We were lucky to catch up with Laurie Maves recently and have shared our conversation below.

Laurie, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

Growing up in the 1970’s was very different than today. I believe my parents did many of the “right” things for me as a child. They were stern, yet supportive. They provided structure but were not hovercraft parents. They let me make mistakes but provided opportunities for successes. They allowed me to branch out into creative activities without editing or commenting or praising everything I did. Actually one of the things my dad often did, (which often made me irate) was to shed light on the times when I failed. And not necessarily in a shaming way, but he would often point out the times that I likely failed because I had not prepared accordingly. What I learned greatest from those episodes, is that instead of finding excuses for my losses or blaming someone outside of myself, it forced me, no matter how uncomfortable it may have been, to take responsibility for my own actions. And later in life as an adult, it made me not only a stronger and more resilient person, it made me realize that failures come and failures go, but it’s up to me how I react to those failures, and if I chose to rise above and better myself, or to go pout in a corner,

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Laurie Maves (Guglielmi)’s non-traditional career path has evolved extensively throughout her life. She began her study of studio art at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1990’s. Unsure of how to launch her career, she traveled to Ireland to wait tables followed by stevedoring in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. During her travels, she realized she wanted to use her love of art to help others in some way.

Subsequently, she studied Art Therapy and received her master’s degree from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1997.

Upon graduation she moved to Denver, Colorado, and worked as an Art Therapist for a wide variety of venues including but not limited to nursing homes, pre-school day treatment programs, cancer centers and kindergartens. Throughout the two decades Maves spent in Colorado, she was constantly drawing and painting, finding a niche for and successfully selling her work in the community. She established more than 500+ collectors of her stylized representational work, mostly without gallery representation. In 2008 Maves painted with three other artists live at Red Rocks Amphitheater for a crowd of 10,000 people, and developed as a somewhat “celebrity” live performance painter in the region.

In 2017, she and her husband, Ralph Guglielmi, relocated to the Sun Coast of Sarasota, Florida. The following year she enrolled in a three-day intensive intuitive painting workshop led by German artist Bernd Haussmann that positively changed and overhauled the nature of her painting in a most exciting and necessary way. She found a new love for large-scale intuitive abstract painting, which not only constantly explored the deeply personal subconscious, but also challenged her boundaries of media, color, mark making, and composition. She found that she wanted to share the enlightenment of the creative process with others in a whole new way, and established her own Arts and Art Therapies Studio, “The 11th Orange,” in the spring of 2019, where she promoted and taught her “BE FREE” large scale painting classes to hundreds of students. Unfortunately, following the negative economic fall-out of COVID-19 in the summer of 2020, Laurie made the difficult decision to permanently close “The 11th Orange.”

In November 2020, Laurie was invited to relocate her studio to the warehouse of the prominent JKL Design Group, in Sarasota, FL. As the design firm’s “in house artist,” she worked directly with the team of interior designers to create large custom contemporary works to compliment the firm’s modern coastal designs for homes and commercial spaces.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Oftentimes people will say, when they see my work, or come to understand that I work professionally as a large scale painter, will mention that they themselves 1) don’t have a creative bone in their body and/or then state 2) what a wonderful gift it must be to be born with artistic talent.
I think non-creatives struggle with the fact that creativity is often as much of a learned skill set as anything else. Being creative takes hours and hours of practice, and one has to be willing to experience thousands of episodes of trial and error and many times failure. Non-creatives may not fully understand that the road to being a successful artist takes thousands and thousands of hours of navigation. It’s akin to being a professional downhill skier. You don’t just show up on the slopes of Aspen and glide down a double black ski run. Being a successful and sustainable commercial fine artist takes thousands of hours of drawing, sketching, collaging. painting, writing and mark making, and still you often wipe out on the way down the mountain.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Today as I near my mid fifties, my goals have changed as a professional artist. I’m not so focused on finding my purpose to keep the mission going, or to make a thousand more paintings. My body has been physically breaking down over the past couple of years, perhaps due to the hours spent at the easel and the wall creating millions of marks with my hands and fingers. Now my goal with my work is to create artistic pieces for clients that provide a sense of tranquility and peace in their surroundings. I want for my artwork to engage people in thoughtful and calming ways. I don’t need to shock or awe people any longer. I just want my work to bring them some serenity and happiness.

Contact Info:

• Website: HTTPS://lauriemavesart.com
• Twitter: Lauriemavesart
• Other: https://vimeo.com/lauriemavesart