Marie Neys Episode #2: A Balancing Act

Being a Canadian Landscape Painter Marie Neys has been fueled by the West Coast and the rolling hills of Alberta. She admits to finding her practical side and her creative side have a unique balancing act going on. One that pulls her every time she needs to be creative. She has an urgency to create in her studio. One that she has transformed into a professional and prodigious space of teaching.

Incorporating her passion for the outdoors into her love of studying mediums; Marie challenges herself constantly to achieve a beautiful moment in time. She has always been drawn to creating. Her landscapes are those moments of beauty that are found on Bowen Island. A small island North West of Vancouver, British Columbia.

When Marie walks along the Cape Sea Walk on Bowen Island, down to the beaches of Tunstall Bay. This is where she gathers her inspiration wandering amid the many trails that are amongst the towering cedars, hemlock and Douglas fir. Arriving at the Bay Marie often watches Orcas, Humpback whales, and Herons play.

Enjoy more of Marie Neys Art: marieneys.com

Marie Neyes Podcast Credits:
Audio Links from https://freemusicarchive.org/
Podcast by Carolyn Botelho

Transcript

(0:04 - 0:25)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creatively Thinking Podcast. Join Carolyn Botelho as she uncovers the inspirations behind some incredibly creative minds that are orbiting our local communities. Hi Marie Nays, that's Nays, right? Correct.

(0:25 - 0:34)

Okay. I am pleased to meet you and happy to have you on the show. Welcome to your Balancing Act Podcast.

(0:35 - 1:11)

You are a talented Canadian landscape painter and as well, I'm going to sort of break a pattern and ask, what do the letters after your name represent? I just have to know. Well, the letters after my name are the FICB, which is the Fellowship of Institute of Canadian Bankers. When I got out of university after a Bachelor of Commerce degree, and that's the second set of letters after my name, a BCom, I went into banking.

(1:11 - 1:30)

And while I was in banking, I took a very intensive course at the Banff Springs Fine Arts Centre. And it was all about how to run a bank and how to develop strategies for banks. And if you passed, you got your FICB.

(1:30 - 1:39)

So it was a wonderful achievement for me. It was because I'm not necessarily a number crunching kind of person. I'm more marketing and strategy.

(1:40 - 1:48)

So it was a challenging course and I was happy to pass. So those are the two designations that I have. That's very nice.

(1:48 - 1:56)

Yeah, finances. That's very different from sort of the art way of thinking or artistic way of thinking. Absolutely.

(1:57 - 2:00)

Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for that.

(2:01 - 2:25)

Usually I start with what led you down this creative path? What made you choose being an artist as a career? Was it working with your hands, your emotional insights or something else? A bit of everything. I've always loved art. I've always been drawn to creating.

(2:26 - 2:44)

And even in high school, those were my favourite classes and the ones I excelled at. But the business side of me or the practical side of me suggested I do a business degree. And so I started out that way.

(2:44 - 3:06)

But I was always one who was sitting and doodling or drawing or wanting to be creative. And I was the person that would walk out in the woods or the fields and study shadow and light and colour. And so from there, I was working in the banking industry.

(3:06 - 3:24)

And when I started having my children, I decided that I wanted to stay home with my children. And that drew me to being creative when I could. One of my friends was taking a kind of what we call a folk art course.

(3:24 - 3:34)

And it's all about stroke work. And it's a German or Bavarian type of painting style. You see it all over Europe.

(3:34 - 3:42)

But it's called Bauernmalerei. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. But I decided to take the class with her.

(3:42 - 3:53)

And that just got me hooked. And from there, I thought, you know, I could probably teach. And I delved into different styles of decorative art where you paint on objects versus canvas.

(3:54 - 4:04)

And I started teaching from my home when my children were young. That allowed my husband to go to work in the daytime. I was home with kids.

(4:04 - 4:21)

And then in the evenings and on weekends, I was teaching art classes. And I went from $7,500 in sales to a quarter of a million, half a million in sales really quickly. And classes started filling.

(4:21 - 4:28)

And I moved into a retail space. So I was no longer working out of my home. And, yeah, it just grew from there.

(4:29 - 4:31)

Sounds like it snowballed from there. That sounds really good. It did.

(4:32 - 4:35)

Yeah. It was very successful. That's really good.

(4:36 - 5:13)

Reading your credentials, as we just discussed, you started and you said you studied business and marketing. Was there something specifically that sort of drove you into exploring and becoming a visual artist? Well, as I said, it was more of a, I guess, more practicality at the time. But I've always been drawn to challenge myself with taking different courses.

(5:14 - 5:37)

And even when I was single and on my own, I was in university taking business classes. But on the side, I was taking classes that were pottery and calligraphy and advertising art. And so all kinds of classes that just helped kind of develop my sense of foundation.

(5:38 - 5:49)

And, yeah, it just it pushed me further into the world of creating. And then people, of course, when you create, they want to support you. They want to buy your work.

(5:49 - 6:03)

And so from there, it led into some sales of my art. And I was continuously teaching art classes as well. So it just became well-rounded and something that I wanted to do all my life.

(6:03 - 6:19)

And it fit into my balancing act, which is the world I live in. My family is very important to me and my career is very important to me. It sounds like the practicality of the classes kind of helped you, like you said, balance everything.

(6:19 - 6:28)

Absolutely. Yes. You are described as being inspired by the ocean on the West Coast and the rolling hills of Alberta.

(6:29 - 6:57)

Was it your creativity that helped you achieve your skill as a visual artist? Or are you more private about your art education? No, I'm not. I'm certainly not private about my art education. But it wasn't a traditional standard, you know, become 18, leave high school, go into an art classes or art college.

(6:57 - 7:08)

I kind of did it in a roundabout way. And so it's not so much that I'm private about it. It's just it's been many, many classes from many, many teachers.

(7:09 - 7:35)

I'm trained in oils, acrylics, watercolor, pen and ink, a little bit of pastels. I found myself reaching a plateau with the decorative art. And so I decided with a friend of mine, she kind of encouraged me to go to a bit more of a formal atelier art school, which is prose art school in Edmonton.

(7:36 - 8:38)

Gene Prokop is the owner and operator, and he was one of those instructors that inspired you to create and do more. And I think that would be more my anchor of what really established my ability to teach and create in a well-rounded way. That's great.

All those influences. You also share your knowledge as an art instructor. When did you decide this was an area to pursue? How has this added to your career? Do you find your students inspire you further or are they inspiring you in unique ways you didn't expect? I'm one of those multifaceted people that has different pockets of interest.

(8:38 - 8:56)

And I've learned really early on that I'm more of a project-oriented person versus sit behind a desk and be an office person, office worker for the rest of my life. So I love projects. I love finding myself exploring different avenues.

(8:58 - 9:22)

And so with that in mind, I have always enjoyed sharing my knowledge of everything I've learned about art. And I find that when I'm just creating art, it's a void. I'm not one to want to just be in my art room on my own and create for the next seven months or eight months.

(9:22 - 9:39)

I mix it up. So I have periods of time where I teach workshops and I get together with other artists groups. And then there are periods of time where I just kind of go close off and sit down, knuckle down and get some artwork done.

(9:40 - 10:18)

So those are those are two areas, my instruction and my creation. But I also love marketing artwork for people as well. And so part of my past 10 years of creation has been opening an art gallery, working with others to create an art tour here on Bowen Island, and working in the area of doing workshops and offering workshops to other groups and to my individual artists that come into my studio and paint with me.

(10:18 - 11:39)

Do they give me energy? They actually drain energy because I give it my all. And so by the time I leave a five hour workshop where each person is working on their own individual project, I've really worked hard to give them everything I can to make sure their project is what they want, how they want it to turn out, and also what I can help them with in terms of guiding them through. So yeah, it's a draining experience.

I don't tend to create a lot on my own when I'm doing workshops. Yeah, you're giving it your all. Yeah, you give it your all.

Yeah. How has being an instructor helped fuel your own creativity? Has your inspiring subject matter had any influence on this? And yes, being an instructor does fuel my creativity because, as I was saying, I'm a bit more project oriented. So I've learned that when I'm doing my winter workshops, for example, which will be January, February, and March, then I turn after about March, April, I start to feel the need to create.

(11:40 - 11:59)

And so it does push me back to the creation side where that's when I want to just kind of hide away and do some creation. When my kids were little and if I'd get a little bit grumpy with them, they'd go, Oh, mom needs to go paint. She needs some time.

(11:59 - 12:39)

And so I think that's kind of the fun way that having students or having children turns you to energize you to go back into the studio and have your quiet time and create. Well, that's good that they're inspiring you, right? When did becoming an entrepreneur start in your creative journey? Did you have anyone who influenced your business practices or did it happen organically? That's a really good question. I would say there was an organic flow to where I've ended up.

(12:39 - 13:18)

I kind of allow, it may sound silly, but I allow the universe and what's happening around me to help guide me as to where I need to be. And part of that is, as you've titled the podcast, is the balancing act. It's knowing or seeing in advance where, kind of channel where your world is going, give it a bit of direction, but understanding that there are external forces that are going to play a part in your day to day activities as an artist and as an instructor.

(13:19 - 13:43)

But I do think it's also part of who I am. I've always looked at advertising on TV and marketing on social media, and I try to get deeper into why they did what they did or how they used it to influence and be creative. My grandpa was a businessman and a sole owner, so was my father.

(13:43 - 14:17)

And so I also think part of that is looking at who my role models were around me. Yeah, I was going to say, how were you able to incorporate sort of the marketing side of your background into your artwork? You know, the world is what it is. And sadly or happily, I believe advocating and marketing for what you feel is important is a good way to influence and sell.

(14:19 - 14:33)

And examples of that are I was in a business women's group on Bowen and we were down to about three or four members. I was a brand new member to it. And one of the people said, I think it's dying.

(14:33 - 14:41)

I think we just shut it down. And I said, no, we need to market it. We need to get the word out there and communicate with people that we meet.

(14:41 - 15:24)

And we went from four people dropping in weekly to 30 people really quickly because it's just I think that the awareness and the passion for what you're doing does influence, you know, whether you're successful or not. Yeah, I can really play a big part. Where do you find your influences artistically originate? Can you see them in art history? Or do you see them somewhere else? Do you find your students inspire your evolving style? Or do you focus on a structured format in teaching? Couple of questions in there.

(15:24 - 15:59)

My artistic influences are usually what's around me, what surrounds me. And keeping in mind, I do paint to sell my work as a professional artist, a commercial artist. And so I'm also aware of the market that I'm in, who I'm selling to, and try to create images and visual stimulation that inspire people in the area that I'm in.

(15:59 - 16:22)

So when I'm in Alberta, I love the rolling plains and the mountains and the yellow ochres and the greens and the bright blue skies. When I'm in BC, British Columbia, I'm on the coast on Bowen Island. And so there you'll see water and oceans and beaches and tall trees.

(16:22 - 16:34)

And yeah, so it's more coming from what surrounds me. And what was the second question? Art history. I'm not an art history major.

(16:34 - 16:51)

But I do value the different periods of art history. And if I was to look at a defining, I'm kind of a bit into impressionism and realism. So those two areas really, really intrigue me.

(16:52 - 17:06)

And students' works, when they're painting, of course, that inspires me. And if they're painting trees, I think, oh, I should paint some trees. So it's a camaraderie.

(17:06 - 17:30)

It's a connection that forms. But my students are very aware that I tend to teach in the realistic or impressionistic styles. I'm not one, you know, if somebody said they want to come and learn modern art, I would probably encourage them to find an instructor that teaches in the modern art styles, because that's just not who I am.

(17:34 - 18:02)

Beyond the great outdoors being your subject matter, what fuels your creative spirit? Have you explored different mediums to communicate what inspires you? Have any of these mediums found a home in your toolbox or in your teaching regime? That's a great question. And absolutely, yes. I have many toolboxes.

(18:03 - 18:28)

What I find myself doing is creating based on the time and energy that I have. So, for example, right before Christmas, it's a busy time, both personally as well as with art sales. And so I shift or move to fun, easy, fast creations.

(18:28 - 18:58)

I might use my black Pigma pens and do some Zentangle-type artwork with adding watercolor to them. And then after Christmas, when life kind of slows down, the world is a little more focused indoors because of the chill in the air. That's when I usually go into my hyper drive of looking at painting bigger, larger paintings.

(18:58 - 19:13)

And I usually do a series of three to five paintings on a specific subject matter. As I said, in the last few years, I've been back to teaching my workshops as well. So I kind of have to pace that out.

(19:14 - 19:32)

And then when I get into the spring, we have the art tour here on Bowen. It's called Here's Bowen Arts Tour, bowenartstour.com. And that is kind of been my little baby for the last... It's a big baby. It's 130 artists.

(19:32 - 19:49)

And last year was our first year. We had 21 art hubs and the artists were grouped at the hubs. And I think we did about $135,000 in art sales in the 10 short hours that the artists were open to the public.

(19:49 - 20:05)

So it was a really good, well-rounded, fun event. And we'll be right back. And I shut down my workshops.

(20:06 - 20:13)

Everybody's busy. And I create and work on larger, larger series of paintings. So, yeah.

(20:14 - 20:36)

I didn't want to interrupt you there, but could you go into more detail as what those Zentangles and what was that medium? Zentangles has been around for quite a few years. You can actually, I think by coloring books, it's a little more of a relaxed style. It's more of a meditative style of creation.

(20:38 - 20:51)

And what I do is I use black or colored markers, permanent markers. They can be Sharpies if you're just painting or creating for fun. And it's not, you don't need it to be archival.

(20:51 - 21:10)

You can also go into art stores or online and purchase what are considered paint pigment or ink pigmented pens. And they have different size of nibs so you can create different thicknesses of lines. And you can actually do entire sketches and drawings.

(21:11 - 21:35)

Zentangle tends to be a little more, you can look up the word or, you know, search it online. But Zentangle is a specific style of creation with permanent markers where everything's kind of intermixed and you work with circles or squares or squiggly lines and you create something from that. So, yeah.

(21:37 - 22:02)

Collage would be more where you're using multimedia, including maybe fabrics and cardstock. And no, I tend to work on either watercolor paper or just a stiffer Bristol paper if I'm working in a pigmented ink style. So, yeah, lines and drawing.

(22:03 - 22:20)

And then you can add watercolor if you're on a watercolor paper. So, you know, you can create in different ways. You're describing them as like, they can resemble paint with the sort of ink that they produce when you use them.

(22:20 - 22:45)

Is that it? Yeah, you know, the world of markers has changed in 20 years. The permanent marker or the pigmented ink marker, those can be archival in nature, so they can last 20 to 100 years out there. The India ink, traditionally, your nib and ink was your original style 100 years ago.

(22:46 - 23:09)

Whereas now the pens that you can get if you walk into an art store, you can get pens that have square nibs, flat nibs, brush style nibs on the ends of them. And they can come in a range of colors or you can work with black. And yeah, the world's, you know, the sky's the limit.

(23:10 - 23:20)

And there's so many different variations of pigmented pens or permanent markers. Some of them are acrylic in nature. They're actually acrylic paint that's in a pen style.

(23:21 - 23:42)

And some are ink, which is a different base to the pigment. It's a different substrate in them to make the product move, right, and fluid. Yeah, Copic is one of them, definitely.

(23:42 - 23:48)

But it's amazing what's out there. Yeah. Yeah.

(23:48 - 23:58)

I tend to work, as I said, in many different mediums. I work in oils. I work in watercolor, acrylic, ink, you know.

(23:59 - 24:13)

What would you say is your biggest challenge as a visual artist currently? Yeah, when I'm painting to sell, it's usually acrylics or oils. I rarely, you know, sell any of the fun, fast things. Those are more for me.

(24:30 - 24:59)

Has there been something in my journey? I don't question the creativity, but I do struggle because my practicality comes out. And when I start to create, I want to find a need or a use or a home for what I've created. And so, I tend to tie my art to sales of my art.

(24:59 - 25:24)

And so, that can be discouraging, of course, right? So, I do still somewhat tie my art sales to my creativity. But as I age, I tend to find I'm more about exploring different art styles, having fun with it. And I've always said it's the journey, not the end result.

(25:25 - 25:51)

And that's what makes me happy, I think, now, is just being able to spend a lot of my time and energy exploring and creating. I think you maybe misunderstood the question. I wasn't meaning just questioning your artwork, but just what is your challenge as you move through your journey as an artist? Oh, the challenge is finding the time.

(25:52 - 26:10)

I took an art class with an artist who's a commercial artist, really successful. And he said, defend your painting time. If you want to be successful, you have to spend 50% of your time painting and 50% of your time marketing and promoting.

(26:11 - 26:24)

And for me, I find I need to feel that I have two to three hours to sit down and paint. And so, that's often hard to find a solid chunk of time. So, that's definitely a challenge.

(26:24 - 26:46)

I think nowadays, the other thing that will become more of a challenge is the use of AI, whether it's acceptable or not in the visual arts. It plays a big role, I think, for many people, and they don't even realize it. It's out there on Instagram, Facebook, any social media platforms.

(26:46 - 26:58)

You're seeing a lot of AI images. And so, I think that's going to be a challenge for artists in the upcoming future. Some of them are incorporating it into their work and embracing it, and others are not.

(26:59 - 27:08)

That could be kind of creating a little bit of a divide, I would think. I think it will, yeah. Yeah, well, that'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

(27:09 - 27:30)

Yes, it will. Have you found yourself inspired by any creatives you have met in your field, or that you have been exposed to through your creative practice? Definitely. And as I said, for me, the number one would probably be Jean Prokop at Prose Art School in Edmonton.

(27:31 - 28:07)

And you can certainly look that up if any of you out there are interested. It's wonderful to be able to be connected to an atelier school, if you're into realism or impressionism, and just learn from someone who can stimulate or create a space that you feel comfortable learning and developing. So, when I was first learning to kind of push the boundaries, I was part of his atelier for many years.

(28:07 - 28:19)

And I ran his art gallery there for him, and also did framing for him. So, we worked well together. He had 300 artists a week coming in and painting with him and a couple of the other instructors.

(28:21 - 28:32)

Other than that, there's been a few that I would love to highlight. I love John Singer Sargent. He's an American artist from the late 1800s, early 1900s.

(28:32 - 28:44)

He's one of the old school. Yes. And just his ability to create something spectacular, and just his story, a little bit of his story.

(28:44 - 29:00)

In recent days, Thomas Arvid, he creates hyper-realistic... He had a series for a long time. I don't know if he's still doing it. Hyper-realistic wine, wine bottles, wine glasses.

(29:01 - 29:31)

And that study of glasses has always intrigued me. One from my good old days as a decorative artist or a folk artist would be Roz Stelcup. She is a master at florals and a master at creating a painting quickly through the use of how she loads her brushes, acrylic paint, and how she moves the brushes on the canvas or the surface that she's working on.

(29:31 - 29:37)

So those are a few of the highlights for me. Yeah, that sounds interesting how she... There's many more. Yeah.

(29:37 - 29:50)

No, I was just going to say that that sounds really interesting how she's able to manipulate the brush to be able to create a painting really quickly, like how she lays it down. That sounds really intriguing. Yes.

(29:50 - 30:03)

Yeah. And what was her name again? Roz, R-O-S, and then Stelcup, S-T-A-L-C-U-P. There might be two L's, but S-T-A-L-C-U-P.

(30:04 - 30:18)

And again, she's a wonderful lady. She came and taught in Edmonton when I owned my art store, and she just inspires. And I'm a bit more of a rigid, controlled painter.

(30:18 - 30:41)

I lean more to realism, and so she helped me just feel that I could free up and move fast and create with passion. And that's two sides, right? It's using two different sides of your artistic talent. One is to be slow and methodical, and things are a bit stiffer.

(30:41 - 31:28)

The other is fast and free. My last question for you is your Instagram is very family-oriented during the holidays. Have you been able to integrate this part of your personality into your business as a creative, or do you find that this needs to be separate? Do you have any advice for other creative professionals on maintaining a successful business like yours? Yes, and I have two schools of thought there.

(31:29 - 32:02)

I do believe that you should have, if you're talking in terms of Instagram, social media, and website, I do think they should look professional and have your own brand or your own style incorporated in. So asking yourself, who's my target audience? And gearing your message to that audience. However, I think, you know, in marketing they say no advertising is bad advertising.

(32:03 - 32:41)

I think to be human and to humanize somewhat your posts can be a special connection that you get with those who follow you. I also have to admit that when it comes to Instagram and Facebook and all the new social media platforms out there, it's a learning curve and every three to six months they tweak it and they change things just slightly. And I had it all set up and running really smoothly.

(32:41 - 32:59)

And then they decided that my business Instagram page would connect to my personal page. And so for a while, the personal posts were infiltrating into my business marketing. And it's like, oops, I got to change that.

(32:59 - 33:17)

But at Christmas, absolutely. I want people to embrace, you know, my love for my family and my love for my parents who are 96 and 93 years young and still living in their home. And so I do bring that element in because I think they should be celebrated.

(33:18 - 33:40)

And those are usually some of my more successful posts. It doesn't equate, of course, to sales, but it humanizes me and allows people to see a glimpse of my inner world, whether it's your cat or your dog or, you know, somebody that's special in your lives. I think that's a key element that can be important.

(33:42 - 34:20)

What would I say about a marketing program for others to be successful? If you're not spending 50 percent of your time marketing and doing the administrative side of your business or hiring people to do those for you and spending the other 50 percent creating, then it's really hard. It's a really tough sell because you're not going to be getting the word out there. If you just sit and paint or create and you want sales, it won't happen unless you either advocate for yourself and market and promote or you get somebody to do that for you.

(34:20 - 34:49)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, very true. All right, that's it.

We got to the end of our questions. Excellent. That was actually pretty painless, right? It was wonderful, Carolyn.

You're a great facilitator at this. I'm looking forward to hearing the podcast. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm almost at 20 now. You're a pro. Yeah, I'm getting better at it.

(34:50 - 35:08)

All right, so I will get that interview to you as quickly as possible. And yeah, I'm looking forward to sharing it with you and your community. Thank you so very much, Carolyn.

Thank you for taking the time. No problem. I've been enjoying the other podcasts.

(35:08 - 35:37)

Oh, great. Thank you so much. Yes, I love doing this.

I love hearing what creatives have to share with their practice. It's really enlightening. It's all different, isn't it? Yeah, I love it.

I love it. I'm trying to get a little bit of everything, you know, like with like the design and the photography and, you know, in caustics, everything. Trying to find all the different types of artists that are out there.

(35:37 - 35:54)

And how did you find me? I found you on Facebook, actually. Okay, wonderful. That's where a lot of people still are.

I don't know about Instagram. I haven't really ventured into that too much yet. But I guess that's the new one to really to focus on.

(35:54 - 36:00)

Well, the new one is Blue Sky. I don't even know what Blue Sky is. Oh yeah, Blue Sky is the new one, yeah.

(36:00 - 36:12)

And it's like, oh no, there's a new one. Something else to learn, right? Yeah, yeah. That's always good.

All right. Well, you take care, Marie. Thank you.

(36:12 - 36:16)

And I'll talk to you again soon. You bet. Thanks, Carolyn.

(36:17 - 36:31)

Bye. Bye now. Join me next time as I go down another rabbit hole with another creative professional on their insights, their inspirations, and their ingenuity.