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

Violet, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

My journey as an artist started as a young child. I would build robots out of cardboard covered in aluminum foil and Christmas lights, dreaming that I could make real robots one day. In middle school, I started a YouTube channel showing how to build DIY movie props and other art projects. I was influenced by Indy Mogul and Mythbusters to create and teach others.
My YouTube channel grew in popularity, and by the time I reached high school, making tutorials was my part-time job. Since I was good at using a camera, I decided to attend film school in New York City right out of high school. After a few years, the growing need to create physical objects grew, and I ended up dropping out of film school and coming back to my hometown of Cleveland, OH, to finish my Bachelor’s degree in Sculpture + Expanded Media at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
My professors there helped foster new skills and talents. I was always eager to learn something new and push the boundaries of my technical skills.
After graduating in 2021, I worked a few odd fabrication jobs, including welding porch railings and building props for a theater company. The real growth in my focused education as a fabricator came from my time working at the Cleveland Institute of Art as a studio technician in Fabrication Studios. My manager and coworkers were endless fountains of knowledge and skills that have been invaluable influences on my work and my life. I could not be more grateful for my time working with them. Concurrently, working closely with students and learning so many new things from them inspired me to pursue my Master’s in Fine Arts to teach college students as a career.

Violet, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My journey as an artist, much like many others, started when I was young. I spent a lot of time drawing and sketching as a child. As I grew older, I became interested in filmmaking and photography as art forms. Most days, it was just me with my family’s video camera, filming the family dog or making videos starring myself. My love for photography grew when I took my first photography class in middle school. I had a Canon AE-1. I loved developing my own film and creating exposures in the dark room, experimenting with different techniques. I was a lonely child and was bullied because I was different. I was an avid fan of Mythbusters and dreamed of growing up to become an engineer. Robotics was one of my earliest hobbies. I wanted to make! Alone one summer, I started to make YouTube videos on my family’s camcorder, showing how to build things such as a time machine made out of foam core poster board as well as a Ghostbuster’s proton pack made from materials from the recycling bin and a bit of spray paint. Much of my time was dedicated to making these videos, and the audience slowly started to grow. I was only a kid with a camera, but this hobby turned from a summer adventure into a high school job. The best part of making each episode was building the physical object. I had a talent for taking an idea and making it in the physical world. Growing older, my craftsmanship and video quality improved, and I began to pursue videography as a career option. I was filming and editing music videos and became locally known for my videography business. By the time college applications came around, I decided to apply to film school. I was accepted to Pratt Institute and moved to New York City when I was 18 years old. Looking back, I was just a naive and scared kid who knew very little about what awaited me. I was learning so many new things but also thought I knew better than most of my classmates. I had an inflated ego and wasn’t shy about letting others know. After all, I was voted “Most Likely to be Famous” in my high school yearbook. As time progressed, I started feeling all of these feelings that began in early childhood. I started questioning my identity, my sexuality, and my worth as a person, and I couldn’t stand it. I began to use drugs and alcohol to numb myself from the world. I hated myself and I wanted to die. My use got so bad that I’m surprised I’m still alive. Halfway through Junior year, I left my dream school to go to rehab. I achieved 94 days of sobriety before relapsing once again.
I moved back to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. In 2017, I realized it was time to get sober again. Everything I spent so many years running from suddenly came to the surface. I had no idea who I was behind the drugs and alcohol. Slowly, and with the help of therapy, I finally realized that I was a transgender woman. After some time being sober and beginning to transition, I enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art. When the time came to choose a major, I could have chosen photo/video because it would be easy. Instead, I chose sculpture. My experience awakened a joy and passion that I had never experienced before. Sculpture has allowed me to put my insecurities and emotions about my past on display using realistic silicone flesh with found or fabricated objects. Art has allowed me to process my past, my traumas, and my addictions constructively and share my experience with my audience. Focusing on the horror and despair of living in a human body in this world has allowed me to come to terms with philosophical questions about my existence, and push the audience to do the same.
My love for photography has never left me. From 2019 to 2021, I created a self-portrait series utilizing my skills in photography, character makeup, and prosthetics. This work marked a very experimental time in my artistic practice. Through my self-portraits, I explored my femininity, societal expectations, gender identity, and heartbreak. I used my talents in videography during my undergraduate for installation work with projectors and surrealist video art.
Since graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2021, my artistic practice has been in high gear. I have been creating work that I want to create and have been in over 20 shows nationally and internationally. In September of 2022, I was awarded the Virginia Krauss Hess Award at Rosewood Arts Center in Dayton, Ohio. In June 2023 I was awarded Best In Show at the Newburyport Arts Association’s Juried Exhibition in Massachusetts.
My development as an artist has been unconventional, at times very painful but nevertheless rewarding.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Seeing people react to my work when they don’t know the artist is watching them.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal and mission in life is to create something that will live on after I’m gone, and to make an impact on the art scene.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.violetmaimbourg.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/violetmaimbourg/