The Cardinal

The Art of Teaching

SVC is filled with color and the staff knows how to use it.

Mike Scaringe
Staff Writer

Artists!
Yes artists, serious ones, are walking the halls and even teaching.  How is this possible? How could someone be both an artist and professor?  Shouldn’t they be in some bohemian café in a major metropolitan city consuming heavy drugs and smoking alongside their “masterpieces?”  Not really! As active contemporary artists they are here to teach the next generation how to move color, metal and the objects into the future.
Mary Iverson came to SVC two years ago shortly after receiving her masters in painting from the University of Washington.  She teaches Modern Art History, Painting 1, Panting 2 and other basic skill classes.  With an upcoming show at the “Museum of Northwest Art” in La Conner October 10, Mary has a lot going  on in her painting life alongside her teaching. She was happy to sit and answer a few questions about her work, how she balances the role as artist painter, and how the two overlap with one another.


How long have you been painting?
I committed to it I would say in ‘92, so I’ve been doing it a long time.
What were you painting originally?
I was painting buildings, urban paintings.
Have you tried other mediums?
I tried other things, but you can’t get away from what you are.
Are there movements or specific artists that influence you?
Yes, I’m really interested in the Hudson River school, the painters of the sublime.  They painted the American west in a romantic, crazy, beautiful way. I’m referencing their work a lot. I’m combining that with my interest in the Port and my interests in the environment. So it’s all coming together.
How would you describe your work or style as a painter?
My work is abstract landscape painting based on the Port of Seattle, the containers the container cranes and the sculptural elements there.
Looking at your website, I noticed things really changed in your style when you painted the containers. What was there that made a difference?
Art is a process of searching, and I found my subject matter there, I just found it, it’s like falling in love or infatuation, you’re…you’re just stuck.  You’re there, like it or not.  Then I got to know it and went deeper.  Why do I love it?  What is it about me? And just flipping it around and trying all different things, so that’s its just a long path really that we never arrive at the end. 
With your recent show at the Museum of Northwest art, what are you going to be showing?
Those paintings are just what I’ve been doing really recently. Combining environmental concerns, my focus on the Port and industrial activities and with the idea of the frontier coming from the Hudson River School’s sublime painters.
How did you come to teach? Did you go to school with intentions of teaching?
Yes... Most people in master [of painting program] are looking at teaching as a really wonderful career to have. So you do have your professional life to stay in academia but you also have time to focus on the studio in the summer and holidays.  It’s a very good career path for painters; there aren’t very many painters who get to live solely off their paintings. [That’s] a very rare thing. 
Are you getting inspiration from your classes?
Definitely! Teaching’s very creative. Its funny sometimes, I will be teaching a basic skill or basic assignment or concept, and I have a eureka moment in my own work.  It’s like a philosophy: ‘I think therefore I am,’ and all of a sudden you have this really simple epiphany. Every time I face the basics, every time I face the building blocks I think about painting in a new way, so that’s really fun!
So it really gives you a new perspective?
Yeah! It’s really inspiring. To be enthusiastic and bring art into people’s lives that aren’t going to be artists, they’re going to be biologists.  That gets me riled up again and enthusiastic in my own work.  To see that happen in someone who wouldn’t have done art otherwise is very exciting.
So you do think learning art is as a positive thing for someone who doesn’t follow an art career. Someone who studies biology?
Absolutely! I think everyone should. It helps with our connection to the world.  It helps connect with our soul and the world, the inner and outer.  It connects those two in a way nothing else can.  I mean by looking out and looking in at the same time. While we do art, we’re solving problems and solving ourselves at the same time.
Do you get a lot of people who are in other programs coming into your classroom?
Yeah, especially in painting. I get people that have never done any art at all and are really worried, worried they are going to fail painting class.  I say it doesn’t matter where you start as long as you move forward. No matter where you start you’re going to learn something about yourself, and art. You’ll be able to walk into a museum and have an appreciation.
How often are you in your studio? 
Well this year I’m hoping it’s more. Last year it was my first year here and it was hard to get up to speed with everything, so I rarely get into the studio except for holidays. But this year I hope to get 5 to 10 hours a week. Start at 5 maybe...But in the summer when I’m not teaching I’m in there everyday. You know, I get up, get my coffee, and go to the studio.  Try and take weekends off when I can, I work just like any other week.
How long does it take you to finish a piece? Is there a time frame you try to work in?
Gosh, it’s so variable. Really, really depends. There are paintings I’ve done in a day and there’s a painting that’s taken me four years and I’m still working on. Like some people are done with school right away and some are still going. Lifetimes later.

Do you have a problem separating with your work?  Do you always want it to sell?
Yes, always. Because I know there’s always the next one.  But I always get professional photographs of it so that I always have the image that’s never gone. But even though it’s the perfect thing that I’m looking for right now, there is going to be a next one. So I always prefer it being out in the world looked at and enjoyed then in my shelve sitting there.  I think that’s why we do art; to communicate and share, not to squirrel it away. Even though its hard to grip it away, give it away. Once it’s out of my studio in a show I would rather have it stay out and go further then come back.
What has been the greatest accomplishment for you now as a painter?
This show is a big deal for me! Very, very exciting for me. It’s my first museum show.
I would say right now I’m doing something that for years I wanted to make artistically.  I have been tossing this idea around in my mind for 5 years and haven’t been able to put it together right.  I have been messing around with it in ways that didn’t satisfy me. So having that at the same time as the museum show is really great timing.
So what happens after this then?  Are you already thinking about what’s next?
I’ll just keep going with it. It’s like surfing—you finally get on that wave and you’re like ‘Oh Gosh! I’ve wanted to get on this wave forever!’ and you ride it out, and it’s eventually going to crash on the floor. You can’t control it, so just ride it out—the subject matter and the imagery—and then eventually start over.  But I do have shows planned. I have one in San Francisco in January and at the gallery that represents me in Seattle scheduled out.
When you’re teaching do you talk about riding the wave of an idea? I mean really what do you want to show your students?
Well, a lot of it is basic skill. That’s hard enough right there, just getting to be able to use the materials. But once people are in Painting 2 and Modern Art History we start talking about this stuff.  More of a Zen creation thing happening and what it does to you.   But a lot of it is skill building.  
What would you say is the biggest problem for students in the beginning art classes?
Confidence and fear. Fear of imperfection, fear of mistake.  These people really have to learn to redefine mistakes, and find that they’re really successes, you don’t learn anything if you don’t make mistakes. That’s what erasers are for.  That’s the biggest fear and expectation.  You know, ‘if I’m not perfect I’m not anything,’ just breaking through that. Perfection’s not required.  Progress is required and effort and trying to be perfect can help.
We are all built to make art. Anyone can do it.  We’re supposed to.
We’re supposed to?
Any innovation in society started with us playing in the mud, with idle time and materials and then we built on that.  Like this mug somebody was messing around in the mud and left it in the fire. Now we have modern ceramics.  So the impulse to create is basic. That’s why we’re not dogs. 
I don’t know. My dog’s pretty creative?
Yeah, I know, I love dogs. I have three but they just run around and love you. They don’t create anything.