We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mariah Fox a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mariah Fox, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever head any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?
I’ve always felt that creative people have a little voice that drops in at times to speak negativity in our ears. There is a concept that articulates this from Showtime’s Dexter series…author Jeff Lindsay refers to the main character’s negative entity as the “Dark Passenger.” In the case of creativity, it’s a real thing that a lot artists experience, some of us much more than others. When that voice whispers to me, in the form of doubt and uncertainty about my art, or anything else in life—I have a process to deal with it. It’s basically three steps:
1. Recognize the voice of negativity, that’s visiting you and its present.
2. Silence it. In other words, find a way to ignore it, don’t listen to anything it says.
3. Keep working, move on. Put your nose down and make something, even if it might not be your best work, just do it.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My career has covered a lot of ground. From boutique and corporate in house graphic design, to freelance illustration and art direction, I’ve got a lot of professional experience. Around 2004 I wanted a change and got my MFA, which completely re-channelled and enriched my creative and professional tracks. Now I teach visual communications in a higher education media arts program, and maintain my freelance creative consultancy. If I had to narrow my core specialty it would be publication design, because it encompasses all my favorite fields: layout, illustration, writing about art and artists, and editing. I feel fortunate to be able to get up every day and do all the things I love, and share them with my students.
I just wrapped up a fantastic exhibit in New York City called NY City of Kings: A History of New York City Graffiti, along with two partners and a host institution. City of Kings is a public exhibit and symposium chronicling the history of graffiti’s genesis in New York City from its origin in the late 1960s to the present, as seen through the lens of local writers who started the movement. Our installation featured a monumental walk through graphic timeline covering the rich, complex history of NYC graffiti history, including hundreds of famous and obscure images, lore and facts from 1967 to the present. We had a roster of guest artists from NYC graffiti royalty participate in a series of events. To accompany all this, we produced a fantastic book which can be used as an educational tool. It’s been a huge hit and thousands of visitors passed through to enjoy, learn and pick up books.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Hard work and persistence
2. Dreaming and taking risks
3. Challenge yourself
I attribute my success to hard work and persistence. If you take your personal talents and strengths and combine those with #1, you’ll have a winning combination. You do have to look inside yourself and be honest about what you want to do and what you are best at. I’ve also always been a dreamer and risk taker. More often than not, risks have paid off for me and there has been some reward… while its not always financial, it’s been something I can carry forward and use as a tool for upward momentum. I won’t say it was always perfect, and sometimes it’s even been painful. But trying new things, changing jobs and starting new relationships have all been risks that have proved positive, impactful, and induced growth in my journey.
For me, getting my MFA was one of the best things I could have decided to do. It’s not always this way for everyone, and you should research the right place to be for you. My program and mentors were excellent and really helped hone me as an artist, and also well prepared me for earning further professional opportunities. I needed to grow, and was hitting a ceiling while my career and creativity felt flatlined, even though I was fairly successful. Grad school really challenged me. Fortunately, I finished my program without incurring debt through my graduate teaching assistantship, which made all the difference and should be built into one’s plan, in my opinion.
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
If I knew I had a decade of life left, I’m not sure how much I would change. Assuming money was not an issue, creatively, I would work only on projects that really matter to me and that I love to make. Working with clay has always been “my happy place” in the art studio. I would spend as much time with family and friends as possible. I’d spend more time outside and out of a desk. I’d travel to places I haven’t been to, and all the favorite places that I’ve already been. I would try harder not to worry and be more patient. I would give (and get) more hugs. In light of how I’ve just responded—I should start working towards all of this right now!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mariahfox.com/
- Instagram: @mfoxfoto
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariahfoxhausman
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariahfoxhausman/
- Twitter: mariah_fox
- Other: https://www.howlarts.org/event/city-of-kings-a-history-of-new-york-city-graffiti/
Image Credits
Jim McDermott Elisse Geberth Mariah Fox Howl! Arts/Jake Couri Howl! Arts/Doug Bressler