We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marica Villeneuve. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marica below.

Hi Marica, thanks for joining us today. The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?

I was 13 years old when I first earned money for my artwork. A fantastic person who started off as my elementary school choir director and grew into a very good friend – along with her husband – to me and my family, had commissioned me to make a painting of their house. I was so honoured by their trust, and to be so fairly compensated for my hard work (even at such a young age) meant a lot to me. I really pushed myself to do the best that I could with their painting and I can honestly say that I’m still proud of it to this day. This commission instilled a lot of confidence in me and taught me a lot about selling art. They’ve commissioned me several more times since then and their support has meant a great deal to me. I’ve been doing commissions for many other people over the years, but you truly never forget the first!

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

I’m a painter who is heavily influenced by surrealism and realism. I also work part time as a gallery assistant and as a custom art framer. I love framing and I often like to include unique framing designs with my artwork. Sometimes I even work backwards, where a frame inspires my art! My ideas come from my dreams and daydreams, and our beautiful natural world is my main inspiration. The majority of my work involves combining animals, plants, and man-made spaces and objects, to showcase nature’s incredible beauty and to show that we are also a part of nature, so we should do a better job of sharing this amazing planet with every other living thing. Over the last few years, I’ve been exploring colour and more recently, patterns, in my artwork, taking a lot of time and care to create intricate designs. Vibrant colour and details have always caught my eye and I often work small, making each artwork feel precious, in the hopes of drawing people in close to see every detail and to create a sense of intimacy with the work. I hope to keep having the honour of touching the hearts and minds of dreamers and nature lovers with my art!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My professional life has been full of pivots. The first big one was pivoting from my path of becoming an art therapist while I was in university studying fine art and psychology. Even after being accepted into a program to study art therapy, I did some soul searching and concluded that it wasn’t the right or healthiest path for me as a deeply empathetic person, so I began exploring other avenues that focused more on creativity. I was a custom art framer and then an art consultant for a few years, and the next pivot happened when I decided to pursue art full time, which I did for almost 3 years. The most recent pivot was a big move to a new city at a time when it was also becoming more financially difficult to keep doing art full time, so I began to work part time as both a custom framer and as a gallery assistant, while continuing to work as a professional artist. This was all initially really hard for me to do and it was a ton of change happening all at once. Luckily, I was able to find work outside of my art practice that is still in line with what I enjoy, but these recent pivots also reminded me that when running a small business (especially a creative one) there will always be ups and downs. I think that what matters most is how we handle them, and even though our path might look like a zig zag, we still let our passion guide us forward.

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

There are a couple of missions driving my creative journey. Life isn’t easy and is so full of stressors, so I want people who look at my art to feel happier, more at peace, or like they’re able to escape for even just a moment into a different, magical version of reality. I want to light up the parts of peoples’ brains that get them to imagine and dream again! I also want to remind people of how beautiful and precious our natural world is. The majority of my artwork highlights the beauty of nature in one way or another, and often combines animals and nature with man-made spaces or objects to demonstrate that we as human beings are a part of nature as well. We aren’t separate from it, though it might feel like we are sometimes. In truth, we all share this beautiful planet, so we should take the best care of it possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.artbymarica.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/art.by.marica
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maricavilleneuveart

Image Credits

Sara Sarhangpour