Starting a Family and an Art Practice: Miriam Webber

Lisa Belisle: Hello. I am Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching our video podcast, Radio Maine, sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. This is our video podcast where we explore and celebrate creativity in the human spirit. Today to celebrate and explore creativity in the human spirit is Miriam Webber, who is an up and coming artist. You've been working on this for a while. A couple years now. Thanks for coming in today.

Miriam Webber: Yes, thank you for having me. It's awesome.

Lisa Belisle: What I love is that you are fully committed to the art piece, but it's also just one piece of all the things that you're trying to do right now in your life. So tell me why it was so important that you said, well, on top of having a family, I would really like to start doing something in addition.

Miriam Webber: I think it was just sort of, I needed something to help me refine myself after becoming a mother. I've always been involved in the arts, and painting is one of the easiest things to do from home when you have a little one, especially acrylic paint. Dries quick, didn't have to worry about the smells that come with oil paints. So just needing something to ground me and bring me back to a sense of myself. I don't think I was prepared for how profoundly changing being a mother is. It changes you a lot. So that definitely helped. I don't think when I started painting, I had any intention of showing my artwork. That came with a friend of mine who owns a business in Hallowell. She hosts a different artist every month, and she offered to have my art there, and I kind of freaked out at first. No, no, no, I don't want anyone to see it. And then I did it and I sold out in a week. It was very reaffirming to me that that was a good thing for me to keep pursuing.

Lisa Belisle: There's so many rich elements of what you just said. One of the things I want to go back to is this idea of grounding yourself again as a mother and the profound change that you weren't prepared for. Let me take a step back. I've given birth to three children and I have three bonus children also in my life who are now adults. So I certainly can relate to that, and I know how it felt for me. How did it feel for you?

Miriam Webber: Everyone tells you how much love you're going to feel and all of that, but it also kind of ripped my heart out of my chest in a way. I felt so vulnerable, and I'm responsible for this little life that I just created in my body. It kind of makes you feel like a superhuman because you just grew a person inside of you, and at the same time makes you feel vulnerable. Your heart is literally outside of your body and you're carrying it around. So it's intense, but it is beautiful, and it's a love that you don't know until you do it. So it's kind of hard to explain, but I definitely felt overwhelmed by the whole experience in a good way.

Lisa Belisle: I can relate to what you're describing, because when you first learn that you're carrying a little being around, all of a sudden the world kind of shifts. The food you're eating maybe is a little dangerous, and you have to be careful about changing the cat box, for example. These very normal, mundane things you didn't spend so much time thinking about. But then you're right, you give birth to this child and you're like, wait a minute, now I can't protect them inside of me anymore.

Miriam Webber: Exactly. I was like, put them back, they're safer in there.

Lisa Belisle: That's right. And I think you're right. There's no way that you can actually know how that's going to feel.

Miriam Webber: Yes, it's actually been really good for my creativity now that he's a little bit older. He's very involved in what I do, and that's been really fun, and just a whole new lens on creativity in the world. It's refreshing and exciting.

Lisa Belisle: Tell me about that. How do you involve him in the work that you do creatively?

Miriam Webber: So I tried to, not at first. He would always see me painting here and there, and he would comment on them, but I didn't want to ever push it. I didn't want to make him do it or anything. But he has a big whiteboard that he likes to draw on. So that's kind of where it started, was him doing his own little drawings. And then one day over the summer, he just woke up and said he wanted to paint with me. And I said, okay. I wasn't sure how we were going to do it together, but basically he had this whole story about a little bird that he wanted me to paint. So he helped with certain elements, like the background color and drawing the shape of the bird. And he's a very good director. He likes to tell me what to do. From there it sort of evolved. Our next painting was a fruit solar system. It was like all the planets, but he picked fruits that would represent them instead. And now that he's a little bit older, he's really just taking the lead on doing all the drawing and then having me fill it in with paint at his direction. Again, very specific colors, very specific patterns, but it's just amazing. Children aren't limited by the same society that I think can limit your creativity sometimes, because you worry about, will people like this? Would somebody buy this? You're thinking of a lot of external factors, and children don't have that. So his drawings, it's like he's not tainted yet by the world. Unlimited imagination. Nothing's impossible. Nothing's off limits. So that's really cool. That's a good perspective for me to take sometimes too.

Lisa Belisle: Fruit solar system, is that something that you came up with, or this was entirely him?

Miriam Webber: That was entirely him. And I actually have photos of the process of his initial drawings on the whiteboard. We went to the grocery store and bought each of the fruits that he wanted, and he lined them up in order of how the planets are lined up. Some of the fruits, I would try to encourage him to pick something different that might make a little more sense size wise based on the planet. But he had his own ideas and we went with it and it was fun. My husband and I thought fruit salad solar system would be the name. We were like, that's a great name. Let's do that. And he's like, no, this is called the Lonely Rainbow and the Mischievous Planets, or something completely unrelated, but amazing. So that's what it's called instead.

Lisa Belisle: I love that he has this vision already, and that he not only has a vision, but he wants to collaborate with you in creating this vision that he has inside of himself.

Miriam Webber: Yes, it's very special. It's sweet. And I love the idea of him getting older and having a collection of artwork of what we do. A lot is on canvas now when we collaborate. So I intend to have it all framed and ready for him when he has his own home, because a lot of what kids do is on construction paper or little scraps of paper here and there, and it might get saved, but you can't really do anything with it. So I love that we have some really big tangible pieces of art that he can decorate with someday if he wants to. If not, I'll keep it.

Lisa Belisle: And then someday, if he decides that he would like to have children, he could be like, this is what your father contributed to the world back in the day.

Miriam Webber: Yes, he's very set on it. He thinks when he comes to my shows that it's in a museum, my art. So he'll always say, I want to bring this to the museum that your art is at, and I want to sell it. I'm like, okay, we'll talk about it. I'm not ready to let go of them. But he loves that idea too. He wants to have an art party, is what he calls it. Those are my openings, he thinks. I mean, they are art parties.

Lisa Belisle: I love that he values so much the work that you do, that first of all, he thinks that he's going to a museum. This is my mom and her stuff is in a museum, because to him that's what it is.

Miriam Webber: Yes, it's so cute.

Lisa Belisle: And also that he's a little entrepreneur. Somebody else is going to value this work. Why wouldn't they?

Miriam Webber: Exactly. I have sold prints of some of the ones we've done, but I don't know if I can let go of the originals. We have a very big one right now. It's I think four feet by five feet, and it's just a collection of little monsters that he drew, and there's a little story behind each of them. It's pretty funny.

Lisa Belisle: I'm glad that you're keeping this, because I have to admit, I actually have my children's artwork, and I told you they're all north of 20 now, and I have it on their walls and it's still here with me. They haven't taken it back yet. They looked at it and they're like, mom, but why would you do that? That was from third grade. I'm like, why would I do that? I wish I had kept more of the stuff that I did when I was younger.

Miriam Webber: Interesting. My dad actually recently found a piece that I made when I was, I got to say, seven or eight, I'm not sure. He had wrapped it up in some type of plastic, and it's a pastel, oil pastel drawing of flowers, and it's amazing to see how my style was sort of solidified at that age, and there's such a commonality between that and what I do now. I forgot. I didn't even remember that drawing or know that that's always been something I've liked. So I wish I had more of my old stuff that I could reflect back on and see more of what I did. But I definitely got rid of a lot. My parents gave me stuff, and I just chucked it.

Lisa Belisle: The timing has to be right on that one.

Miriam Webber: Yep, yep.

Lisa Belisle: And again, that speaks to, you mentioned this idea of wanting to be protective of our children as they leave us, and also that we already have a sense of ourselves even when we're very small. So you're not just protecting their little physical bodies, you're also protecting the possibilities of this vision that somehow your parents made possible for you to continue through with.

Miriam Webber: Yes, exactly. I think especially with young artists, it's fragile in the sense that saying something that you might think is well-meaning could set them off track and have them decide to just not do it. So I try to be really careful when I'm talking to him about his stuff. I try not to critique any of it. When he gets frustrated if something's not coming out the way he wants it to, I see him get frustrated and want to give up, and I talk him through it. And I find myself often being like, I need to take my own advice. It's like I'm talking to a little piece of me as well. When we're creative, we all have those moments where you're stuck or you're frustrated or you want to scrap the whole painting, and I definitely have those moments. So it's kind of funny to talk him through those moments and realize, okay, I need to listen to what I'm telling him and take my own advice sometimes.

Lisa Belisle: So do you feel like your parents did that with you? Clearly they valued what you were doing, they saved it for you.

Miriam Webber: Yes. My parents, looking back, now that I am a parent, I realize how much they did to help me in this journey. I took so many art classes. They signed me up for, I did weaving on looms, ceramics, drawing, painting, just every extra little summer camp or class that I could take. They always got me in on those, and I was too young to be asking to do that. So they definitely fostered that for me a lot. And becoming a parent, I realize it's a sacrifice. It's expensive, it's time, carting your kid back and forth. It's awesome. It was a great opportunity. It's definitely something I hope to do with my son as well, if he's interested.

Lisa Belisle: That sounds like at the very least, he's interested in having somebody else do his art for him. So maybe you have to bring him and yourself to his art class and see how that works out.

Miriam Webber: Exactly. I'll be like, I'll draw it. My mom's going to paint it for me. She'll fill it in.

Lisa Belisle: Collaborative art that actually works.

Miriam Webber: Yes, it's fun.

Lisa Belisle: So tell me about, I know that you are also separately a small business owner.

Miriam Webber: I don't own a business. I work for a small business. I'm a hairstylist.

Lisa Belisle: Okay, so you're a hairstylist. You work for a small business, but every person that I've ever known who has worked in that field, there's a certain amount of needing to be entrepreneurial, even if they are, say, renting a booth from someone.

Miriam Webber: It takes a lot of networking and building trust with clients. So it definitely has that entrepreneurial feel.

Lisa Belisle: I think there actually is a translation. I love this idea that the networking piece is important, and I'm assuming that it's also important for art.

Miriam Webber: Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of parallels between being a hairstylist and art. Not only is being a hairstylist creative in nature, but color theory is a huge part of hair, and it's also a huge part of art. When I was in cosmetology school, I really thrived in the color courses that we took and learning about the color wheel, because I already knew it from my art background. And now stepping back into the art world, a lot of my hair knowledge is helping me in that way too, because the color wheel is still so fresh for me. I use it every day at work. So it's something that's permanently in my brain. That's been convenient.

Lisa Belisle: As you're helping people, I can see the parallels. When you have somebody sitting with you and you're helping them, you're trying to understand what they would like their hair to look like and what you think their hair could actually do, which sometimes maybe is not exactly the same thing. Is there any parallel with, okay, here is this art, I'm creating this, and maybe I could actually see this in the home of this person who came to my, quote, art party, to quote your son? Have you done any sort of work with that to help people understand how this art might fit into their lives?

Miriam Webber: So I don't do commissions in the general sense of someone being like, I like this picture, can you make this for me? But the commissions that I have done are very much that. They know they want a piece of art, they know where they want it, so then we narrow it down to size and shape of canvas and then maybe a few focal colors that they want. I think my best commission work has been when I've been in the person's home and I can see the space where they're going to have it, and I can look around at other little details and pinpoint that into something. I basically say, you can tell me about some colors you like, you can tell me about size and shape, and then from there it's going to be my creation, because I don't do well working from images. When I try to do something inspired by somebody else, when it's their inspiration, it doesn't have the same feeling. I don't really enjoy doing that. But for example, one commission that I did was at someone's home and they wanted green. They were really drawn to different shades of green, and they knew where they wanted it. And I noticed they had some sort of a gold lamp and some gold picture frames. I also noticed they had peace lilies somewhere else in their house. When I mentioned those, she talked about how when her kids were little, they used to rip them off as soon as they'd grow out, and it drove her crazy. But now whenever she looks at that, that's what she thinks of, her kids being little. And so that's what I ended up doing was peace lilies with some little gold accents in there, and it fits the space so well. So I enjoyed that type of collaboration.

Lisa Belisle: I love hearing this, because having talked to other people who are artists, the commissioning process can be challenging, and a lot of artists won't accept any commissions at all, and many artists will accept very limited commissions. But it sounds like you'll accept limited commissions in a way that you think will maximize the possibility that you're going to produce something that really will fit in someone's home.

Miriam Webber: Yes, fit in their home. And it has to be a certain feeling when I'm making it too. I personally think you can almost pick up on those feelings, or you can pick up on a feeling when you're looking at art. So it has to feel good for me to make it, otherwise I don't enjoy the process. And maybe that's why I don't love the finished product either. It doesn't feel right to me. So the type of commissions I do are specific in the sense that you have to be open and just want something and trust me and my style. That's the way I can do it.

Lisa Belisle: Describe to me your style. You said that you use acrylics because they're fast drying and right now that's what you need to have happen, but what type of imagery are you attracted to? I've seen some of the work that you've sent forward for us to look at and it's beautiful, but how would you describe it?

Miriam Webber: I do a lot of plants and animals. It's funny, as far as animals, so far it's just been birds and snakes, which I don't really like either of those in my personal life. It's not something I would want as a pet or even to be near, but they're beautiful and they're colorful. For me, every painting just starts out as a color palette in my head. I get inspired by either a color I saw somewhere or a color combination that I saw somewhere. And then I try to think of how I could incorporate that into a painting and what would fit those colors. Or even sometimes it doesn't have to fit. A leaf can be a teal instead of green, or a bird can be pink instead of white. So I try to think of what would look cool shape wise to go with those colors. But yes, I do a lot of leaves, flowers, birds, and snakes. Those are my inspirations right now. As far as describing my style, I kind of struggle with that. I think naive is a style that fits mine. It has sort of that childlike quality to it. I'm also not formally trained. Some of my pieces I think have a folk art sort of feel, but also I'm very inspired by graphic art. I like it to be really flat. I try to avoid texture when I can on most of my pieces. So that takes doing a lot of really thin layers to not create brushstrokes. I don't know why that's important to me. It seems silly. I like textured artwork and I do some of that occasionally. But for the most part, my style I would say is very flat, two dimensional. I don't do shading, and I outline everything. Everything has bold outlines to make it pop.

Lisa Belisle: So is it because you're trying to put the focus on the color itself, that you make things flat so that you're not drawing the focus away from it?

Miriam Webber: I don't know if I can specifically say why I do that. It is just something I enjoy doing. I like the way it looks and feels. The color to me is the most important. Color is such a huge part of art when you look at it. I think 90% of the art that I'm drawn to has more to do with the color palette than the context. So I don't know what got me starting to do that, but it just feels right to me when I do it. And over the last two years, I think I've really solidified my style. Like I said, I think it was already solidified as a child, but then going through art classes, you're forced to try different things. And I think that's part of what talked me out of pursuing art school, was I didn't like those classes where I had to try to do a still life in a certain style. In art history, you study different artists and they have you try to make a painting in their style, and I would do it, but it didn't feel as freeing to me or as liberating. And then as I didn't see as much art that looked like mine around, I started to think, well, maybe I'm not. So I didn't really pursue it. And then it took me having a child, the world kind of shutting down, and maybe just being a little bit older and caring a little bit less about whether other people think I'm an artist or not. I think that came into play as well. Having my own home too, and figuring out my interior style, what would I want on my walls, what looks good with my funky style. All those little pieces kind of came together.

Lisa Belisle: Do you now have your art on your walls?

Miriam Webber: It's funny. I did at first. Now I do not. I don't know why. I have other artists on my walls. They'll occasionally take temporary spots, but I think the entrepreneur in me thinks, if I can sell it, I should sell it. But also, for some reason, I don't like the idea of people coming into my house and me being like, I did this.

Lisa Belisle: First of all, I love the fact that you're thinking to yourself, well, I created it and now it can go to somebody, and this is a business and I'm wanting to put it out there in the world and have somebody buy it. I think that that is actually really important. If you were say a real estate agent, you couldn't keep all of the houses that you liked. So I think that that makes perfect sense. I also, having just visited, we did a studio visit, which ended up being a home slash studio visit, with Page.

Miriam Webber: I saw that.

Lisa Belisle: And she's one of our artists. It was so interesting because I loved the way that she put other artists' work in with her own work, and walking around her house, I was honestly so jealous of the way that she had pulled together. Here's a Rick Hamilton, and then over here we have somebody that I met at the Clam Festival when I was selling art back in the day. I think the ability to bring in other people's pieces is really powerful.

Miriam Webber: I think so. It's just nice. It's refreshing. I spend so much time staring at these paintings when I'm working on them, that a lot of times by the time I'm done, I'm like, I need a little break from it. I need a little space. So it's just nice to have other people's stuff up. And again, everything I have, mostly I would say, is chosen because of the colors. I dress in mostly neutrals, but my house is like blue, pink, orange, red. I like bright, bright colors, and that's reflected in my artwork.

Lisa Belisle: When you think about what you would like things to look like in your artistic future, what does that look like for you? You said that you've had art parties, i.e. openings, and you've had a few of these with people in the Gardiner or Hallowell area. What's next?

Miriam Webber: I just plan on putting myself out there more. I think I have been afraid of the word no sometimes. And I'm trying to get over that. I'm trying to really force myself out of my comfort zone and put myself in situations where I get turned down. So it's been scary for me. Every opportunity I've had so far has been a very natural one. It's come from connections or networking or knowing someone who knows someone, and that's great, and those are awesome connections to have, but I need to start putting myself out there. So next for me is trying to break into some other markets. I want to get out of central Maine and start being southern Maine, coastal Maine. I just want to move around, get more eyes on my stuff. That's my resolution for this year. I just need to push myself, all those uncomfortable boundaries. I need to get out of my comfort zone where the growth happens and try to remind myself of that every time I'm nervous to hit submit on an application for something. So I think next for me is just getting more eyes on my work and getting out there more into different markets.

Lisa Belisle: Well, having sat with Laura Mrazik, who I know well, and her saying, my goal was to get my art in a gallery, and then seeing how as a result of just pursuing the process of doing that, it actually happened. I think what you're describing is, okay, I'm going to show up. I'm going to put myself out there. Maybe it doesn't feel that comfortable, but that's sort of the only way that you can move things forward.

Miriam Webber: Exactly. Now I've applied for a couple of grants, and I've gotten nos, and I'm getting better at taking it. It's not the end of the world. It doesn't mean I can't be an artist. I need to just not make it mean so much. It's tough. Art's a vulnerable thing. So I think that's what makes me, or has made me in the past, kind of play small. But every time you do something, you get better at it. It gets less scary. I just remember making my Instagram for my art and sharing it, and I was like, oh my God, I shouldn't have done that. What did I do? I was mortified. And then now I'm like, well, why? I make things a bigger deal in my head, talk myself out of stuff. So trying to not do that now.

Lisa Belisle: When you talk about not being a trained artist, it's interesting to me as someone whose art training stopped probably whenever grade school stopped and they stopped having us go down the hall to art class. So I have literally never had any training in art, but I talked to some artists for whom art school training is extremely important, other artists who train themselves, but they train themselves in different ways. And so you actually have had training, you've had much more training than I've ever had. Maybe you don't have a degree from an art school. So for me, it's funny to hear that. I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings around this at all, but it's just an interesting perspective for me.

Miriam Webber: Yes, I think it all comes down to the impostor syndrome. I think we all suffer with that. I don't suffer with that in the hair industry anymore, and I don't know if that has to do with the fact that maybe because I was licensed in it I just felt more confident in it. That's not to say I don't ever question myself or decisions I make when I'm doing hair, but it's just different with art. It feels more personal. Especially all my art, I'm not painting from an image, I'm painting from something I came up with in my mind. So start to finish, it's my creation, it's from me. And so I guess that makes it feel a little more personal. That's the best way I can describe it.

Lisa Belisle: It's your own little personal fruit solar system.

Miriam Webber: Exactly.

Lisa Belisle: And you're expecting other people to say, oh, yes, I love that fruit solar system.

Miriam Webber: Exactly.

Lisa Belisle: But in your case, your child's a parent, and these other people, they're not invested necessarily. So somehow you have to convince them that your own personal fruit solar system is legitimate and worthy of value.

Miriam Webber: Exactly. And I think the value piece is also a hard part of being an artist. You put the price point on your art, you decide what it's worth, and that's a hard thing to do. It's been hard for me to come up with what feels good to me and good to the person buying it as well. There's a lot of uncharted territory for me in this world. So I'm trying to get with all those aspects of it, but I've had great feedback so far. I haven't had anyone be ruthlessly mean to me. I've been fortunate. So I'm ready to start putting myself out there.

Lisa Belisle: Speaking of that, how would people actually find your art?

Miriam Webber: So it's on Instagram and Facebook. It's Miriam Webber Paints. That's my tag. And then I have a website, it's just miriamwebber.com. I try to keep up to date on where my art is showing on social media. So updates are on there.

Lisa Belisle: I'm really going to encourage people who've been listening to this conversation who are fascinated by the possibilities to actually take the time to go look at your website, Instagram, Facebook.

Miriam Webber: Yes. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: It'll be exciting to see where things go for you.

Miriam Webber: Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Lisa Belisle: I appreciate you coming in and talking to me today.

Miriam Webber: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Lisa Belisle: I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you have been listening to or watching our video podcast, Radio Maine, brought to you by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. Here on Radio Maine, we explore creativity and the human spirit, and we celebrate these things. Today we've been doing this with artist Miriam Webber. I hope to see more of you in the future.

Miriam Webber: Yes, thank you.