My artistic career has been a winding road with many unexpected twists and turns. A compulsive ‘maker’ from my formative years, I have dabbled in pastels, watercolours, inks, collage, charcoal, pencil drawing, and any other artistic medium I could get my hands on. In my early twenties an unexpected opportunity found me freelancing as a cartoonist for a couple of years, which morphed into graphic design, then portraiture and caricature commissions, culminating years later into my signature ‘stylised girls’ paintings when I discovered the delight of the colour-rich and fast-drying medium of acrylic. With my stylised characters and animals proving popular, and my unusual painting style provoking curiosity from my followers, demand for workshops grew and between 2017- 2020 I was running painting workshops across south-east Queensland, then around Australia, turning over as much original artwork as I could create. I found myself operating as a full-time artist.
But the development of an art practice is not a stagnant thing; there is always a compulsion to move in new directions, and I am not one to stay in the same place for long. After a successful few years, I found myself struggling to find the inspiration to create more of my signature ‘Chicks with Chickens’ and felt a strong temptation to branch out into more abstracted art forms. However, my efforts to deviate from the norm were not always met with enthusiasm from my loyal followers. And this is the conundrum of social media – sometimes, your followers want more of what you ‘used to do’, and aren’t prepared to follow or support you through your journey into the unknown.
For better or for worse, COVID-19 brought my artistic life to a screeching halt in March of 2020. I found myself suddenly cancelling an entire year’s worth of workshops, anxiety robbing me of any desire to paint, with home-schooling and toilet paper sourcing my top new priorities. It was a difficult time, but in retrospect I think it provided me a much-needed break from the nowhere-going treadmill I was on. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to flick social media the bird, a relationship I abruptly terminated with relish. As a relatively private person, I have always despised the obligation to broadcast a constant stream of rubbish on social media platforms. I know I’m not the only business owner who feels positively overwhelmed by the obligatory daily ritual of attempting to fulfil the unfulfillable demands of hungry social media algorithms. As much as I loved my life as a full-time artist, this is one part of my job that I was very happy to give up.
Without workshops running, and having entered into an artistic drought of sorts, I needed to plot a different (and more financially reliable) course in life, and I knew deep down I wanted to return to my work in the legal world. I had the good fortune of being snapped up by a wonderful firm in Maroochydore and was back doing 9-5 with the loveliest bunch of professionals that I could ever have hoped to work with. It suddenly dawned on me that spending every day for the last 7 years or so hanging out alone in my studio with a deaf dog probably hadn’t been socially advantageous.
Years later, I now have the good fortune of working with another fabulous team in the Best Law Firm on the Sunshine Coast (imho!) and when my head’s not swimming in legal-ese I can be found hanging out with my family and daydreaming about enameling, ceramics, and my newfound love of abstract painting.
I have always been captivated by beautifully executed abstract artwork, and whenever I was in the market to buy art, that was always what I bought. I was transfixed by it. It infuriated me that it seemed to be the very art form I had no hope of mastering myself, and believe me, I did try. However, after my long covid-induced painting sabbatical, and much time spent studying and obsessing over other artists’ work (particularly those with a penchant for colour), I have taken up the brushes again, and am embracing the challenge of abstract painting with a little more life experience under my belt.
I’m still meandering down that ever-winding road… who knows what will be around the next corner?
With determination and support you can juggle a work life, a family life, and artistic passions. All of these things, in adequate proportions, are necessary to make us whole and happy human beings.
Teresa Mundt
P:0427 722 914
@teresaeasel
E: info@teresas-easel.com
W: www.teresas-easel.com
But the development of an art practice is not a stagnant thing; there is always a compulsion to move in new directions, and I am not one to stay in the same place for long. After a successful few years, I found myself struggling to find the inspiration to create more of my signature ‘Chicks with Chickens’ and felt a strong temptation to branch out into more abstracted art forms. However, my efforts to deviate from the norm were not always met with enthusiasm from my loyal followers. And this is the conundrum of social media – sometimes, your followers want more of what you ‘used to do’, and aren’t prepared to follow or support you through your journey into the unknown.
For better or for worse, COVID-19 brought my artistic life to a screeching halt in March of 2020. I found myself suddenly cancelling an entire year’s worth of workshops, anxiety robbing me of any desire to paint, with home-schooling and toilet paper sourcing my top new priorities. It was a difficult time, but in retrospect I think it provided me a much-needed break from the nowhere-going treadmill I was on. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to flick social media the bird, a relationship I abruptly terminated with relish. As a relatively private person, I have always despised the obligation to broadcast a constant stream of rubbish on social media platforms. I know I’m not the only business owner who feels positively overwhelmed by the obligatory daily ritual of attempting to fulfil the unfulfillable demands of hungry social media algorithms. As much as I loved my life as a full-time artist, this is one part of my job that I was very happy to give up.
Without workshops running, and having entered into an artistic drought of sorts, I needed to plot a different (and more financially reliable) course in life, and I knew deep down I wanted to return to my work in the legal world. I had the good fortune of being snapped up by a wonderful firm in Maroochydore and was back doing 9-5 with the loveliest bunch of professionals that I could ever have hoped to work with. It suddenly dawned on me that spending every day for the last 7 years or so hanging out alone in my studio with a deaf dog probably hadn’t been socially advantageous.
Years later, I now have the good fortune of working with another fabulous team in the Best Law Firm on the Sunshine Coast (imho!) and when my head’s not swimming in legal-ese I can be found hanging out with my family and daydreaming about enameling, ceramics, and my newfound love of abstract painting.
I have always been captivated by beautifully executed abstract artwork, and whenever I was in the market to buy art, that was always what I bought. I was transfixed by it. It infuriated me that it seemed to be the very art form I had no hope of mastering myself, and believe me, I did try. However, after my long covid-induced painting sabbatical, and much time spent studying and obsessing over other artists’ work (particularly those with a penchant for colour), I have taken up the brushes again, and am embracing the challenge of abstract painting with a little more life experience under my belt.
I’m still meandering down that ever-winding road… who knows what will be around the next corner?
With determination and support you can juggle a work life, a family life, and artistic passions. All of these things, in adequate proportions, are necessary to make us whole and happy human beings.
Teresa Mundt
P:0427 722 914
@teresaeasel
E: info@teresas-easel.com
W: www.teresas-easel.com