We were lucky to catch up with Maynard Breese recently and have shared our conversation below.
Maynard, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
I was showing at First Friday in Las Vegas, back in 2013. It’s a street based show, set your tent up and display and sell your work from around 5 PM to sometime after midnight. I absolutely love the vibe on that show, busy, full of art loving people, and it’s Vegas, so it has that something extra, you know?
I usually have a guestbook on one of my tables, so that people can leave comments or their email info so they can get advanced notice of new pieces. Sometimes I see people as they leave comments, usually I don’t, because I would be busy helping somebody else. But one of my favorite things to do after the show was over, booth broken down and packed in my truck, and I was safely locked away in my hotel room with my post show ritual of a Big Mac meal and a chocolate shake, was to go through that night’s comments. I would highly recommend that ALL artists have a guest book. Not for an email list or sales, but for positive reinforcement. Nobody ever writes nasty things like, “I just didn’t understand the work”. It’s always nice comments such as, “great work”, or “very pretty.”
That night was special, though.
I don’t know the young lady who wrote the comment. I wish I had seen her do it, I would have given her a print of the piece that inspired her little note. Because that little note, those few words, have kept me going when I have had bad shows, or artist’s block, or any of the negative things the world can throw at us. Here is what she wrote:
“Hi. I can’t believe that two pieces of artwork actually made we want to cry! They are all so beautiful! And I’m only 10!”
You, young lady, are exactly why I am an artist. You are why I am willing to be vulnerable and to brave exposing my work, and my emotions, to the world. You are why I am STILL an artist. Thank you.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a digital painter. No, I don’t use AI. I hate that stuff. What I do, and have done since 2008, a combination of photography, post photo editing, and digital painting using a program that replicates oil or acrylic painting using a touch screen and mouse as my brush. It is more like a fully digital mixed media, I guess you would say. I print my work on canvas and textured fine art paper (and in the process of doing since 2008, I accidentally became a printer for hundreds of artists throughout the Southwest and elsewhere. Shameless plug: if you are interested in getting printing done by a company that is run by an artist for artists, look us up at MaynardBreesePrinting.com).
I became a working artist by accident. Back in 2007, I was working as a financial advisor for a brokerage firm, and had been for 15 years. I was completely burned out at. A few years prior, my then-wife and I had taken a trip to London (Sept 10, 2002…I guess we were daring fate). I had snapped a few photos of the display in The Great Hall of the Tate Modern (or the Turbine Hall, as it’s also known), which is this huge warehouse on the Thames River that had been converted into an art gallery. They left the massive room that used to house the Turbine and you would open these massive doors at the entrance and walking into this three story tall (I think) room. Once a year, an artist is selected to do an installation there, and that year it was Olafur Eliasson’s The Sun.
It was so impressive. It literally looked like the sun was landing in the room. People were so blown away by it that they would stop and just sit on the floor to look at it. The cool thing about it was that the color of the light was this orange glow that was so strong that really the only colors you could make out were orange and black, especially from the third floor balcony looking down. That piece just blew me away.
When I got home, I dropped it into photoshop and played around with a few photos I had taken. I found that I liked them red and black better than orange. I kept coming back to this image, this idea of what the artist had done, and was just so impressed with art that would make you say, “Damn, I need to sit down and soak this in”. I had, over the years, painted a few things, and decided to try to interpret what I was feeling. After a LOT of trial and error, I came up with a piece that I loved. In honor of the artist, I named it, “T.M. Sun 1”. That was in 2005.
Around the end of 2006, I bought a new computer that had a paint program as part of it’s software package. Since my kids were just a year old at the time, the idea of not being worried about having paint dry before I was done with something (because newborns don’t care about your schedule at all), or having to clean the brushes with mineral spirits, I was excited to give it a go, and used a photo of T.M. Sun 1 to play around with. I loved the results. A few months later, a friend and coworker of mine was over to the house, and saw my piece hanging on the wall. He asked where I got it, and when I told him I have made it, he offered to buy it! (Which he did). I was blown away. I had never considered selling my work, or that I even had work worth attempting to sell, but I had just sold it for several hundred dollars. Plus, I had the digital version of T.M. Sun 1 that I had created, and if I could figure out how to make copies of it (which took me awhile, and which also eventually led me to becoming a fine art printer for others, but that is a different story) then maybe I could actually make money as an artist.
I promptly set up a website, started taking commissions of reimagining people’s travel photos and digitally painting them (I no longer do that), and started creating original works. I didn’t have a set topic or theme or style, I just did what came into my head. If I ever became an artist, I didn’t want to be known as doing just one thing. However, I think if I had to describe my style, I would call it, “realistic surrealism”. I like the world kind of twisted slightly, not to the point of “bendy cows” or “melting clocks”. Somebody amazing has already done that, and way better than I could do it. My style is more musically inspired, and is the world the way I would create it if I was allowed to run it for a day. I will often get a song lyric stuck in my head, and it will sometimes start to form a picture, a visual representation of what I am feeling from that lyric. From there, I try to create what I am seeing/feeling. Sometimes I do a great job of it, and sometimes, it never sees the light of day. I often tell people my images are my way of singing, but visually.
I also began doing any show that would let me in. I later learned how to filter them down, but the experiences were all good. I also visited probably every single coffee shop, restaurant, bar, gift shop, you name it, within 10 miles of me, and worked on getting prints of my work up for sale there. (Always for sale. Never just to hang for “exposure”. I hate that. NEVER let a business hang your work and not either allow you to sell it or at have them buy it outright from you. Otherwise, you are just giving them your work for free.). I treated my art just like a business, and I worked it. That doesn’t mean I “sold out” or “sacrificed my vision”. So ridiculous that we have that as a thought process, that we celebrate being a “starving artists”. You can’t create if you starve to death. I have always created what I wanted to, and if people like it, great. If not, well, there are other people who will.
I began to travel from Arizona to California, Nevada, Utah and even Colorado to do art shows, and met lots of amazing artists along the way. My printing business grew out of referrals because people would see my prints, ask where I got them done, and when I said I did them, they would ask if I printed for other artists.
It has been 17 years now since I sold my first piece, and 16 years since I did my first show. I still do shows, though not as many as I used to do. My wife of two years now is also an artist, and we have a combined website to display and sell some of our work. My last piece, “A Boy and his Drone”, is actually a collaboration between us, and features our son as the model for the Boy in the piece.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Oh my, YES!
The internet can be your friend. There are several websites that are national databases of art shows, from Zapplication to Festival Network Online and Craftmaster news, to name a few. You should also search “listings of art shows near me”. Join a local artist guild, especially if they host shows (but, and this is important: I don’t put much weight in the “show and critique” thing guilds will often do. If you don’t know what was in my head, how can you tell me what I should change? )
Cities and states will often have a listing of public artworks that you can submit for. That is good exposure, and they pay for it.
There are also lots of social media groups that list upcoming shows/oppotunities for your city or state. In Facebook, search for “Art groups (name of your city)” or “Art shows (name of your city)”, and go from there. Because of the algorithm that social media apps use, you should go check those groups you save on at the most a weekly basis, as you will often miss upcoming events that you could benefit from.
Do NOT discredited coffee shops, restaurants, etc that hang art for sale. A few years back, I sold 8 large 20×30 pieces out of a single Pita Jungle during the month of December, and that was a very welcome bonus! And that was to 8 different clients.
While I know that everyone wants an Etsy account and a shopify page (heck we have our own website), you are competing with a massive number of people to be seen. And from not just my experience, but also from the 350 artist we print for now, most people still by their art in person, not online. Meeting the artist is a big deal in terms of making that connection.
I would also suggest, if you are a 2D artist (painter, photographer, etc), you have a good printer (hint, hint. I know, it’s shameless, but we have 350 artists we print for, based solely on referrals for a reason). Making prints is not going to dilute the value of your originals, it will only make it more valuable. I mean, how many copies of the Mona Lisa are there, after all? You just have to make sure that the printer you use is using archival materials and knows what they are doing.
Continue to improve your skill level by taking classes at a local rec center/art supply store/community college/etc. You can also find artists you like who do instruction on YouTube. Don’t copy them, but learn from them to improve on what YOU do.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
It is freaking hard to be an artist. It takes courage. It takes resilience, and a thick skin, and desire.
I think there is this image of an “artist” that society has, that is often depicted in movies or tv shows, in which the artist is meek and weak and frail sensitives that can’t take it. Whatever “it” is.
So far from the truth. We as creatives literally INVITE people to take a look at our emotions and thoughts and dreams and creations, our very souls if you will, and then give us feedback on it.
If you are not a creative, let me put it to you this way: Imagine that in your current job, you do it in a cubicle that faces out into a city street, with thousands of people not just walking by, but walking into your area. They poke around, they pick stuff up off your desk and drop it back in the wrong spot, and then they question you about what you do, how you do it, why you do it, Then, when they are ready to leave, they critique what you are doing, how you are doing it, or they make snarky comments to their companions when they think they are out of earshot. And you do that day after day after day. Heck, maybe you even post videos or pictures of you doing your job so that millions of people now have the ability to judge it, to say that, “wow…my 6 year old could do that job better”.
I have had, TWICE now, an experience that really sums that up. I was at the Chandler Artwalk in Arizona, probably back in 2011-2012. This well dressed woman comes into my booth, and I greet her. She completely ignored me, and my attempts to talk to her a couple more times. She just stood there, eyes slightly squinted down (if you don’t know, that sometimes doesn’t mean good things when someone is looking at your art), and spent 10 silent minutes in my booth looking at my work. I was getting a bit weirded out.
Finally, she turns to me, and says, “I am a psychologist, and I see a lot of pain here. Let me tell you what I see in you here.” And then she spent 5 minutes breaking that down for me. So you know, she was dead on the mark.
Two years later, I am doing First Friday in Vegas again, and I had another woman walk into by booth, look around, and then turn to me and say, “Wow. I am a therapist, let me tell you what I see here”! I quickly told her that I had already been “analyzed” a few years a prior, and that whatever she saw was probably accurate and I didn’t need to do it again! (Side note: I was about 2 years away from my divorce at that point, so they saw accurately. I’m not a danger or anything!)
Now, imagine that in your job. That is what it is like being an artist. Everytime somebody sees our work.
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Image Credits
Head shot by: Miachelle Breese, photographer