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

Alright, Marsha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

Let me start out by saying that committing my life to pursuing the arts, especially growing up in an immigrant family with expectations of success defined by higher education and career title, was the definition of life risk from the viewpoint of income stability and identity. I imagine that other children with parents already in the creative arts, whether that be acting, visual, music, writing or other, have a ‘head start’ in expectation or attitude about what the life of a free-lance artist actually entails. The reality for most artists is It’s a tough, gritty road, with no guarantees of climbing a ladder, getting raises, maintaining a steady income stream, having benefits and health care coverage, etc.

So with my more conventional upbringing, I did pursue a masters degree in something completely unrelated to the arts– I studied international economic development with the possible idea of going abroad and working in the field. But during college and grad school , as I was interning at various jobs in those fields, I knew that this was not the road for me. My heart was always turning toward painting and drawing , and so I would take classes at night, spend time in museums, and dream. (The irony of my dad being an amateur painter on weekends but never considering the serious pursuit of art as a career doesn’t escape me, and being exposed to art books filled with great master painters certainly helped form my aesthetic. )

The big risk I took after grad school and 5 years at a ‘professional’ job in downtown Manhattan (working for a not-for-profit corporation that contracted with the City to provide economic development opportunities for businesses) was to jump ship and finally commit to full time pursuit of studying painting and drawing at the Art Students League of NY (ASL) on West 57th Street. I had been taking painting classes in the evenings, going there after my daytime job, and then I met my now husband at the League, John A Varriano, who had just taken the plunge himself by quitting his daytime engineering job to pursue art full time. So he helped to give me the courage to do the same. We were partners in arms, throwing caution to the wind to chase a dream.

While studying at ASL, we rented a large studio (3000 sf) in the early 1990s with 4 other ASL students at 111 First Street in Jersey City, a famous artist building that no longer exists. I got a part time job as a night-time usher at Carnegie Hall , which is located catty-corner from ASL, so that I could attend classes during the day. And that’s how the beginning of a long and winding career in the arts started.

Fast forward to moving up to the mid-Hudson Valley region of NY 20 years ago from living in Washington Heights, Manhattan for a few years. (We were able to purchase the Washington Heights 2 bedroom coop in 1995 for a mere $29K, and a few years later sold it to purchase our current property in 2002). We have a 7 acre property in Gardiner, raised our two daughters who are now in the early-mid 20s, and built an active life as two working artists (with two separate studios on our property) who teach and sell work.
The inital risk of committing to this lifestyle ended up working out, but not without years of incredibly tight income flow and lots of worry and questioning whether we did the right thing. I think in the end there is a combination of hard work and sacrifice, luck/good fortune, and tail winds that have allowed us to create what we have, and I am forever grateful and never take it for granted.

I have been an oil painter for the past 28 years, having studied at the Art Students League of NY with a couple of iconic instructors, Ron Sherr and Frank Mason in the late 80s-early 90s.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As I pointed out in the discussion about risk, I was on a ‘conventional’ road in my early 20s working at a job in downtown Manhattan but feeling rather miserable and knowing that I was suppressing my ‘real identity’ as an artist. I had taken a couple of random night and weekend art classes on White St. in Tribeca, where I lived at the time, but one weekend day while wandering on 57th Street I saw the Art Students League of NY, a gorgeous beaux-arts building from the 1892 built by Henry Hardenbergh, and got up the courage to walk up the steps and enter the front registration office. I signed up for my first painting class and the rest is history.

Since the late 1990s I have considered myself a professional artist, displaying work at galleries, selling, and in the mid 2000s after moving to the town of Gardiner in the Hudson Valley, I’ve been teaching drawing and painting, mainly to school-aged kids but also some adults. In fact my oldest student is 93! She has been studying with me for 7 years.

One important part of both my husband John’s and my life has been the Gardiner Artists Open Studio Tour, started 12 years ago by the two of us and 7 other local artists. It has grown in number and stature over the years, with locals and outsiders alike coming inside our studios to see our latest work and purchase some art. A couple of years ago during the tour, an assistant art director on the HULU series ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING saw my work and HULU purchased a painting called ‘Bartender’s Choice’ that hung in Meryl Streep’s apartment during Season 3, episode 5 . It was super exciting for me to see Meryl Streep (Loretta Durkin in the show) and Martin Short standing under my painting at the entrance of her apartment! While that experience is most likely a one-off, it definitely helped my reputation in terms of sales, and I have been interviewed a few times since, including for my undergraduate alma mater’s publication, Georgetown Magazine.

Regarding my art practice, my oil paintings are made with freshly ground paint (we purchased many pounds of cadmium pigments of varying colors in the mid 1990s from the famous Robert Doak in Brooklyn) , and we stretch our own canvases. It’s a nice way to control the quality of the surface/substrate. We sometimes even make our own frames, although these days it’s easier to source that out. When I refer to ‘we’, I include my husband/life partner artist John A Varriano. We met 33 years ago at the Art Students league and have been married for 31 years. I frankly would not have the career I presently do without his incredible support and vast skills. He built both studios, and is a master of materials. He has become a legendary instructor at the Art Students League for the past several years, teaching painting and drawing from life to legions of students. And John is one of the finest, most poetic artists I’ve ever met. I have learned so much from our partnership, and I think I also add to our collaboration with some business/marketing skills I’ve learned over the years.

We both feel that what we provide is authenticity in our art practice and teaching– we do not use AI in any way to create our work. We have a foundation in traditional painting from life, and while I use my own references and have become more impressionistic and narrative in my painting pursuit, I still feel tethered to the truth of the experience of what only the human eye and heart can feel. With regard to teaching , other than providing some foundational skills, I believe in providing an atmosphere so that the student can freely explore without the pressure of producing a product. It’s through the exploration that one’s voice can eventually arise. Anyway it’s really about the journey. No one truly ever arrives. It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Regarding sharing a story of resilience, I think I explained my trajectory in the previous two questions which reflects the resilience piece.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

And regarding what I think about NFTs, I think they were a hoaxy idea and fad at inception and are presently irrelevant in terms of worth, as experienced by scores of artists who didn’t do well delving into them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: marshamassih
• Facebook: marsha massih
• Linkedin: marsha massih

Image Credits

my images