:I do. My friends will tell you that,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah. And I love that so much. So, I'm excited to talk to you about that, because maybe there's someone out there who feels a little bit shy, and it's okay to be whimsical. It's totally okay to be whimsical. Oh, yeah, let it out in your work, because you know there's more to life. Be free, but yeah, so before we talk more about your gorgeous work, do you mind telling us a bit more about who you are and what you do?
Maureen Dunlap:Okay, well, first I was an artist at age 10, then I became a mom, then I became a software developer, then an artist and crafter. So, those are the steps. There was a period in my life of maybe 15 years when I didn't even pick up a brush, but yeah, so that was a little challenging. I like you said, I like to be whimsical. I have a good sense of humor. I usually let it out at the most inappropriate times, and I really enjoy doing that with when I name my paintings. I try to think of something different to name them, you know, just you have to try to set yourself apart, you know. So, anyway, yeah, I can. I'll do that. I'll show you some of my work, because I have my iPad. I can reverse it and show you around the room. I'm in my studio right now. Let's see, so I began my journey when, like I said, I was 10 years old. My mother sent me to book - I lived in New Jersey. She took me to the Ridgewood Art Association, which is now called the Ridgewood Art Institute, and I started taking young people's lessons, mostly learning still life, learning how to use oil paints, and they had a very set curriculum or methodology of teaching art, because the founder of the Art Institute Art Association at the time, it was called the Barn, because it was actually in a big barn, and the upstairs of the barn had, you know, the gabled roof, and also skylights on the north side, so my that man that started it, his name was Arthur Maynard, he later became my teacher, as when I was a young. Adult after high school, he studied with Frank Vincent Du Monde of the Art Institute of the Art Students League in New York, so truly prestigious guy, but he basically taught me everything I know. His main focus was not how to paint, but why, like, why are we painting something a certain way? He was a big proponent of natural light, prismatic palette. He would basically talk about the way light hits an object, and why it looks a certain way. In other words, you're not painting this apple, you're painting the light that's hitting the apple. And it was very, very scientific in a way, which I, it appealed to me. So I started, you know, doing a lot of still lifes, and also a lot of portraits when I became, you know, a teenager, and after high school I studied there for three years before moving on to art, art school, college, and during those three years it was portraits, how to do portraits, and I became a portrait painter. I really enjoyed doing that. I still love doing portraits, and I became pretty good at it. I mean, I was able to start doing commissions in my 20s, so you know that was fun. It was.. I started thinking, like, why doesn't everybody do this? This is like really easy for me, because I already know the scientific reason for why things look a certain way. I know that you know there's more blood in the nose and the and the cheeks than there is in the chin and the forehead. I mean, there's this all this stuff that's so interesting. So then I went to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, which is in Philadelphia, and when I got there, it started out very classical. We would, we didn't even start painting the first semester, it was cast drawing, going into these rooms full of these statues and trying to draw those exactly right, but when it came to painting, they would just put up a model and turn on all the fluorescent lights. I was horrified. I'm like, what? What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Nobody said anything. I was like, nobody's noticing this. No, I was just like in my own world there. So you're like, okay, I'll do my best, and that became a challenge, and then during critiques, the teachers were just not interested in teaching traditional painting, they, it was the age of abstract expressionism, this is back in the 70s and so I kind of got disillusioned there and decided I need to go get some other skills where I can get a job. There was the Art Institute of Philadelphia, right down the street from where the academy was, and I enrolled there for illustration, typography, graphic design, layout, all those kind of things that were used, like in print shops and magazines, newspapers, things that you know is also creative, and I thought this is fine. I mean, I can still paint my own stuff in my own way, but I can also get a job. So, I did do that. I became actually a photo typesetter back in that day, that it was before, you know, WYSIWYG, and you know, the internet was even, was not even there, and so I was learning typesetting at the time was a ginormous machine, the size of the room, and a black, a black screen, no WYSIWYG, it was like typing in code, and I thought, oh, this is cool, because I always like puzzles, I like, you know, anything that you could have to try to figure out, and those typesetting machines were really complex, as far as they had a lot of keys on the keyboard for letting secondary leading style justification, all this stuff, and you had to type the code, and when it prints out, you say, "Okay, I did something wrong here, and you go back and fix the code. So that became the impetus for me in the 90s to learn how to code for the internet. I thought, "This is a piece of cake, because I was looking at those, the internet code, the HTML. Yeah, and I thought this is so easy. I started my own little web design business at that time. I had kids, and I thought, you know, I'm really going like in a totally different direction here, but it's still kind of similar. It's adjacent to what I like to do, but I like doing that too. So, eventually I got better at doing that. Cut to the year 2000 I got hired at Cisco Systems here in North Carolina to work on their intranet, and that was like a huge experience, a huge company with a lot of people and very complex systems, and that was a challenge again, another big challenge. So that I stayed there for 11 years, and then there was a layoff, because you know, you always get caught up in these layoffs, so I had to go to another small company, and after that it was like two or three small companies, which were really sweet and nice and comfortable with like five or six people in the company, you know. I love that, as opposed to 70,000 people worldwide, so I got hired as a front-end developer, which is basically writing code on the back end to make the front end look good. So, in other words, it's like making art on the front of a computer. Another very complicated, not too complicated, really, but very creative endeavor. so all in all, I was doing that kind of work for about 20 years, and then in 2018 I get laid off from my final company, and I was already like 65 or 63 something like that, and my boyfriend and I took a trip to Europe for a couple weeks, when I came back, suddenly Covid hit, so I thought, well, I'll just go in my spare bedroom at home and paint, got nothing else to do, I joined Daily Paint Works. I sold a bunch of little tiny, you know, ocean paintings. I started doing my own still lifes. I would.. I didn't have a good window. Let me take a drink, so I would set up these still lives and buy a bunch of silk flowers, because I, we didn't have any real flowers, and I didn't want to, you know, you can reuse the silk flowers and just paint them to look real, so I would do that, and then I would take that photo and bring it into a photo editing app on my computer because I'm very tech savvy now, and like, if I had two or three peonies, I could copy and paste and make seven or eight peonies, so I could do a background of something that wasn't really there, and I, you know, a shadow, and I would just really compose the picture pixel perfect, and then use that as my reference for a bunch of my still lifes. And about that time I did sign up with Faso, and I actually started selling my work. I don't know how people found me, but they would, few people like out in Colorado and around the country would purchase these flower paintings, and I also had a bunch of friends on Facebook that became a very good selling opportunity for me, because I'm just post my paintings and I'd get these messages, how much do you want for it, and I'd sell it, sell those paintings. So I think this is awesome, but I kind of got tired of being in my own little room, and so I had found out about this studio space that I, where I work now, which is Golden Belt Arts, and it's in Durham, North Carolina, in the downtown area, and we have 25 different art studios, most of them are this size, which is 12 by 12, not very big, but still you're working with other artists, but even though that's the case, they didn't have very many people here because of Covid, so they were just like a skeleton crew, kind of, and I felt like safe there, because there's hardly anyone here. I'm in my own little room, everybody was trying to like prevent from getting COVID, COVID, and so there was this place has a lot of a few studios that are the prime studios with skylights and a. Been tops, and there there was one available, and I was able to move into this one. Now that's, you know, it's all different now. People like battling to get these, and I was really lucky that that happened at that time. So, anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this long rambling question that you asked me, but basically that's where I am now. As far as the my style, I kind of got a little tired of the flower paint, not tired, but I wanted to do something else, and I began to do a lot of seascapes, ocean paintings, you might have seen them on my website. I sold so many of those, and I just.. I really wanted to make it so realistic that the person felt like they were in the water, so I would find these pictures online of ocean waves with, like, the sun coming through the water, and I just really ham it up with my paintings, and I wanted, you know, usually didn't put a beach, I would put it like just the wave, and those I had hosts, my whole studio was full of waves at that time, so that was that was a fun period for me. Then I decided, let me try something else, and I thought, what is it that will set me apart? What can I do that other people aren't doing? I mean, that's that's a challenge for artists that are trying to promote their work. I can still do still lifes, and I do. I started getting portrait commissions, which are really excellent, but I thought, let me, let me back up a little bit. When I first came in here and started oil painting again, I was really rusty at first, after years and years of not painting, and the paintings were just not good. I'm like, oh my god, I've lost my touch. So I took me a little while, eventually I was back on the saddle, as they say, and I realized that when I was first taught to paint, we would always paint all of Prima, and I love that style - it's fresh and easy, and just really can be very beautiful. However, I ended up accumulating a lot of work because I was fast, and I could do a painting a day, and I thought, this is this is not sustainable, because I got to buy more canvas, more paint. Let me slow down, see how far can I take it. And I started doing research about indirect painting, doing it under painting, doing, you know, the next layer, the next layer, and I thought, okay, this is something new and different, and I decided to challenge myself to see how far can I take a painting, like I can do this vase on a tablecloth with the flowers, but let me put a lace tablecloth and really try to get into those details, and I've just decided this is this is it. I'm in the zone. I could be here all day, and it would just be so much fun trying to make everything picture perfect. And people started really commenting, like, "Wow, you know, they'll come in here and say everything just pops, the colors, and that that's because I, I try to first of all, I use the full value range, I stay in the middle range at first, you know, block in with just a very mid tone of everything, then you know, I started adding more darks and more lights, and just building out the form the way I was taught by Arthur Maynard, and I would start putting in really, really dark darks and really bright brights, and see, and the colors, I said, how intense can I make this red dress, or this, whatever the color was, and so I would push it as high as I could to really make it like a form, so it's the contrast and the vibrancy of the colors that really makes things pop, and I have to explain that some people, they say, "How do you do it? How do you do it? Well, it's not that hard. It's just you got to get out of that middle zone. I see a lot of painting painters that I feel like they're kind of afraid to use black on their palette, which a lot of people say, "Oh, never use black on. Palette, but that's like one of my main colors to make something go back and make something come forward, and that's for indoor paint, not for outdoors, because when you go back, you have to do gray things out, but so that's it, and I started deciding I love these nostalgic art movements, like Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Mookup, Maxfield Parish, Sargent, and the Baroque period, where it was all this gold stuff, the Pre-Raphaelites. I mean, I just started taking ideas from those things, and that's that's been a big, very popular thing for me. I try to find these ornate picture frames to go with them. That's really hard to find, but I, you know, I find some of them on Facebook Marketplace, which usually they're mirrors. I have to knock the mirror out and take the frame, but yeah, people comment on that all the time, like those frames. I love the frame, so I've just loved this environment. I'm a maximalist, I'm not a minimalist person. My house is like that too, you know? I overdo everything. It's like, why do when you can overdo? Right. In fact, one of my paintings is called Too Much Is Never Enough. I just have fun with it. This, I'm starting a new series right now, which is based on the Pre-Raphaelites. It's, it's a series of four paintings, and it's going to be the women doing serene activities, like reading a book, and it's all with a lot of flowers around it, and of course, I like to do flowers too, to do people, so that's kind of a thing I'm working on. I, I did one series a couple years ago of based on Mooka. I did my own interpretation of like the four seasons, so I did a winter one, which was basically the Snow Queen, and then spring, summer, fall, and I had all four of them in a grid on my wall, and somebody bought all four of them. That was like my biggest.. I was like, oh my god, I was so excited. So I really liked the idea of having one painting talk to the next and creating an environment like that,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah, yeah, and that can happen where someone sees the set and they're like, I can't separate the set, that would be awful, you got to take all of them, you know, girls got to stay together, yes, they have to stick together, yeah, and then you mentioned, you know, when you got back into painting, and you said that you know it's kind of tough at first, because you kind of, you know, we're rusty. What, what, what's something you did that really helped you get back into the zone?
Maureen Dunlap:I made a lot of mistakes, a lot of bad paintings, started really focusing on my compositions better. and again slowing down, because the first pass of a painting can look horrible. I mean, you know, you can, you can block in a painting, and it, and a lot of people think, well, that's it. I guess I'm not a good painter, because it looks like a kid did this well. Yes, it does, but that's you got to have that under layer, that's your under painting. So you pretty much, I mean, if you have decent composition, you can save a lot of, a lot of work that you think is no good.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, and I have struggled with that too, where it's like you have like four things down, it's like this is the worst thing I've ever
Maureen Dunlap:done. I know,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah, because you haven't finished, right? You haven't developed it exactly. I like that you mentioned that, because that also invites a little bit more of like empathy with yourself and slowing down that hyper criticism, which is something that most artists tend to have, we tend to be very, very critical of our work. We tend to hold ourselves to, like, a standard that's like so extreme that sometimes I'm like, who even reaches that standard? I know, and
Maureen Dunlap:it's like, can I save this? I want to have this painting done, but what do I have to do? You know, you really have to contemplate it. Sometimes you put it down for a while, start something else.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, yeah, and be kind to yourself about it too, because it's not worth breaking yourself down, because then you're not going to want to paint ever again. And even,
Maureen Dunlap:you know, some paintings that I have spent a lot of time on, still I don't like them, so doesn't happen that often, but you know, you don't, you don't have. Do every one of them be not everyone's going to be a masterpiece.
Laura Arango Baier:Yes, yeah, and that's that's the reality, I think. A lot of painters, majority of painters, have like the either a burn pile or, you know, paintings that we set aside to look at later to see if they can recycle the canvas or maybe continue on it, because those are some options, but yeah, then I wanted to ask you also, since you did software development, is there anything specific from software development, like maybe like the procedure that you did, or anything that you find yourself kind of reflecting a bit when you work on your creative work, or is it totally different, is there? Like, no, it's not
Maureen Dunlap:totally different. The coding, of course, probably doesn't really translate, but I did also do quite a bit of like photo editing, video editing, so in that respect, you know, social media, of course, the bane of everyone's existence, trying to, trying to, you know, have, find the time to make these reels and these photos, so for me that's once I do get into doing that, I really enjoy that too, like I'll make some videos and really enjoy it, but then that's like a day I spent doing that, so but but that's easier for me than it is for other people, especially people my age, that just like, oh, I don't know how to use a computer, I don't know, can you help me figure this out, you know, I'm always happy to help people, but yeah, those kind of things, maybe the persistence, because I would have to make sure I got the job done of what was I was trying to make work to have to do a lot of research and redoing and that kind of thing made me be, you know, a very attention to detail, which is critical in software development, and I find that I'm very detail-oriented now in my painting.
Laura Arango Baier:If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to ask our guest live questions, then you might want to join our monthly webinar, The Faso Show, where our guest artists discuss marketing tips, share inspiring stories, and answer your burning questions in real time. Whether you're a seasoned painter or just starting your creative journey, this is your chance to connect, learn, and spark new ideas. And whether you're stuck on a canvas or building your creative business, this is where breakthroughs happen. Don't miss out, ignite your passion and transform your art practice by joining us. Our next Faso show webinar is coming up on the 16th of July with our special guest, Vladislav Yelisaev. You can find a sign-up link in the show notes. Yeah, because I mean, if you have to hunt down a tiny mistake in code, yeah, really, really specific, yeah. And it's good that I mean, with painting, it's definitely a lot of, you know, general to specific, and it's some specific things that can make or break a painting sometimes, or just improve it. And it's those tiny improvements over time that make it even better.
Maureen Dunlap:Yes, and you learn every time you're going.. oh, this is something I did last time. Don't make that mistake again. So, yeah, I do like experimenting a lot with, you know, these different styles, and you know, I started using a couple of things like gold leaf, but can I show you some of these pictures. Let's see if I can get this. So I started doing these two. This is like my interpretation of tablecloths, and so this is a lace tablecloth, obviously. And it took me a long, long time to do this painting, which is really time consuming to do all these little tiny lace things. Then I decided to do tablecloth. Oh, and these tablecloths are all vintage, so this one was one that my mother had. The tablecloth is really red, not blue, but I changed the color on the computer to blue just for difference, and this is called Hungover, and I actually, I put these little knobs on the ends of the of the curtain rod and the wainscoting, I built these little things on the side,
Laura Arango Baier:looks so this is
Maureen Dunlap:called crumpled, and it has some others, but I needed wall space, so I had to take some down. This is a recent one, and again I found this frame, which I love, the Art Deco style of that. Then I, this is another recent one called Molten. Sunlight, and I know you could see these in the background, but the two women at the top, again, would love for someone to buy those both. These are my another set of frames that I got, but I wanted to make paintings to go in them. Here's my, my Mooka tapestry idea. I put a rod at the top with the tassels hanging down. This pink one is called Party Girl, and it's one of my favorites, and you know, I just really love the color. Then I did this one, it was called Rendezvous, which I like to make up these stories of like these birds got into the house somehow, and have a secret rendezvous, I don't know, and they're of course fantasy. I took regular birds and changed the colors. Here's another experiment I did with her. I tried doing like a collage background and painted her on top of it, which I like the painting, but if you look close, you can see all the seams in the paper, and I'm not sure I love that, but it is what it is. Here's a magnolia, which one of my favorite flowers. Oh my god, the smell and fragrance. I did a lot of magnolias, a series of them. Just whenever I don't have anything to paint, I'll do a magnolia. This is another woman that's kind of made up with the Mooka theme. Now, on this one, all those leaves at the top of her head, I had a hard time trying to figure out where to place them, so I cut out paper and kind of tacked them on there, and then took each one off and painted it, and I actually tried to make them look like paper, because I thought that was kind of cool. This painting is called Blessed Be the Hair Volume, because I really, I was really trying to do the study of that blonde hair. There's another Mooka-esque muca-esque one called the Age of Wonder, and this is where I use some gold leaf around the border. Not easy to handle that stuff. Have you ever tried it?
Laura Arango Baier:I have. It's tough.
Maureen Dunlap:It is tough. And again, here's another rose, kind of like a d popping out of the of the oval. I didn't have a frame, so I painted a frame on the side of the canvas. Here's one of my ocean scapes, and this here is my latest series I'm working on that I mentioned, which is going to be called the dreaming season. This one here is pretty much done, and this one is kind of done, but this one and that one are still to be completed, so you know that's that's given me something to do for a while, and then I have some family portraits here, my my two daughters, this is my son, who sadly passed away, and that's my boyfriend, Daniel, so that's my studio.
Laura Arango Baier:Beautiful work, beautiful. I really love the dreaming ladies. Yeah, that's
Maureen Dunlap:gonna be fun.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, and the painted frame on the pink flowers, like I would have thought it was a real frame. You're very good, the trompe l'oeil style, which is, yeah, I love
Maureen Dunlap:doing that. You don't have one, just make it up.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, might as well. I mean, you got the power of creation in your hands, why not?
Maureen Dunlap:Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah, awesome, yeah. And then I also wanted to ask you a bit about what it was like for you when you decided to just go full time as an artist, like, what was that experience like for you?
Maureen Dunlap:Well, it was exciting, but also a little scary. Luckily for me, I was able to collect, start collecting social security. I'm an old lady, so I, I had like a couple years where I was like trying to make ends meet, but then that kicked in, and I, I was all good. I also, you know, had 401 k and stuff, so I feel a little bit financially secure. I say a little bit, you never know what's going to happen, but yeah, so I'm sorry. What was the question about
Laura Arango Baier:what the experience was like when it became a full-time? Oh, yeah,
Maureen Dunlap:so very scary, but also very freeing, because I'm like, now I mean I'm retired, I can do whatever I want. I don't even have to come here if I don't want to, but of course I want to. I want to stay. I'm busy every second. So, aside from this, I also have a home studio where I do a lot of crafting, because you know what's funny, once you become a full-time painter, suddenly it becomes a job, and you're like, I gotta take a day off, you know? I feel obligated to do this, even though I love it. So, if it's kind of hard, you have to make time, like, for work-life balance, you know? I want to spend time at home with my boyfriend. We also have two parrots that need attention, so I gotta be home with those guys. Yeah, so I'm very busy. I also, you know, belong to a Spanish group, because we meet every Friday. We've been doing Spanish for about 15 years, my boyfriend and I, so that's fun, you know. Go to the gym sometimes, but it's.. I don't know what other people do when they aren't working anymore. I mean, I have a lot of friends from high school that I guess I don't know what they do. I mean, maybe they go out to lunch or read a book or so very relaxing kind of lifestyle, which you know sounds nice, so maybe that's great for them, wouldn't be good for me. I feel like I feel constantly like I'm battling against time, like I have to believe a legacy, but then again, what am I gonna do with all this stuff at the end? I mean, I think about that stuff. I don't mean to be morbid, but you know, I guess doesn't matter. It'll be what it is.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, I think a lot of people, as they, you know, as they age and they grow in their career, I think we start thinking about those things and I think I could probably confidently say that it touches someone, and that's what matters, you know. Yeah, it's.. it is kind of morbid to think about, though. It's like, oh man, what am I.. that's life, you know? I mean, yeah,
Maureen Dunlap:it's. you can't take them with you.
Laura Arango Baier:No,
Maureen Dunlap:I think I'm going to start doing more oceans again pretty soon, as soon as soon as I finish this series. So be on the lookout for that.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, no, and I think it's it's also one of those things where the moment you kind of start, because you mentioned you know you make jewelry as well, but I feel like also the moment that you start opening yourself up to more creative things, suddenly you start seeing it everywhere.
Maureen Dunlap:Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier:like you're like, "Oh my god, now I want to try this craft over here, because I'm
Maureen Dunlap:always, always thinking about the next thing I'm going to make. I see something beautiful, and I need to recreate it in some form, like I have this idea, like even this art deco necklace. I just finished this, actually, this morning, and I have a website I just set up for my jewelry, and I can give you that URL if you want. Later, I'll send it to you. But, yeah, I just love working with my hands. I also fix a lot of things around the house. I do gardening. I've got this. It's like you could work every second and never get everything done,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah. pretty much. That's like there's never enough time sometimes. That's
Maureen Dunlap:not it. Your time is our enemy,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah, yeah. And then I also wanted to ask, because you know there are a lot of aspects of being an artist that can be pretty challenging, but for you, what has been the hardest thing about being a full-time artist that you haven't really heard mentioned?
Maureen Dunlap:Well, like I said, it's the thing I'm worried about is just having too much stuff, and where am I going to put it? I mean, this sounds a little silly, but my, my house is full, this place is full, you know, I mean, I again, I slow down, and I go home, and I start making small things. I even started making little tiny paintings, thinking, well, they're not going to take up a lot of room, you got to be practical, and you know that that's another thing too with. Of sales, it's good to have things at various price points. I mean, people don't usually come in with $1,000 in their pocket to buy a big painting, so you know, make some $20 items, or you know, that's, and I would say that's true for even people working at their home studios, you know, you, the daily paint works that I used to do was really good for me, I every painting I put on there for a while was selling, then it dried up, so I thought, never mind, but you know, you again, you have to set yourself apart in some way, because there you're right now, you're like a drop in the ocean of artists, you look, just look on Instagram or Pinter, Pinterest, I get a lot of really cool ideas from looking at Pinterest inspiration, but yeah, I mean, I love the academic style, but there's a lot of people doing it, but you gotta make yours different. I like to make mine somewhat different in some way, so that's you gotta figure that out.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, yes, you know what makes you you, which is, I feel like that's another life journey that just changes over time.
Maureen Dunlap:Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah, yeah. And then I also wanted to ask, because you have, you know, taken on commissions and you've sold some work in the past, how did you find those first, you know, buyers or collectors, was it word of mouth, was it?
Maureen Dunlap:So, as I said, well, Facebook, Facebook was a gold mine for me for a while, till like the economy got kind of bad, but Faso at first was good. I don't really know how, how you guys do it, but people were finding my work. Basically, it was mostly my flower still life, so maybe I should go back to that. Those would be snapped up quite often, so I, you know, I would get that person, and then word of mouth. I also had some work at the North Carolina Museum of Art when they had a, they have an annual flower show, Art in Bloom, and I put some stuff in their gift shop and sold them, so you gotta find kind of like these places, I don't want to be in a gallery, really. That's something we should never talk about, but I don't want to give 50% of my money to a gallery, or you know, you would have to double your price, or whatever, which then makes it unreachable for some people. Now that could change, I say that, but I also don't want to really be beholden to a place that even if I'm here, I have to charge what they would charge because of the contracting that they use, unless they're really far away. What else? Oh yeah, so people come in here, not as many as we would like, but a few times a person would come in and just randomly just buy a painting, so that course is great. I've had some work in restaurants that you know rotate the artwork on their walls. Those are good ways to sell. No, I don't know how else. I mean, I guess obviously Instagram, social media, which is so hard. I mean, it really
Laura Arango Baier:is. Yeah, yeah, I think that's something that's changing a lot as well. I think there are less people on social media. I think a lot of people are appreciating much more the in real life experiences. I think a lot of people are probably going much more to like out, like outside of their house places. We're all getting a little bit tired of the internet.
Maureen Dunlap:Yes, right, exactly. I did an art festival, outdoor festival, where you set up a tent and all this. That was a lot of work for paintings like this, like to just let them all over there and hang them up on a grid, and and take them all home, because nobody bought them, so you know, I think the crafting is probably the way that you can make a little more small increments of money if you come up with your own groove on those things, but it's it's. A battle, I'm not gonna lie, it's not easy.
Laura Arango Baier:No, yeah, yeah, I mean, being a, an artist is like being an entrepreneur, but it's also like a little different, because you don't, you don't have like one singular product to sell to people, you make very unique products, nothing is the same unless you literally make the same painting, but as prints, that's like the only exception.
Maureen Dunlap:Yes, that's another thing I don't have a lot of luck selling prints. I did sell prints of my, my four Mucha women, but the issue I have with doing prints is like a lot of my work is when it's shrunken down to a print, it looks kind of like a photo of something, and doesn't accept why would you buy that, you know, like I have a friend who is a wildlife painter, and he'll paint like certain animals that that people like, so they buy his prints a lot, so that's, you know, you have to have a niche that's suitable for prints.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, I agree. I think selling prints can be really hard, unless it's like a painting that's just really beloved. Yeah, Becky, like, oh my gosh, I could have sold this like 50 times, type of painting. Yeah, and that's the other hard part, which I think that's one of the conveniences of, like, if you do sell prints, just not having them pre-printed and having, like, a buy to print type of situation, I think is also a little bit more convenient, yeah, and then I also wanted to ask if you have any final advice for someone who wants to become a full-time artist.
Maureen Dunlap:Good luck, you need to have.. I think I don't know that you can jump in right away and assume you can make a living, you better have another source of income, and start slowly, but you know, again, set yourself apart in some way, try to have a subject matter or a style that is different, and then join Faso, that's really been a good, good thing for me, and, and your social media, but again, it's, I don't know, it's a dirt drop in the ocean, these artists are, that's how I feel, it's, it's, I love, love, love doing it, and so I do it for love, not for money, so it's I would do it anyway. I would pay to do it, actually. I do pay to do it. I, I have to pay for all this stuff in this room, but yeah, I, I love to see like a young artist that's, or a young person that wants to learn and do this, I'm considering teaching, possibly have never done that, but it's on my radar. I might do some videos, something like that. Yeah, you got to think of other ways to get money to live,
Laura Arango Baier:yeah, especially as an artist, yeah, it's like you got to wear all the hats, diversify that income, and you know, level out that economic support and stability, because if you don't, yeah,
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Laura Arango Baier:can really, I mean, probably not for everyone out there. I think some people really thrive in stressful situations, but I know in my case I don't think I'd be able to focus on painting if I was constantly worried about I can't pay my bills this month.
Maureen Dunlap:Right, right, right. Yeah, that can be so stressful, and that's going to show it. Excuse me, showing your work, so you want to get to a point where it's you're doing it with joy and you're in the zone and you don't care if your place is a huge mess because you're in the flow state, so that's kind of me, my home, my home craft studio, it's like a bomb went off in there and I don't care, that's how I, that's how I work, I clean it up in between, but it's, it's just the way it is. It's nature, the beast.
Laura Arango Baier:Yes, the art bomb, yes, the creating bum. Yeah, I totally relate. It's like I can't focus on cleaning, I gotta, I gotta go fix this person's face on my painting really quick. Exactly. yeah, like, and then it gets cleaned up. I mean, it gives you something to, like, do after you're done, almost like it's almost like a cleansing ritual afterward. We're like, okay, now I can clear out the old energy of this painting, and then have a fresh start. Yeah, yeah. And I also wanted to ask you, if someone wants to see your work in person, or if they want to see more of your work, where can they come?
Maureen Dunlap:So, if they're local to North Carolina, they can come to Durham to this, my studio in the Golden Belt Arts Building from Studio Nine, I can I let's see, I mean, outside of in person, I've got all the different socials, some of them I don't use for painting, so I, you know, it's more just ranting and raving, so, but my Instagram, I have two Instagram sites now, and my Facebook page, which really I don't post a lot of my art anymore on Facebook, since I've got the Instagram and the and the Faso. So also we're having a group show here in the main hallway of this complex between October and December, so that's another thing. I don't really have anything else planned at the moment.
Laura Arango Baier:Okay, yeah, but I'm guessing you know someone can go to your website, which absolutely do you mind telling us what your website is?
Maureen Dunlap:Maureen dunlap.com perfect. And also, I have the Wonder Cabinet, which is my jewelry store. It's brand new, so it's Wonder hyphen cabinet, and I'm still working on that, put you know, every time I make something, I put it up, so there's that, and I'm, I've been battling the technology to try to get my Instagram page for that to show the product, so people can shop on Instagram, I mean, some people do it, but my God, it's so hard, it's so hard to get to get all these things in Meta working and approved, and I spent weeks with that still not working right.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, it's one of those things with the way that the landscape of how social media has changed, because I think before it was so much easier to shop from Instagram yet than now. Now it it feels like you got to pay more, or you got to become like a, like, you got to just do all this verification stuff that
Maureen Dunlap:you'll get the check mark on.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, which I understand, because you know there's scammers out there, but people are still getting scammed anyway. Like, I
Maureen Dunlap:know it makes no sense. This doesn't mean you're not a scammer, you just have to pay $15 a month to have a check mark.
Laura Arango Baier:Oh, yeah. No, but I mean, like, people who do, like, they get the check mark, but they're actually scammers, like that's what I'm
Maureen Dunlap:saying. It just costs money, that's all you can.
Laura Arango Baier:Oh, yeah,
Maureen Dunlap:they're scamming you. Yeah,
Laura Arango Baier:no, it's yeah, I
Maureen Dunlap:know it's there. I have that on my art on my Maureen J. Dunlap is my Instagram painting site, and I do have the check mark there. I don't know that it does anything.
Laura Arango Baier:We try what we can. I know you gotta try all these
Maureen Dunlap:things.
Laura Arango Baier:Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Maureen, for the very whimsical conversation. Thank you
Maureen Dunlap:so much. I'm really, I was looking forward to this.
Laura Arango Baier:Yeah, me too. And I do hope you consider teaching, because I think you would probably be a very fun teacher to learn from.
Maureen Dunlap:Yeah, I would love to do that. I love sometimes I get young people, like 20 year old young adults, coming in asking me questions, and I love explaining the technical aspects of how to do this, so I'm really thinking about taking on some students. Heck, yeah! Why not? Why not? Yeah. Well, thank you, Laura. I really, really enjoyed this conversation.
Laura Arango Baier:Me too. Thank you to everyone out there for listening to the podcast. Your continued support means a lot to us. If you've enjoyed the episode, please leave a review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. This helps us reach others who might also benefit from the excellent advice that our guests provide. Thank you.