What is your background as an artist?   Why do you do art?

MM:  I’m mostly self-taught, have been creating art my entire life, always been doing it.  I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't want to be an artist.  Art has always been my priority my whole life.  I took lots of art classes as a child, and was always drawing, messing with stuff, gluing things together.

Sometimes it's really frustrating, because it takes a lot of work, but being an artist allows me to express what I see inside of myself and what I see in the world.  It allows me to combine my passions for politics and cultural theory and create something that is life changing for other people.

Do you think of yourself as 'an artist'?  If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

MM:  Yes.  100%.  Before being queer or 26 or a student.   It’s the first thing I tell people about myself.  I love teaching, and have been spending some time facilitating workshops with teens and queer youth.  I’d be doing something with that.

What’s your creative process like?

MM:  The thing about the process of creating a piece of art is that the process itself tends to transform all the things that go into it.  I’ll start with a vague concept or want to respond to an experience or to another piece of art that I’ve experienced.  But through the process of creating, the meaning can end up becoming quite changed.  I don't spend a lot of time planning, and allow a lot of instinct to emerge within a framework.  I guess when I start out I’ll know beforehand how big or how long or the kind of look I’m imagining, and then it expands from there.  The process ends up revealing things that are surprising, often even to myself.

As an artist, you go through this whole creation process, and then move on.  What's it like to move away from a work and leave it?

MM:     Uncomfortable.  A lot of my work is really personal, and it can be really painful to look back at things created five, six years ago, at the place I was in.  I also look back and think now I could do it differently, different techniques, different ways to express that idea. Sometimes there's a lot of pride in it, in having done a work.  (laughs) I can be really fussy about selling it and letting it go to a stranger.

Color? Form? Subject? Message?  For you, what is the essence of art?

MM:  Form and content of the work are essential to the success of any piece.  So work that is purely aesthetic denies the reality that no art is created in a vacuum.  For a piece to work, you need some connection within the piece of art.  The content needs to be accessible through the form of the piece itself.  Really, the best pieces of art are the pieces where the content and form work so well together that one isn't swallowing up the other.  That means you have to take the concept, the idea and subject it to colors, materials, media decisions.  All art, but video in particular, is kind of strange because the setting for viewing changes the work itself.  A work of art is changed by the space it's viewed in and by the people who are watching.  Sometimes people really don't get it.  Sometimes references that make sense within certain groups just don't make sense in others.

So if you’ve been an artist all your life, why go to school?  Is it making a difference in your work?

MM:  Art school gives you a swift kick in the ass.  That’s good.  Rigor is necessary as an artist.  You wouldn't pay for something like school unless you were 100% really wanting to be an artist.  But it helps a lot to streamline the process of art and creating.  It used to take much longer for me to make something come out.  Now it's just constant creative

process, constant feedback, much faster and less fumbling around in bringing something to the world. I’m actually a strong believer in art education and the energy that comes with being in school, being in this kind of environment.  And access to equipment has also been a huge benefit.  Especially with the video work I’ve been doing.

Art school is kind of like the factory of art making.  And it also determines to some degree that the people are that are going to be seeing what I’m working on, it affects the group that I'm making art for right now.  When I make art that goes out into the world I know I’ll have to remember that.

You work in a lot of different media, what do you feel most comfortable with?  What do you feel most uncomfortable with?

MM:  I feel comfortable working now with a lot of different things.  That has come out of being in school.  Before school, I focused most in painting, drawing, and mixed media.  I was afraid of computers, of video work.  Now I’m really comfortable with video.  I’m most uncomfortable with sculpture, but I love doing it.  I still find it hard to imagine things in a three-dimensional way.  It’s also hard to use my own body as a sculpture model, and it changes my art, because that’s something I often do.  Sculpture also is not just about the piece itself but the room it's displayed in, and for me it’s still difficult to wrap my head around it not in a painterly way.  When I go to make a sculpture, I have different questions in my mind than when I make a painting.

Does it take courage to be an artist?  Is it political/politicized to be an artist?

MM:  I think it does take a lot of courage.  It’s a huge commitment to make, throwing money away out the window.   Other people go to school to become a doctor or a lawyer, that’s like a guarantee to be making money after sinking thousands into the education.  Maybe this will pay off, maybe it won’t.  It takes courage to do that.

It also takes courage to put yourself out there and make art.  Not even specifically to show it to people, but just to go ahead and make it takes courage.  It takes a lot to be able to get past the idea that it has to be perfect; it just has to be what it is.  In the imperfection of things, we find a lot of beauty.   You just have to find what works for you and not care.

What direction do you see yourself going?  Thinking about art as a career, how do you feel about marketing yourself?

MM:  I still have two more years in school ahead of me.  Those years are going to answer that question.  And then I can see myself continuing on to do my MFA and combining it with a masters in art theory.   That way I get the background to teach and have that. I think an academic environment is wonderful.  I want to continue working with kids and teens.  Personally, I want to keep pushing my own boundaries, politically, technically, expanding my mastery of different media.  I also want to continue to expand theoretical framework that will keep my creative process expanding.

Marketing… that is a tricky process.  Art as a career can be successful in a small sort of way, there are quite a few successful local professional artists here in Victoria.  Getting into bigger galleries is a different game.  I have no problem selling myself and selling my art, but in some ways giving it away feels better.  For now, moneymaking is still smaller pieces, and screenings of my video works.  But art is really undervalued in our society.  People don't realize and respect the amount of time and energy and talent that go into a piece.  Artists end up underselling, and that creates a devalued market where works end up not being worth what they're worth.

If you could produce one piece of art and display it anywhere, what would it be and where?

MM: Hmm.  I’d like to make something huge, and have the funds to do that.  I’d like it to be some sort of collaborative work.  I’d like it to be public space, but where is so hard to say.  And it would have to be tied to the space that it was in.  I have seen lots of great places to put art, but those would influence what it was.  It would be fun to make it kind of naughty, like projecting pornography on the street corner.  Maybe some conservative beautiful neighborhood, project sex scenes, all genders.  Create the experience in that.

One of the artist's short films, titled "Runaway", may be viewed here.  A media player is required to view this film.

Images  and film © Frances Mahon