A Conversation with Margaret Nieradka

                                                                                                  Amina Farah
 

"you bet " she says. "I have to make sure I don't fail. These paintings... they are like patients, you know. Technically this is stressful but stress of the best kind. Whether people come to the show now that is a worrying stress."

 We are now out on her balcony where she crouches over a painting in an old paint covered housecoat. "I am too shy to wear my painting uniform in public. It is too 'spot light' but housecoats are a symbol of being established and with paint on it, well that is even better I don't want this housecoat to say that I am established of my house -- have you seem my room?! but of painting yes, lets hope.

"What are you working on?" I ask her.

"Just fixing things up…this one? This one is an old one…I did it when I was working at the deli and I was trying to escape."

The piece she points at is titled Funeral Salute to Drunken Stomach, and with its bright colours and soft lines it has a sense of romance and whimsical nature about it.

"I see what you mean about escape," I tell her. "It's almost dreamlike."

"It is not for everyone's eyes and this is my worry in art. Pictures are like songs but they need to find the right ears to be appreciated or else it's just chicken scribble. "

"This 'Salute' piece was when  I was working in a deli it was a rewind day everyday, and you work like a machine one arm develops a bigger muscle than the other by slicing so much. The deli was fun too but I every time I saw art outside somewhere I felt a pain and I knew that the deli being an interesting experience was sad too. The 'Salute' came in parts and was influenced by music. When I was making it, I really did feel that anyone would understand it, people will appreciate cheese more than this; cheese is more universal. Generally speaking I think that it is good to draw things that people cannot see in ordinary life,  like a dream machine.

When you do art do you still feel the audience won't understand it?

"yes and no, but people have told me good things about my work in school critiques and they seem to be speaking sincerely.  Plus they don't have to say anything, but they do, because the art I made caused a response in them so I can't ignore that anymore I have to listen to people when they talk.  I do it for myself more too it's the strangest way, making art is like being connected to God. 

What do you mean connected to God?

"make art or do what you are good at and you will see"

How do you start paintings?

"I don't lead it's better work if I follow the randomness. School helped a lot and as did seeing the art show at the Vancouver Art Gallery of Inuit children's drawings. These works were not based on technical skill but ideas, scenarios, basically things I have never seen before. I think when you see things that you have never seen before or hear a word or sentence that you have never heard of that your mind grows and this "mental gymnastics" is good for your health.

Are technical skills such as realism important to you?

oh yes  they are, but I am not that type of "musician". You learn everything from drawing realistically but the skills you learn later on you can choose if you want to use all of them. I remember this story from my religious studies class. The teacher told us that religion is like a boat you use to cross the river, you hang on to this boat while your on your journey  but once you cross the water and are on land it is unnecessary  to carry the boat around. I think that this is the difference between spirituality and fundamentalism as well as forcing art to happen and making art more intuitively. Realism skills are the boat. You are in the boat in the water to learn the rules then when you have the rules you break them (so leave the boat when you reach land). Oh I must mention that I am still in the water but there are small islands that I reach were I abandon my boat.

In short once you learn the rules adapt them, break them.

Art was not your first choice of study what made you decide to stop in this field?

I hope this is symbolic somehow but my first significant response-causing art was when I was small I scribbled in my brothers prized book "the world atlas". Hopefully this can be conceptual art- my marks on the world, my art not just in one city, but I am also not a world conqueror type. Both, my siblings drew, my mom, some aunts and cousins too, some still do and I am eager to connect with them. Knowing of some people who liked to do art in the family did help me go into art although art was not what my family wanted me to do. I too had too many practical thoughts not to go into this area at first, plus lack of confidence.

How is your confidence now?

it was built in critiques by teachers but I was scared to take it seriously. Now there is nothing wrong with being confident and saying okay that I am an artist.  I do not think I will be sent in front of a judge and asked for evidence on why I claim to be an artist, if you are a musician it does not mean you must know how to play every kind of music. Insecurity is truly the root of all evil. The Laluques were the final straw though, I met Natalia on a fateful day and those days are rare. I walked in to the best room! Paintings that you see in your mind's eye. I don't need to see her work they are etched in my mind. I took classes and was told about impression. That it is the impression that an artist works to achieve in a painting, not so much technical skill and that it is when more confidence grew in me. Impression or feelings are what people want, to live in the moment, to feel well is everything. My confidence is much better. A picture that pleases absolutely everyone means that the picture has no character or at least suspicious.

"So, what's this exhibit about then?" I ask.

The title of the exhibit What the Heck kind of fits that way."

Final question which may be too soon to ask but what will you do after the show?

The same stuff, work, if all goes well be more brave draw friends, music, art, animal behavior and learn about oil paint if the offer still stands. A big thing that I plan to do is get more into technology so I stop missing out on conversations. Oh and finish my new years resolutions then but its on a cassette tape I am on number 30.

Although Nieradka is new to the art world and still in her third year at the Ontario College of Art, her road into the art world has not been a direct one but it is the many roads that she has taken that enrich her work with a sense of drama and whimsical nature. In this work one can see her attempts to escape monotony and to infuse the everyday with a sense of the dream word.

 The show offers up almost a decade worth of work and runs till July 10^th at Laluque Atelier Gallery.