“It took many years, decades, for me to muster up the courage to call myself an artist, let alone attempt to make a living out of it, so my business has emerged and developed very slowly indeed.” So says Danish-born Maria Speyer, former architect, and now artist, living and working from her home in Glebe, Sydney.
maria speyer – pink rose garden in gumboots
Once upon a time, Maria said that she really wanted to be an opera singer. “No, joking aside, I come from a family of musicians and I think there’s something very deep inside me that values music above any other art form. I think there’s nothing more painfully, succinctly human than Bach’s Goldberg Variations or Purcell’s Dido’s Lament.”
But drawing seems to have chosen her. For many years, drawing and printmaking have been at the core of her work; surface design is a relatively new venture for her. In the elements of her patterns this love of drawing is obvious, but even in her colour choices her love of drawing shines through – the cool grey hues of charcoal and graphite dominate her palette, with touches of deep orange and mustard to punctuate.
“Everything I do is drawing based, regardless of technique. I adore traditional printmaking techniques, the volatile lithographic process, the cumbersome engraving method and the somewhat hostile acid in etching – they are all elementary. However, I feel most at home with charcoal and paper. Having said that, drawing with a mouse and computer-based art is a guilty pleasure of mine, and I find myself increasingly combining techniques, although at the end of the day, for me, it all comes down to line. Because I’m one of those people who never stopped drawing, thinking through the line is something that comes from my formative years and is not easily changed!”
maria speyer – retro blizzard
Her most enduring influences on her work came from close to home. “My two grandmothers were polar opposites, but both seem to be always travelling with me.”
“My paternal grandmother was a vicar’s wife with an absent-minded husband, five children (and later an enormous amount of grandchildren) and a congregation to mother. How she found the time to sit down with us and teach us knitting and crochet, I shall never comprehend. Neatness, care and affection for dexterous skill come from her.
“My maternal grandmother, by contrast, was a formidable and somewhat anarchistic woman of whom I was terrified for most of my childhood. In reality, she was a deeply caring and generous person who would never simply accept the status quo. She firmly believed that she – and everyone else for that matter – was put on this earth to speak their mind. She was an architect of the Danish functionalist tradition; she loved art, collected prints and artists’ books and cherished the graphic tradition of modernist Northern Europe. My very basic aesthetics come from her, as well as my eternal admiration of and affection for Kathe Kollwitz.”
maria speyer – amber beach
Maria’s main business is her artistic practice. She sells her work through a gallery in Copenhagen (www.galeriestokkebro.dk) and works towards having an exhibition there every couple of years. “I was born in Denmark, so, in a sense, when I prepare for an exhibition I’m also preparing to visit home – there’s a nice rhythm to this, if that makes sense.”
maria speyer – yellow birch
Like many artists, Maria’s biggest fear is “the white paper combined with unreasonable ambition”. When she is feeling overwhelmed like this, she says for her sometimes the best solution is to “Walk away! Do the dishes. Be practical.”
“Alternatively, stay with it. Go right up close to the paper, smell it and hug it (actually neither seems to work reliably, but as long as you realise that the block is in YOU and not the paper or the rest of the world, then I think you’re well on your way).”
maria speyer – delta blues
Her best piece of advice?
“It’s corny perhaps, but it was something I needed to hear:
Stop preparing for life. Your life is already here.
You can find more of Maria’s patterns in her Spoonflower shop, and I urge you to also check out her fabulous charcoal drawings and lithographs on her own website, www.mariaspeyer.com.