Interview with Oil Landscape Artist, Mariela Pooley
Landscape art is a powerful analogy for life, drawing parallels between the creative process and the journey of growth., discovering new light and shadows. Before the final product is “effortlessly” shown, the story of the process and the route to get there is often unseen, much like life. We see the destination, but rarely the journey to get there.
Mariela Pooley, acrylic and oil artist based out of Tucson, Arizona, walks us through the raw and tangible process from getting scuffed up hands from stretching canvases to layering colors, playing with shadows, and pushing through obstacles to create depth out of nothing.
In this interview, experience the freedom that comes from expression and feel the rugged inspiration that comes with growing up in the desert. Mariela’s art explores the unique characteristics of the southwest.
“The southwest is my first home, my first playground as a kid, and my first place of inspiration as an artist. The southwest, or the desert specifically, is my secret garden full of gems not many are lucky to experience.”
Enter into a journey of new exploration and wild frontiers while Mariela shares her story about life and art. Explore the possibilities of connections in stretching canvases and growing a family, starting once to start over again, creating landscapes that speak to the tough and cherished places we call home that make us who we are.
How did you get into painting? Did it always come naturally to you or did you have an interest in it and learn?
Art, and thinking creatively, was always something I grew up with. I have a mom who is a gifted teacher, so growing up, I was always encouraged to think outside the box, think creatively, and I would always draw and color. She would encourage us to try new things and see what's out there.
That’s the foundation I had as a child. It wasn’t until high school that I learned painting from Elmer Yazzie.
I was really guided by Elmer and his wisdom, and I learned all that I could in those four years. He showed us the joy to be found in it and the worship that you can do with art.
It was a painting class all four years, so it really was nitty gritty. We would build and stretch our own canvases, and he was heavy on us using our hands. My hands would hurt by the end of the day from stretching these really thick canvases on pieces of wood to make our own. I remember making a circular canvas, which was a challenge because I had to learn how to fold the canvases, my knuckles would be scratched up. We would use staplers and build our own big canvases. He really encouraged us to go through the whole process.
It felt like a whole body experience that was really unique to anything else I had ever learned or experienced. He really was the gateway to painting for me. He was someone who taught techniques, but also the joy and the wonder of seeking art out and focusing on how it feels.
He gave it a real spiritual sense. It wasn't just about doing the right technique of shadows and highlights. It was about reminding us to make art come to life through us.
When did you decide to pursue art full-time?
My journey, my beginning, has happened multiple times. In 2019, I opened my Etsy shop. I started painting on some small canvases and would make my friend, who's good at photography, take pictures of my art. I had a small group of paintings, maybe ten or 12 at that time, and then I got pregnant in January of 2019.
A few months after finding out, I was so, so sick. The first half of my pregnancy I was physically sick and mentally drained. It wiped me out unexpectedly. I didn't envision that, so I stopped everything, and was like, “I will come back to you later.” So, my art just stopped there for a while.
Then I had Eden, and it probably wasn't until, maybe eight months to a year later, I thought, “Okay, I think I could start painting again. Let's try again. “
I tried to give it another go in 2020. We decided to move to Arizona in October of that year, and then I got pregnant again, with Alistair. It was another wiped out pregnancy and once Alistair turned around a year to a year and a half, my husband and I started to implement a routine for my art. The first year of having a baby is just so much change and growing and stretching. So, we waited until we settled in a little bit to start working on a routine to start drawing, sketching, and slowly grow back into painting. My husband would take the kids and I started to draw and sketch again during that time. Then, I began to take advantage of getting paintings done and I just got inspired from there.
It probably wasn't until two or three months ago that I decided to make a collection. Previously, I just did one painting at a time with less focus on a series. But I decided a few months ago that I’d do a collection and take all the steps that a serious professional artist does. I created a website, started an email subscription, and worked to grow a little bit more of an online presence on social media.
I’m just learning and gathering as much information as I can while putting together a collection.
The journey has been kind of a start and a stop. It feels like now I'm able to sustain another start and create that rhythm. I feel really lucky to be able to do that.
So, it's been recent, but it also feels right.
It always takes small steps or little seeds throughout a journey. It’s never that easy or straightforward.
It really is a whole map. From your goal to where you are now; it’s never linear.
You mentioned the collection. I would love to hear more about that. It’s called Capturing Arizona?
I knew I needed to start with my state, my land, the place I was born and raised.
The desert is just a part of me. It’s who I am. Being a kid running through the desert, and getting needles stuck in my shoes, or getting dirt in my hands – it's always just been there, and I really wanted to pay a true homage to the state. I feel like it's overlooked, and can be glossed over as, it's really hot, or it's just the desert, but I wanted to give it a good glance over at all of the gems, the beautiful spots that Arizona has to offer, and the unexpectedness of it.
There are things people see or talk about, like the sunsets, the saguaros, and the grandness of those that I wanted to capture. But, I also wanted to bring in some of the elements that don't get talked about as much, like the pine and aspen trees that grow here, and the creeks, rivers, and mountains.
I chose to do a small collection because I want it to be quality over quantity. I wanted to capture something that spoke to the state as a whole.
I wanted to encapsulate everything and show her off a little, make her the center stage. She's always been my home, no matter where I've lived. I lived in Colorado for 10 years and anytime anyone asked, “Where are you from?” My response was, “Oh, I'm from Arizona,” or, “I'm from Tucson.” I knew I wanted to start there as a beginning. I know I’ll come back to her, but I really wanted to take a little overview of all of the things she has to offer that make her unique from, honestly, any other place I've ever been to.
I just wanted to make her feel special.
I can relate. I moved away from Tucson several years ago now and I love telling people about Arizona. There’s a sense of pride that goes along with it.
Yeah. I feel like there's a you've lived through the desert, you get a badge of honor thing to it. It’s almost like, not an inside joke, but just a I know what it's really like. And, I feel really honored that I got to grow up in it.
What type of art do you specialize in? Why did you choose it?
We focused mostly on acrylic in high school art class. You can use an abundance without feeling bad, it dries quickly, and you can work fast.
I work in acrylic, but I just started to dabble in oil.
That's what this collection is in. It's oil on panels, and it's the first time I've ever worked with oil.
I love both. There's such a unique quality and a real freedom in both, which I didn't anticipate switching from acrylic to oil. I expected oil to be super intimidating, with all these parts like a puzzle. I finally gave myself permission to buy the supplies and do a little bit of research, but not so much that I'd feel stuck from it, and I found a style in oil that I love to work with. It allows for a kind of texture and feel that you want to go up and touch it.
“I wanted to make her the center stage. She’s always been my home, no matter where I’ve lived.”
Like, you want to get close, see what that feels like on your fingers, and pick up on the little details and specks of color.
I found that really inspiring.
It definitely challenged me because it is so different. It takes three times as long to dry. So you have time, but you also don't want to overwork the medium. It’s a balance that I've never had to work out until recently. Now, I have these two great opportunities to work in.
Acrylic is awesome because it does dry so fast that your decisions for putting color down have to be sure in the moment, but you can go back and change your mind, which I love doing. You can change things easily, which is nice for beginning or practicing. It’s really freeing to know that I can change my mind and do things differently.
Looking at my tubes of acrylic right now, you just spend a little bit more time mixing color and finding exactly how you want a color to be with acrylic. You have the chance to change it, but you don't really want to most of the time.
I love both. And once in a while I get pushed into doing watercolor with some friends. That's a whole different thing – there's no freedom. Watercolor artists, they will tell you they love it, and I'm sure they do, but it's wildly different. And that's been really cool to see how different and how unique each technique and each medium pulls from an artist.
My appreciation for each medium has skyrocketed whenever I see a beautiful watercolor or an oil painting. I can envision the artist working through some of those challenges and can be really inspired by the time, the effort, and the energy it takes. I think each medium allows for a unique version of the artist to come out, which is really cool.
The way you were describing acrylic, how you can change your mind, reminds me of what you learned in art class; being able to feel through it and not worry about techniques first.
Exactly. Being with the paint without the stress of being an artist or being good. It allows for… “it's all gonna be okay.”
What’s your creative process? Do you sit down knowing what you’re going to paint, or do you see what happens?
As a novice artist working to get better, most of my time is just sitting down and painting. At one point it was just trying to get paint down. It was more about getting my hands dirty, working paint, and just seeing something on a canvas. That was really the goal in the beginning of coming back to art and painting.
It’s for sure transitioned now. When I decided to do a collection, I was forced to learn that I needed to plan a little bit more.
I usually just want to go with my gut or see how things turn out. But with this collection, I really wanted to be thoughtful and capture each moment and each scene a little more intentionally than I have in the past. My process now is, looking for inspiration, looking through my photos, and seeing what catches my eye or brings me to a moment. Like, I've been there or I've seen that, so I want someone else to be there or see it, too. There’s a lot more thoughtfulness from the start. I begin with a sketch in my sketchbook. Sometimes it takes a few sketches to get the proportions right. Scale sometimes is different from the reference versus the canvas.
I have to do a little math or resizing and scaling, and I've learned that it really can make or break a piece of work. I've learned that pre-planning is really important and is the guide to a successful painting. Then I prep my panels or my canvas usually with a wash of color. A lot of artists, including myself, don't like working straight onto a white board because it's overwhelming and intimidating, and you don't know where to start.
So, I usually slap on some color then go in with a light sketch from my sketchbook. I start to work in some of the shadows and try to give myself a map to what I'm going to be working on. Then I'll go in with my paint and focus on values and composition, getting some of the big pieces and shapes in like the sky, trees, mountains. I place those down first and work from there with which details I want to bring out, what things I want to push back.
At the very end, it's the highlights and the final touches. It's the little spots of bright yellow from the cloud that picked up from the sunset, or deepening the shadow. And, that’s it. My process has evolved to be much more planned out. In the beginning, I would have thought that it takes away some of the joy in it, but it allows me to really love the painting part and feel like I'm succeeding and it's coming out the way I intended.
So, it allows a different type of freedom that I feel like I hadn't experienced before. It's almost like a metaphor for life. When you understand some of the guidelines, it’s much more joyous to work; you have to have a little bit of a plan and know what's coming.
Art is a world that gets deeper and deeper.
Would you do each of these stages in the few hours you have or does that span across multiple days? How long does it take?
I used to be impatient; I would try to cram it all in, but I've learned to give myself a little bit more time. It might look like one session, one day, the first couple of days of the week, planning out a few paintings, getting some sketches done, and then the next day or throughout the next couple weeks would be the start of the painting process and starting to get color down.
How can people find your art?
People can go to my website, marielapooley.com. Or go to Instagram, @marielapooley.
People can also sign up for my newsletter and emails. I don't send out a ton, but I do give a little glimpse of what's coming. I’m going to be working on another collection for the holidays.
Keeping up to date on my Instagram and my emails is a really easy way to find me and know what's coming up.
I'm excited to see how things grow from here.
