Nice to Meet You
Hello and welcome!
My name is Laurel Wiebe and I’m a painter and illustrator based in Paris, France. I started this blog to catalogue my journey into a career as an artist in Paris. I’ll give you a little intro into who I am and how I got here, but the rest of these posts will feature interviews with and stories about artists who I encounter along the way. I figure the best way to learn about something is to talk to the experts about it, and I love a good chat. But first, bonjour, bienvenue, c’est moi—I hope you enjoy and stick around.
Let’s start at the beginning…
I was always an artist. You couldn’t stop me from doodling in class and whenever I could add a visual razzle dazzle to an assignment, I did. My grandfather was a painter and helped nurture this interest over the 12 years I had with him—especially the cartoons and caricatures, which is now the foundation of my subject matter. Drawing and painting were integral components of my identity and joy but remained on the back-burner for more “realistic” ambitions until recently.
Fast forward to 2020 and suddenly I’m out of a marketing job due to COVID-19 and startup-related problems. At that point, my partner Joel and I had been trying to move to Paris for two years and it seemed like the right time to *manifest* the move. After sitting in visa limbo (also Ohio) for what felt like an eternity, we squeaked out a move to Paris by the very end of the year.
To Paris we go
6 months of masked-up, indoor life went by and I started itching for a purpose. I didn’t speak French, I couldn’t learn French in a classroom yet, I was still burnt out by corporate copywriting, and I cranked through self-help books in search of the sentence that would tell me exactly what to do (looking at you, Brené Brown). So I did what many lost and curious millennials have done and enrolled in a master’s program.
By November 2022, I had my MA in the History and Philosophy of Art. I’d never taken an art history course, so there was a lot to catch up on. The program gave me a comprehensive overview on post-revolution French art, philosophies to back the methodologies for evaluating art, and a new set of analytical skills; all of which were invaluable tools that inched me closer towards a career in art. To be clear, not every artist needs this, but these tools reduced my imposter syndrome and provided clarity on how I could contextualize my work.
At this point I had merely toyed with the idea of being an artist, but on December 27 that changed. After two hefty pours of a nice Chianti, I was sobbing by the Christmas tree because I “didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.” (Cheers to the holiday spirit!) Sweet, sweet Joel helped me sort through that, revealing that I did in fact know “what I wanted to do with my life”, I just didn’t see the value in it. I wanted to be an artist, but I was scared.
An artist was born (about 30 years ago)
I have circumvented every opportunity to explore being an artist and have instead lived on the perimeter of this path my whole life. Not that I didn’t have other interests, but this one was the biggest and hardest one to avoid. My first jobs in advertising let me tap into some kinds of creativity, but they lacked creative fulfillment and soul. I applied to work at art galleries, museums, and companies that invest in art (all of which I was rejected from), but I never once allowed myself to see myself as the artist in these spaces.
Stifling my creativity was slowly eroding me, much in the same way that I think an athlete would feel if they couldn’t exercise. A combination of reaching the end of my rope, wandering through the existential fallout of COVID-19, moving to a place that values art in all its forms, and studying great works of art galvanized me to go after this. I also absolutely could not have done this without the support of my partner, dear friends, and family.
Since that fateful night in December, I’ve painted a lot, applied to and gotten rejected from fine arts programs, and have started to develop a new understanding of what work looks like in this career. I don’t expect this to turn out how I planned, and even if I stop painting for a career, I know I’ll always be an artist. Donc, for now, I continue to paint, write, ask questions, and swat away the self-doubt. Thanks for reading and please come back soon for my next post!
Laurel
PS.
If you’re also an artist and find yourself asking big questions like “how do I afford to do this?” “where do I begin?” “why do I dread doing the only thing I love?” I can offer a couple of book recommendations that may help:
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron: a helpful workbook for artists seeking to reconnect with themselves and to understand an artist’s basic needs, but note that it is spiritually-focused.
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield: a game-changer and must-read. Pressfield describes in every possible way the feeling that (presumably) all artists experience with their work, which he names “resistance.” I consider this to be my artist bible, and credit my friend and musician Lindsay Kay with this recommendation.
