{"id":24981,"date":"2016-03-23T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/in-the-works-an-interview-with-mk-macnaughton\/"},"modified":"2016-03-23T08:00:39","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T15:00:39","slug":"in-the-works-an-interview-with-mk-macnaughton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/in-the-works-an-interview-with-mk-macnaughton\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Works: An interview with MK MacNaughton"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this new series, we ask questions of working artists around Southeast Alaska. To suggest an artist, email maryc.martin@capweek.com.<\/em><\/p>\n


<\/em><\/p>\n

CCW: <\/strong>Do you have any particular creative routines or habits \u2014 favorite spaces to work, times of day, materials you use, music you listen to, etc.?<\/p>\n

MacNaughton: <\/strong>I love my magical little studio, hidden in the back of the parking lot on the corner of Front and Main. In 2012 I opened my business Sketch, so I\u2019ve been a full-time teaching and exhibiting artist for four years now. I work primarily in charcoal and oil paint, but I also like creating installation pieces and my studio is home to my junk collections: eyeglasses, zippers, inner tubes, onion skins, broken piano parts and other essential things I just might need someday. I do my \u2018clean work\u2019 in the morning, like charcoal drawing on paper, or painting on t-shirts, and I switch to oil painting in the afternoon. Once I start oil painting I don\u2019t touch things that might get ruined by a spot of oil. Because I work in a mix of mediums (and because I collect so much eclectic junk), I\u2019m very organized, or else my studio would be a nightmare. But when I find myself wandering around and over-organizing, I\u2019ve figured out that I\u2019m unconsciously procrastinating\u2026 maybe I\u2019m nervous about starting a new project, or I\u2019m not sure where to go with a piece. Music helps anchor me. I listen to a mix of indie rock, jazz, classical, hip hop, electronic. A perfect playlist might be Tom Waits, Vivaldi, Belly, Typical Cats, Nirvana, Odesza, John Coltrane, Ibeyi, Thievery Corporation. I find I work in time to the music, so I like a mix up of fast and slow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CCW: <\/strong> How much drawing\/painting\/whatever art form applies do you usually get done in a one-day period?<\/p>\n

MacNaughton: <\/strong>I spend at least 20-40 hours a week making art; the rest of my time is spent teaching classes in my studio or in the community. I figure if I create for a minimum of 20 hours a week, that\u2019s 1000 hours a year, and after 10 years I\u2019ll have the 10,000 hours of practice. It\u2019s my own master\u2019s degree program.<\/p>\n

CCW: <\/strong> How do you balance your creative life with your day job?<\/p>\n

MacNaughton: <\/strong>For years I tried to balance work, family and making art, and I didn\u2019t succeed in making much art of my own. After 25 years of social service, non-profit work in domestic violence prevention, disability advocacy and arts administration, I realized that I didn\u2019t have much retirement saved. A few years ago, when I was helping to start the Canvas, an older woman came into the gallery and looked around sadly, saying she had always planned to take up pottery when she retired, but her hands were too arthritic now. That had an impact on me, and I decided to wrap what I hoped to do in retirement (making art) into my current working life; so my day job IS my creative life now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CCW: <\/strong> What do you find particularly inspiring?<\/p>\n

MacNaughton: <\/strong>Being a mom gave me the excuse to do lots of art with my kids when they were little. I learned a tremendous amount from preschool teachers Nancy Lehnhart and Rhonda Gardinier about being a teacher and a creative person at the Juneau Co-op Preschool. From my role as preschool parent, I sort of stumbled into teaching art at Harborview for a couple of years, where I had 350 enthusiastic little students every week inspiring me with their wild creativity. I was also lucky to work with adults who experience disabilities at the Canvas, as well as with a wide variety of artists whom I hired to teach there. One friend in particular had an impact on me: Nicole Bauberger from Whitehorse loaded up a truck with art materials and just headed out into the world to be an artist, and her innovative spirit still inspires me. I\u2019ve modeled my work ethic after her bold example.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CCW: <\/strong>What are you working on now, and when do you hope to finish it?<\/p>\n

MacNaughton: <\/strong>I just finished a series of oil paintings inspired by Hawaiian landscapes, which was a way to take an economical vacation in my studio this winter. I\u2019m working on a series of tiny paintings of Juneau landscapes right now, that I\u2019m hoping tourists and locals alike will find make great gifts and souvenirs. I\u2019m also painting t-shirts, which is a fun and relaxing project. They crack me up actually: I\u2019ve been painting birds, ants carrying donuts and I\u2019m thinking of starting a squirrel series. I like to balance whimsical projects with more serious projects, and I\u2019m planning to begin a new body of work exploring aging, with an exhibit goal of October. In the meantime, I\u2019m working with a team of kids to create a 15\u2019x36\u2019 backdrop for Juneau Dance Theatre\u2019s production of the Nutcracker; I\u2019m helping Thunder Mountain High School make a giant dragon for their upcoming production of Shrek; and I\u2019m collaborating with two poets to make paintings inspired by their poems for Broadsides, a fundraiser for KTOO.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CCW: <\/strong> What advice have you heard (either directly, from someone you know, or indirectly, from reading or otherwise learning about another artist) that\u00b9s been beneficial to you? Separately, do you have any advice for other artists?<\/p>\n

MacNaughton: <\/strong>Every child loves art, until they learn from adults not to. I think I was afraid to call myself an artist for a long time, because it seemed pretentious of me to think I was good enough to label myself as one. After encouraging children to think outside the box and explore different mediums, I finally started taking my own advice to heart, and of course I\u2019m an artist, because I love making art. Adults who say they aren\u2019t artistic are stifling all of the youth around them, sending the message that we \u2018are\u2019 or we \u2018aren\u2019t\u2019, so don\u2019t say you aren\u2019t artistic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this new series, we ask questions of working artists around Southeast Alaska. To suggest an artist, email maryc.martin@capweek.com. CCW: Do you have any particular creative routines or habits \u2014 favorite spaces to work, times of day, materials you use, music you listen to, etc.? MacNaughton: I love my magical little studio, hidden in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24981"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}