We recently connected with Monica Mangan and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Monica, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In 2020, during the pandemic shutdown, I started painting daily as a commitment to self growth by learning something new. As I began to play with a new set of basic supplies, I discovered my head was filled with a crescendo of ideas, my curiosity was exploding and I felt an immediate passion for creating art. I tinkered with techniques, blending colors and fearlesslessly embraced making messes and mistakes over and over, all the while learning. Improvement and satisfaction with my work came quickly and I was unstoppable.

Music has always been a big part of my life, and I was painting alot of music inspired pieces. My first attempt at portraiture was a 4×6″ abstract image of John Lennon. My initial pieces of work were very small like this because I was limited to painting on a table in a small apartment. I wanted to be able to paint portraits but in reality, they were so hard. Painting musician faces on these small canvases became a strategy – a project with a the goal of improvement. One by one, these little faces began to accumulate and I began to see the aweness of putting them all together as a collage. I’d lay them out on the floor as I painted them, motivated by my expanding collection and what I was learning. Some paintings took an evening to complete, and others, several days. As I painted each musician, I’d play their music for inspiration. In total, I painted 81 portraits. My framer helped me organize the paintings into a portrait collage and the finished piece will forever be my greatest artistic accomplishment.

The significance of this collage is most meaningful because I began painting at the beginning of a sobriety journey. Evening painting replaced evening drinking and helped enable me to begin braking a toxic cycle that required finding new ways to quiet my racing thoughts and tap into repressed emotions and experiences that began to manifest in the calmness of painting and visual expression.

Each portrait, “one a day” represented in reality the idea of “one day at a time”. I was feeling the benefits of the slow process of healing in the consistant growth of my art practice and this project.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am completely self taught. I first picked up a paint brush just before the pandemic shut down with a set of basic supplies and an empty canvas. A commitment to self growth and productive use of idle time had become a necessary priority. I tried guitar but didn’t like to practice so I moved on to acrylics because I loved to doodle and I love color. My first painting was a peacock because it was the most colorful image I could think of. I was hooked.

Certainly, an instant love for creating art has fueled my passion but that alone has limitations. I have spent endless hours almost daily experimenting and making messes of ideas. The amount of time and attention I dedicate to my art has been key to my growth as an artist. A willingness to create art with consistency over time (without an attachment to an outcome) has been an important part of my mental development and continues to challenge me.

I started an instagram page during the pandemic as a way to document my artistic journey. As followers accumulated, mostly other artists, my inspiration to study, practice, experiment and create art grew. I’d never considered selling my work until I was contacted by a follower in Maine who was interested in purchasing one of my pieces. An artist herself, she kindly introduced me to contracts and gave me valuable advice about how to execute a sale. This led to a new way of thinking. I could supplement my income selling my art and sharing my work with enthusiasts who appreciated it.

One of my experimental pieces was an image of New Jersey (where I live) painted with flowers, an homage to the “Garden State”. I was taking custom orders from friends for holiday gifts and found a few local shops that were interested in selling my work. By the end of my first year, I’d begun to make a name for myself in the local arts community.

A realtor friend commissioned me to paint a house as a closing gift for her client. Never shy of a new challenge, this was a success because she connected me to other realtors in her company. Painting houses as realtor gifts became another niche that was profitable. With all this painting, I was getting better and better, faster, more confident and more ambitious.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I had never picked up a paint brush to create art until I was 54 years old! I’m a fitness trainer by profession and had always considered fitness my most time intensive hobby. An arts enthusiast at best, I remember lots of doodling in school and drawing for fun as a kid, visiting museums and painting the odd old piece of furniture. I never considered myself an artist.

The art of creation is the art of play. It requires nothing more than some basic supplies and a commitment to surrendering to the experience of having fun and creating something that didn’t exist. From my perspective, your growth as an artist is proportionate to the time you spend playing. As you create, you begin to see the world differently. You will notice so much more, pay closer attention to detail and see so many things that inspire you. All these observations and ideas translate to your art.

You are never too old to start anything and you never stop learning. The more you learn, the more you realize how much more you can learn and explore. Art has given me a new zest for life, a changed perspective and a relentless quest for learning. I’ve begun to appreciate and need to feel the stillness of time and quiet my mind. This is why I paint.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of becoming an artist at 54 is a new way of thinking about myself and my future. The idea of aging with a hobby that excites, inspires and motivates me to continue to create is invigorating. I appreciate my alone time in new ways and have completely shifted my priorities to create more time to paint, even for photography and poetry. My art community continues to grow and I value the relationships I’ve formed with other artists. Identifying as an artist has influenced my perception of myself in the sense that I take great pride in my work/work ethic and new accomplishments. The incredible joy that my art practice gives me fuels my life trajectory and makes me feel like I’ve only just begun.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.monicamanganart.com
• Instagram: buffmango65
• Facebook: Monica Mangan Art