Stephanie McLean is a former jazz vocalist and stage performer, turned visual artist. Her abstract portraits of performers vibrate with color and artistic energy. Like many of us, she also happens to grapple with middle-of-the-night insomnia. Stephanie and I spoke about her art, her biggest influences and the healing power of making art.
Painting and creating has been the best therapy EVER for me! It’s incredible how lost in a task one can become while creating either mixed media pieces, mosaic art or painting! I’d highly recommend art as therapy for anxiety and insomnia! ~ Stéphanie McLean
Méline: What started you on your visual arts journey?
Stéphanie: I’ve always enjoyed painting and creating visual art. Y2K marked two years since my band had broken up and since I’d pretty much stopped singing. My breakup with my ex had led to the disbanding of our jazz group and made me realize that I had lost the passion to sing. I no longer had the passion or confidence to get up on stage and bare my soul to a room full of strangers. In retrospect, I don’t think I was ready to start a singing career when I did and now believe I was doing it to please my boyfriend at the time. I still love the music, though!
So in Y2K I went back to school at night to pursue a certificate in Desktop Publishing. That’s when I was introduced to life drawing (drawing nudes) and really fell in love with visual arts. My interest in graphic design (then called Desktop Publishing) led me to apply for jobs that called for this kind of skillset. I worked a few jobs requiring graphic design skills, then landed a job where I spent 14 years doing this. I started painting on a daily basis in 2020 and took quite a few online courses while on leave from work. In January 2021, I lost that job and began pursuing painting full time.
M: What is it about performers that attracts you?
S: I started performing on stage when I was about 11 years old. I was part of Children’s Theatre of Montreal (where William Shatner studied as a young teen!) and loved it. When I went back to school as a mature student at Concordia University in Montreal, I got to enjoy that wonderful feeling again, then even more post-university with the jazz group I co-led with my boyfriend at the time.
Because of my own experience as a performer, I think I “get” performers, and try to paint the energy I feel emanating from them as they perform.
M: What made you chose paint as your medium?
S: I love colour! While graphic design allows one to play with colour, I enjoy the tangible aspect of paint. I like getting it on my brush, hands, on my apron and on the canvas. I paint with high-viscosity (i.e., thick) paint and love the texture it produces on canvas.
Also, I try to veer away from skin tones, allowing the tonal values on people’s faces to dictate the colours I choose for their portraits.
M: Who are your biggest influences?
S: Matisse (for his Fauvism), Charla Maarschalk, Corey Moortgaat, Voka, Peter Terrin, Benny Bing… The list goes on!
M: Do your musical and vocal training influence the way you paint? If so, how?
S: That is such a good question and one I’ve never really asked myself until now! I think my musical training does influence the way I paint a little, in that I try to respect the instruments, as odd as that sounds! So while I won’t paint every detail of, say, a tenor sax, I’ll make sure to include its main and most important features.
Another way music influences my painting is the fact that I NEED music while I paint. It helps me reach that feeling of flow that artists crave. I get into painting more with music playing, which makes it even more fun!
M: What do you listen to when you paint? Who are your favorite musicians?
S: Good question! I didn’t even look at this question while I was answering the last one! 😅
I mainly listen to jazz vocals — and Joni Mitchell. I love discovering new jazz vocalists. My current favourites are Veronica Swift, Jazzmeia Horn, Sinne Eeg (a Danish jazz vocalist), etc. I still listen to Ella, Sarah, Billie and other older vocalists like Shirley Horn, Andy Bey, Mel Tormé, etc. And Joni is just my all-time favourite musician in the world.
I also listen to whatever music represents what I’m painting. For example, I was listening to Astor Piazzola while painting “Squeeze Me” (the accordion player), and “Euridice” while painting The Countertenor. I was listening to music featuring the upright bass while painting “Mitch” and to John Coltrane while painting a commission I did of a tenor sax player in The Netherlands and to Cannonball Adderly while painting Julian Pressley (alto sax player) from New Jersey.
M: Do you have any formal visual arts training or are you self-taught?
S: To say I’m self-taught would not be a complete truth, only because I took so many online painting courses over the last two years! But no, I don’t have “formal” training (unless you count my Desktop Publishing courses).
M: You, like many of us, go through periods of intense insomnia. What do you attribute your sleeplessness to?
S: My insomnia hasn’t disappeared; I usually wake up around 2 or 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom, but I do sleep much better than I used to. I was going through a lot with the passing of my dad and, almost immediately following that, my concern with my work situation. I think my sleeplessness was due to anxiety and to just being a middle-aged woman with raging hormones (or “horror-mones”, as a girlfriend of mine calls them).
M: How has painting helped alleviate your levels of anxiety and stress?
S: As an artist yourself, I think you know how cathartic creating can be. Painting and creating has been the best therapy EVER for me! It’s incredible how lost in a task one can become while creating either mixed media pieces, mosaic art or painting! I’d highly recommend art as therapy for anxiety and insomnia!
M: During lockdown you painted and collaborated with your 12-year old son. What was that like?
S: Thanks for asking this question, Méline. He was 11 at the time. It was just before lockdown started. He really wanted to me to paint along with him while watching Bob Ross on YouTube. (So this was “kind of” another painting course I took!) Oliver and I created seven or eight “Mother & Son Isolation Paintings” during lockdown, most of them while painting along with Bob. Then Oliver lost interest (and I continued painting).
Thank you, Méline! xx
Check out more of Stephanie’s art and/or commission a painting at:
https://www.stephaniemcleanart.ca/
Facebook: @McLeanPaints
Instagram: @StephanieMclean_ART
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