Y1 E9: Maria Haigh - A Meditation via Art...

Foul Weather, 1987 - all images are courtesy of the artist

Maria Haigh: The Artist

-12 minute read

Maria Haigh has been painting and drawing as a hobby on and off for the past 40 years. She started out with watercolor and has tried just about every 2D medium. Maria was born and raised in southeastern Michigan and has lived there her whole life.

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What do you love about making art?

It brings me joy. It makes me happy. 

Which mediums do you like working with the most?

Photography, watercolor, wax and oil pencils, graphite, charcoal, and carbon pencils. I haven't used anything unusual. I have used oil and acrylic paints and dabbled in ink prints.

What do you love about that?

I love my list of favorite mediums because I am most comfortable with them. They are also very portable and easy to clean up and store. I find portraits of people and animals most comfortable because I'm good at them. I use the right and left side of my brain fairly evenly. The realism of my portraits makes my left hemisphere happy! I am less comfortable with landscape because you have to be looser and more impressionistic. I do love landscapes and have started quite a lot of pieces from my landscape photography. However, I always seem to not finish them. What I find most interesting about that is impressionism is my favorite style to look at. It makes both my right and left brain happy.

Great Blue Heron, 2019

Where is your studio, and what is your primary work area?

My studio is in my home, upstairs in my loft. It's a quiet room. It's open—I mean, I can see across the entire house from there. It has great calm energy. It is my space.

Do you listen to music or anything specific when you're making art?

I like listening to Loreena McKennitt or Peter Gabriel for example. I also like listening to Zen music. I enjoy listening to whatever my mood is; I don't have any specific thing in mind. It needs to be soulful or chill my nervous system. My mind is in the moment.

What clues or questions do you use to select an idea to invest time and resources?
It needs to tell a story or evoke emotion.

--Can you give me an example?

Often, it starts with a photograph. I took a photo a long time ago of a woman kayaking down a river. The whole composition is great because it tells the story. The story is about the woman on an adventure, it's not a river. 

Bear, 2022

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

I like trying new things and finding out that I can do them a guilty pleasure, challenging myself. For example, glass blowing, pottery, clay sculpting, learning to play guitar for the first time at 62, creative writing.

When do you discuss things with your inner critic?

When I'm learning, when I get stuck, and when I start disliking what I am working on.

--How does that go?

I tell my critic to shut up. If I listen too long, I'll never finish something. It is also interesting because I am 90% self-taught.

What advice do you have about throwing away work?

If I don’t like something, I hold onto it for a while, because I never know when I might want to go back to it. If I really don't like it and can't recycle it, it is okay to dispose of it properly.

Jakey, 2022

--What does that look like?

I might need to change something or do something a little different. Also, if I’m not feeling joy I will put it aside. I have this place for all my discarded work. At times I go through them, and I wonder why I didn't feel joy about it because I actually like it. I wonder why I got frustrated with it. The good news is that it is still there, and I can always pull it out and move forward with it.

What would you tell other artists when they get frustrated with a project?

I point out what I like about their work and encourage them to keep going.

Rebecca, 2022

Who are your creative influences, and whose work are you admiring now?

One fantastic instructor I had is called Dean Rogers. He teaches at a local Community College. I had gone to the continuing education side to take his classes. He is a graphite and colored pencils artist. After one semester with him, I improved significantly! I can now freehand because I am no longer afraid of it. It was one of those classes with a different project every week. I don’t have one specific artist that I admire, as there are just so many. I love creative people, and even if I do not emotionally connect with their work, I still am inspired by them.

As for specific artists, I really love glass art and admire Rebecca Blome's glass work and the people she works with.

Do you have any favorite venues for taking in art?

If I travel somewhere and there's an art gallery, I will go in. There was this memorable one in a little town outside of Santa Fe. [NM]. Jill Shwaiko is an artist and sculptor. She's at the Indigo Gallery in New Mexico. Wow, I love her work so much that I will return to this place again. 

I also love art galleries. When I visit a new city, I always seek out their art institutes.

How can people follow you and your work?

I create for my pleasure. At the moment my work is not on social media. I have been asked recently to put some of my drawings in local shows but have turned them down. Why? Because I only create for my pleasure and joy. I do give my work away at times to share that joy. 

For example, in 1992, I painted a large watercolor of an extended family member from a photo taken when she was twelve years old. Her name is Joanne, and she is now in her 70’s. In the painting, she smells a rose on a rosebush at her family's farm. It has been hanging over my fireplace since 2000. I have recently contacted Joanne. Her family remembers it, and her daughter is happy to be the custodian of it and pass it down through the future generations. It is on its way to Alabama, and she promised to send me a picture of it hanging in its new location.

Joanne, 1993

What would you like people to know that I haven't asked?

Just create! It is a great meditation.

Untitled, 2018

Thank you for spending some time with me, Maria. This has been such a treat!
Please come back whenever you have something to share with the CHC audience!

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