Arts & Literature

Mayra Cuevas, Author of YA novel Salty, Bitter, Sweet, talks about writing and diversity in literature [Podcast]

Published

4 years ago

February 8, 2020

Want to learn what it takes to write a Young Adult novel that showcases diversity, characters that find success on their own terms and written by a person of color? YA novelist Mayra Cuevas debut novel is “Swalty, Bitter, Sweet.” Join host Rico Figliolini and Mayra as they discuss inspirations and writing methods that went into this fantastic book, her Puerto Rican heritage and her own family’s experience with divorce, grief, new beginnings and the healing power of food made with love.

“So one of the themes in the book is about finding success in your own terms. So a lot of times, and I didn’t discover this until later in life. But we try to measure our success through the benchmark of others that others have set for us, right? So others’ ideas of our own success. And then we realized after a long time that that doesn’t make us happy because that’s not really what we want. What we want is something else. It’s our own journey.”
mAYRA cUEVAS

Timestamp – where to find these topics in the podcast

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:03:05] – Book talks and Publisher Info
[00:03:34] – Title Origin
[00:04:38] – Manuscripts, Rejections, and Success [00:08:28] – Story and Character Inspiration
[00:11:17] – Location and Cooking Influences
[00:14:29] – Mayra’s Writing Process
[00:20:51] – More on Characters and Locations
[00:22:18] – Empowering Young Women
[00:25:10] – Diversity in Young Adult Books
[00:29:05] – About Mayra
[00:33:46] – Cowriting
[00:35:26] – Beta Reading
[00:39:55] – How to finish a book

Podcast Transcript:

Rico: [00:00:30] Hi everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. This is a Thursday afternoon on a stormy day. We had tornado watches today, but everything’s sort of calmed down this afternoon, and we have a special guest, local author and CNN producer Mayra Cuevas. So she’s, she has a book I want to talk about and I want to talk about her life a bit, but before we get into that, I just want to say thanks to a few people and our lead sponsor. So we’re here at Atlanta Tech Park in the City of Peachtree Corners at the Tech Park, it’s right on the road. That’s Curiosity Labs at Peachtree Corners. It’s a place that houses 70 companies over 15,000 square feet. This podcast studio, of course, and it’s a hub for business and tech and Curiosity Lab itself. The one and a half mile track that we sit on is something that the city itself is putting together, has put together to run and attract companies here to do experiments on a live laboratory, if you will, out there interacting with real traffic, real people where they can research and use their internet of everything. Items, apps, plugins to the autonomous vehicles that run on this track and such. So it’s a tremendous, living lab here that, does a lot of impact for the cities, for us economic impact. Our lead sponsor is Hargray Fiber. They’re a company based out of Hilton Heaven, Savannah, Georgia. They are a company that crafts customized solutions for hundreds of businesses in the Southeast. Whether you’re a small business looking for bundled services or you’re a low on enterprise level business looking for a managed IT services, either voiceover, internet, TV. Well that they can provide a real customized solution for you. They are a local company. They don’t let the cable guy, they will show up and they will really do the right things. And I got to say also with the city of Peachtree Corners, Hargray Fiber, even though it was sitting on what really is a mobility wireless 5G driven track. The backbone of it is still fiber and Hargray Fiber is the company that put the fiber here, and they’re the backbone of what the city’s doing. We’ll be here, so if you want to find out more information, go to HargrayFiber.com now. Now we’re really getting into the, the meat of the meeting, if you will. So there’s a lot of things I want to talk about. I had seen on Norcross high school that you’re going to be doing a discussion there and, in a few days again, so a few weeks.

Mayra: [00:03:05] Yeah, I’m actually doing several visits to local schools. North Gwinnett high, Norcross high school and Duluth as well. And I got book talks lined up, different parts of the country in Tennessee, New York and Arkansas.

Rico: [00:03:22] Wow. And who’s the publisher of the book?

Mayra: [00:03:25] It’s Blank HarperCollins.

Rico: [00:03:28] Blank HarperCollins. Now this is a novel that you put together called…

Mayra: [00:03:32] Salty, Bitter, Sweet.

Rico: [00:03:34] And I’ve been wanting to ask how that name came about. But it what is the story?

Mayra: [00:03:40] It was originally called “Every Girl Should Have a Blow Torch” because food is very much at the center of the book. And my, my lead character Isa, she loves using a blowtorch to kinda, you know, work, work on her desserts and then there’s a really funny incident with the Isa and the love interest in which they set the kitchen on fire using like, wrestling over the blow torch. But the publisher ultimately decides what the title is going to be. And the marketing team came up with this awesome title; “Salty, Bitter, Sweet,” which I love, and everyone loves. And I think it’s very appropriate for the book.

Rico: [00:04:27] It’s all about taste and food and texture and all that. I can imagine the other one’s a little bit more edgy.

Mayra: [00:04:35] Yes, it was more edgy. But the lines stayed in the book.

Rico: [00:04:38] Yeah. I could see him walking around with the little torch. So you can, this is your first book actually, isn’t it?

Mayra: [00:04:44] Yeah, so it’s my first published book. It’s not my first manuscript. I have been working on getting published for about six years now, and I have written other manuscripts. I had an agent that actually picked me up and he’s representing me based on a, on a previous manuscript, but this was the first manuscript that actually went out and sold.

Rico: [00:05:03] So you got that agent because of the original manuscript and then he saw the others?

Mayra: [00:05:08] Yes. So I mean, this is one of the things that a lot of, it’s not really talked about that much in the publishing process. So many times I knew the debut authors, you read their stuff and it’s like, Oh, this is actually really good for a debut author. Well, that’s probably not their first manuscript. It’s just the first manuscript that sold and that found a home at one of the big publishers. In my case, I really want it to be published in one of the big five. HarperCollins is part of that group. So I was, I was very proud and really happy to make that happen.

Rico: [00:05:42] Would you say this was your third, fourth, or fifth manuscript?

Mayra: [00:05:45] This was my third manuscript. Yes, it was my third manuscript. The first one was a fantasy novel that will never see the light of day because it was just absolutely awful. But at the time, I thought it was the most amazing thing written since Harry Potter, and it got about 200 rejections, but I kept going. And then I did, I, it was, it was my first manuscript and it taught me a lot about the writing process and about the publishing industry as well. And then I wrote a second manuscript that was a camp story, and that was the one that my agent decided to represent me. And then Salty, Bitter, Sweet.

Rico: [00:06:31] So when you did the 200 rejections on the first, you said let me set that aside and write a different one.

Mayra: [00:06:37] You have to move on at some point. And I think 200 rejections is a good place to move on.

Rico: [00:06:43] Who knows, it might get picked up later. But so your second book, you finished. And then you went on anyway to write your third manuscript.

Mayra: [00:06:52] Yes. So for me, you know, you kind of set goals for yourself as a writer, right? And for me, my goal is to put out one manuscript a year. Like I usually, and I have been pretty consistent with this. Like right now I have another manuscript that will potentially go out on submission to publishers in the next couple of months. It’s getting polished.

Rico: [00:07:14] Is this the fourth one?

Mayra: [00:07:15] No, it’s actually the fifth, the fifth manuscript that I’ve written. Yeah. I have the fourth I’m still working on this and it needs some more polishing. It’s also why I love writing for teens and young adults, especially for, for teen girls. Because I, it’s a very important time in their lives. It’s a time where they’re trying to figure out what their view, they’re forming the view of their world, right? And it’s a time of insecurity. It’s a time of lots of changes and just, just difficult things going on in your life. And it’s wonderful to have a voice of empowerment in the background of you know me, like I’m almost 40. I’ve been through that stage in my life. I’ve kinda, I’ve lived through it, you know, I’m on the other side of it and I, I have some perspective now I can look back and say, you know what? These things that you’re struggling with in the grand scheme of things are not that big of a deal. You know, it’s going to be fine.

Rico: [00:08:26] But you don’t say that in the novel necessarily, or have the adults in the novel say that.

Mayra: [00:08:28] No, because it’s like you gotta the beauty about writing for young adults is having these amazing characters who are discovering these things for themselves. You know, just, they’re going on this life journey. You know, like my character Isa, she’s dealing with her grandmother, who is her culinary muse, has just passed away. And not only that, but she’s also, her grandmother is Cuban, so she identifies, she sees herself in her grandmother, her Latina side, right? Her parents have just gotten a divorce and his dad is living with another person. And this is something I went through at that age. My parents went through a very difficult divorce. You know, I relied a lot on my grandparents to, you know, to nourish myself emotionally and, and, and mentally. And I’m, I’m writing from that point of view.

Rico: [00:09:31] And I was going to be one of my questions as well. The, you know, how do you, do you come to this with some of the experiences, obviously with the divorce in your family and stuff, but also, I mean, you’re bringing it from, the, you know, from the experience that you, that you have from being a Puerto Rican, maybe Latino. So, and being a woman and writing from a woman’s point of view, obviously. But you are also like a mom to two step sons.

Mayra: [00:10:04] Yes, two amazing stepsons. You know, they inspired, both of them, they want to know which one is the one that’s in the book.The guys have asked me and said, is it me? Is it me? And I’m like, well, it’s a combination of the both of you and it’s true. You know, I used them to kind of model the romantic interest in the book because you know, they’re right there, so it’s just so easy.

Rico: [00:10:32] Yeah, that is so funny. Are they okay with that?

Mayra: [00:10:33] They’re fine. They’re very supportive of me. They’re actually coming for the book event on February 29th.

Rico: [00:10:41] That’s so funny. I mean, some of the kids might, depending on who’s there, they might be, are you him?

Mayra: [00:10:47] Diego. Diego is a romantic interest. Yeah.

Rico: [00:10:51] And you know, I mean, as I was reading through the school library journal review, because the book’s not out yet. The book is going to be out on…

Mayra: [00:10:59] Yes, it’s out on March 3rd. But, everyone can preorder and preorders are awesome. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, even we have Little Shop of Stories or Curious Books here in town. They’re also, yes. Anywhere where they sell books.

Rico: [00:11:17] So you placed this, this is actually placed in Europe.

Mayra: [00:11:21] So the story takes place and is, there’s multiple locations in the book. The bulk of the story takes place in Leon France. And there’s a reason for that. It’s that Leon friends is actually the gastronomic capital of the world. And here you have a girl who wants to be a chef more than anything. She believes her happiness and the way that she gives herself to others is in food. And to place her at the epicenter of, you know, food and the entire world. It was just a way to raise the stakes just a little bit more, you know,

Rico: [00:11:57] Not only that, but she goes to school of this top cook. And the reward is to get your own restaurant, essentially.

Mayra: [00:12:03] You get to apprentice, so you get to learn from one of the, the, at the end of the program that she’s in, that she’s competing for a spot at a kitchen of a three Michelin star chef, and he’s not only a three Michelin star chef, he’s a legend in, in the high cuisine.

Rico: [00:12:25] You have to be. That’s funny. So, but research. I mean…

Mayra: [00:12:30] Did a lot of research. Yes.

Rico: [00:12:32] Are you a good cook too?

Mayra: [00:12:33] I love to cook. And you know, that’s one of the reasons why I chose to do a foodie book, you know, is because I love food, in my family and a lot of Latino households, food is a way to connect. It’s a way to bring us together. And your, your background’s Italian, so you know, same thing.

Rico: [00:12:57] Yes. Three hours dinners and all that.

Mayra: [00:12:58] But it is a time when we come together and it’s a time of nourishing. It’s a time of love. And it’s also, food is a vehicle for memories. You know? And like a lot of, you know, the memories that I have growing up of my grandparents are associated with specific dishes, you know? It’s like, I mean, I still remember the sense, the taste, you know. The you know, the crackling of fried chicken, you know. And, and also moments, specific moments in time that. Are associated with a certain type of meal, you know. So for Isa, for the main character, like she’s connecting with her grandmother, even though her grandmother had passed, has passed away through the meals she’s preparing. And all of these memories are coming together through food and the love that she wants to give to her family and the world. She wants to give of herself to the world through food.

Rico: [00:13:59] That’s when there reminds me of my wife and my mother in a way, because I would remember when she, on Saturday morning, Sunday morning, she would do the sauce and the first thing that went in all the time was the chopped onion and the sizzling. And you’d hear that and smell it and those, those scents would come back to you later.

Mayra: [00:14:18] Yes.

Rico: [00:14:19] And of course…

Mayra: [00:14:20] They’re heartfelt, you’re, you’re, you have a physical reaction to the smells, the sounds, the tastes.

Rico: [00:14:29] And on the cook side, cause my wife likes to cook too. She’d be like, if she spent an hour, two hours cooking, putting together the meal, she actually wouldn’t eat after that because she’s done. She’s put everything into that meal and that’s it. You guys have dinner. I’m good. So yeah. So it’s a different way of seeing that. So, you know, I love YA novels too. My kids, I have three kids. They grew up on Harry Potter, they grew up all the YA novels you can think of. They read through and of course, you know, Fault in Our Stars, I mean, a whole bunch of them. And we would sometimes share our recommendations back and forth. And I’m sure that your book would probably be key to my daughter. She’d probably love that I bet. So the writing part, let’s get back to the writing process because that always interests me. How do you, because everyone’s different. Every writer says the different, they some need to do three pages
a day, some need to do four hours, then it doesn’t matter if they produce nothing. Some people need a quiet, they need to shut the door. They won’t open that door until they’re done with the manuscript and won’t show it to anyone. So tell me your process.

Mayra: [00:15:35] So, I tend to be very practical with my writing because I don’t have a lot of time. I have a full time job and I also have other responsibilities. I sit on the board of a Kadampa Meditation Center, Georgia in Inman park. and sometimes I teach meditation as well. So I’m, I have a very busy life. So when I do sit to write, it’s got to be a quality writing. So when I have, when I have an idea for a new project, I’ll come up with an idea. I have a series of questions that I’ll ask myself to develop that idea and see if that idea is viable. If, if the idea we’ll, it can stretch into a whole book, because writing a novel is not just an artistic thing a creative thing. It’s also a very technical thing. A novel has to have certain parts. It has to hit certain points. Your character needs to go through a journey that is very defined. So for me, when I start, I like to see all that plotted out at first, I’m on what they call a plotter, not a pantser. So pantsers kind of just start writing and then whatever comes, comes. I, my approach is a little bit different. So I, I try to plot out the whole book at first and I use that as a guide. Things ultimately change from, cause, you know, the characters kind of start telling you where they want to go. They’re alive, much alive and hanging out inside my head. And then your new characters develop, you know, Lala, the grandmother in Salty, Bitter, Sweet. She didn’t develop until like, the third draft of the book. She wasn’t in the original story.

Rico: [00:17:20] She seems to be like the holding there.

Mayra: [00:17:22] Because when she came to me, she came fully formed. But you know, she wasn’t there originally. And that happens a lot. There’s, there’s a lot of characters. Sometimes you, you know, one of the manuscripts that I’m working on right now, I am struggling with one of the characters and I can’t get them together, but others just come fully formed. They just show up and then you write them and they’re perfect from day one, you know?

Rico: [00:17:48] So yeah, you’re a plotter, but do you actually create an outline like chapter by chapter along?

Mayra: [00:17:53] Yes, and there’s a couple of reasons why I do that. One, is because at the point where I’m at right now, I need to discuss it with my agent. And then the second one is, you usually, once you sell the book, there’s potential to sell other books on spec and by contract that requires plotting chapter by chapter, then they need to know what your, what they’re buying. Pretty much.

Rico: [00:18:17] Okay. Unless you’re doing a trilogy and even with that you probably have to do that, I bet.

Mayra: [00:18:21] Even with whatever, whatever you sell that the publishers just then just want to know what they’re buying.

Rico: [00:18:28] So I saw an outline that James Patterson did. His is one paragraph per chapter. Is yours similar?

Mayra: [00:18:35] Yeah, mine are a little. That’s a chapter by chapter outline is very good. That’s pretty much a, you just give us a short synopsis of what’s in every chapter,

Rico: [00:18:45] and that’s what you write. So you’re writing, you’re sitting down that day and you’re going to write that chapter.

Mayra: [00:18:50] Yes. But again, it is. It’s an idea, right? These, these, these are just ideas. But when you’re writing, that’s where the creative side comes in. And things just start changing. Sometimes they move in completely different directions that you didn’t expect, and your characters just want to do what they want to do. And you’re, you know, and so you’re taking that outline, but you’re being flexible around it. You know, you’re not…

Rico: [00:19:20] You’re not held to it.

Mayra: [00:19:21] No, you gotta. Exactly. You can get, it’s very organic. It’s a very organic process. I just, I just like to give it a little push in a certain direction.

Rico: [00:19:31] Did you ever have to go back a few chapters and say, okay, my character took me here, but I need to adjust the foreshadowing. I need to do a few things back here.

Mayra: [00:19:40] So normally I write forward and then what that means is that I will write all the way to the end of the book because I want to know where the characters are taking me and then how the book is going to end, and then I will go back and make changes. I usually…

Rico: [00:19:55] So your first draft is all the way through.

Mayra: [00:19:57] Yes. My first draft is always all the way through. Because what I found out is like if you kind of stop and go, stop and go, you will edit yourself until oblivion. And then you just, you know, you just keep going back and there’s no point because until you get to the end of the story, you just don’t know how the story’s going to end. You know?

Rico: [00:20:17] Do you ever write like character profiles? You do write those down?

Mayra: [00:20:21] Yes. I’ve done that several times because, especially in young adult, the genre is very character-driven. And what that means is like, you want very dynamic characters that pop off the page. They’re very memorable, that, that have something to say, you know. So, so it’s nice to develop that, with a character sketch to help you kind of pull out some of those very tangible things that they later you’re going to develop throughout the story.

Rico: [00:20:51] I have to ask you, so when the characters take over and they start writing, do they ever like break that, that profile? No, you would never do this?

Mayra: [00:20:59] All the time. You know, once you go. So let me go back to the example of Isa because this book, it’s changed.

Rico: [00:21:08] She sounds like a great character.

Mayra: [00:21:09] She is, but she started out, Isa started out as this complete French girl who was leaving New York. I mean, and she has changed. She just, when I started writing her, the idea that I had of her is completely different with what she ended up being. Because, they characters are like real people, you know, and they should be like real people. They’re complex individuals. They have their history to them. They speak in their own voice. You know, they’re, yeah. They’re true to life.

Rico: [00:21:45] The best characters. Leon France, have you been there?

Mayra: [00:21:49] I’ve been to several areas in France. Have not been to Leon. It’s on my list of places that I want to go, but I did a lot of research to get it right. And I did have a French consultant look at the book. Yeah, I actually had a consultant for the French aspects of the novel and also for the culinary aspects of the novel. Chef Carla from Buck and Alia. She’s an executive pastry chef, and she served as a consultant in the book.

Rico: [00:22:18] Now, obviously the main character is a girl, and we talked about, you know, empowering girls is one of the things you want to be able to do. So tell me a little bit about that. What was the, you know, was that important? I mean, I have a daughter too, I can understand why, but like to hear your words on it.

Mayra: [00:22:35] So one, one of the themes in the book is about finding success in your own terms. So a lot of times, and I didn’t discover this until later in life. But we try to measure our success through the benchmark of others that others have set for us, right? So others ideas of our own success. And then we realized after a long time that that doesn’t make us happy because that’s not really what we want. What we want is something else. It’s our own journey, right? So Isa needs to go, she thinks that what she wants is to be in this very stressful environment with a male dominated kitchen that the entire world says, you have reached the peak of your career at where you’re at in life, right? This is, it’s heartache, cuisine, you’re going to be training under you know, this culinary legend. And when she gets there, she realized this, this, this is not making me happy. I don’t, you know, I feel miserable here. Like it’s stressful as all hell, you know? It’s not what she thought she was, but then the struggle becomes, okay, but I’ve gotten here. Do I want to stay and kind of just suck it up? But you know, and that’s, that’s us adults. We do that many of the times, you know, we do that at work. We do that in relationships, and we do that in many stages of, of many different places of our lives. So the decision comes
whether, you know, she wants to, she’s already sacrificed so many aspects of her life to get here, but now that she’s gotten here, she realizes that she’s not happy. So what does she do?

Rico: [00:24:25] What does she do? Well she has other complications, obviously. Her grandmother passed away, divorce.

Mayra: [00:24:30] Isa has put everything on the line, everything, everything. Everything that she is to get to this place.

Rico: [00:24:36] And a boy comes into her life also?

Mayra: [00:24:38] To mess things up, to screw up her plans. So the world is conspiring against her, right? So, but yeah, I want to empower girls to think about their goals as, as something that they can achieve on their own terms that they, they can set the bar, they can decide what they want. What does that mean for them versus relying on other people to set the bar for success.

Rico: [00:25:10] Which makes sense. I think that’s what we all want to be able to be happy with our own things, boy or girl. We’ve talked about a little bit also, diversity in Young Adult books. So do you want to speak to that as well?

Mayra: [00:25:22] So the topic of diversity is very important for me. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I’m a Latino woman. I love romantic comedies, love, love romantic comedies. And, but what I struggle with is seeing myself in a romantic comedy. You know, other than movies with, like Jennifer Lopez being the star. It’s rare to find a romantic comedy, you know, film or in books with a Latina main character. So I wanted to give girls, especially Latina girls, an opportunity to see themselves as the lead in their own story, right? They’re the lead in their own life and have a vision for that they can be the main character. Another thing that’s always playing in the background in my mind as I’m writing, is that only 5% of all kids books published present a Latina, Latin character. Of those 5%, only 34% are written by Latin writers or illustrators. Meanwhile, in schools, 22% of the kids are Latin in classrooms, in public schools in the US so just the numbers just don’t add up there. There needs to be more books represented, marginalized communities, written by people of color.

Rico: [00:26:53] So is that promoting, like I always look at things like that as I’m, being Italian, Italian heritage and coming from New York and Brooklyn and coming South and, you know, tell people my name is Rico moved down here in 95. People are like Rico Lopez? Rico Petrocelli? It’s like, no, just Rico’s fine. People are funny that way about diversity, when they don’t see it. But also, you know, I think we have to, maybe we have to, like you are doing encourage a talent to be able to write those books because it really, there’s just a lack of talent out there, right? To some degree.

Mayra: [00:27:38] The publishing industry is 80% white. So, and that is something that has come to the forefront now with this whole debacle with American Dirt, with the novel American
Dirt. So it’s, you know, if we want to promote more books written by marginalized communities, by people of color, we have to publish more of these books, right? That we need to give everybody a seat at the table. And not only a seat at the table, but given the same opportunities that white authors are given in terms of publicity or promotion or promoting the books and all that stuff. Atlanta, thankfully Atlanta has an incredible young adult, very diverse young adult community, you know. We have, so I mean, we have, Aisha Saaed who writes from a Muslim perspective. We have Nick Stone who writes from the African American perspective. We have Beckel Bertolli who writes from the Jewish perspective. It’s incredibly diverse. Just, you know, here alone in Atlanta, but we need to do a better job at lifting these voices.

Rico: [00:28:51] Are there any big, every time I think of publishers they’re in New York for some reason. Are there any Atlanta big publishers?

Mayra: [00:28:57] So the big five publishers who control most of the market are in New York.

Rico: [00:29:05] I mean you would think that we would have something big here but that’s not the case. So this has been a journey for you too, I mean, you come from Puerto Rico. When did you, when did you move here?

Mayra: [00:29:15] So I moved to Miami when I was 22 I got a scholarship. I know Florida international university to do a master’s in investigative reporting. And after I completed my masters, I moved here to Atlanta. I got a job, doing investigative reporting for WSB TV, the NBC affiliate here in Atlanta. And then after a year doing that, I moved to Sienna and so I’ve been in Sienna for more than 15 years now.

Rico: [00:29:40] 15 years wow. Yeah. That’s cool. I mean, CNN is going through its things though. I have a friend that works in, I think he’s been through three waves of downsizing or something like that.

Mayra: [00:29:50] It’s a great place to work. My colleagues are amazing.

Rico: [00:29:56] So journalism is still something you want to do, even if you become successful writing? Continued success?

Mayra: [00:30:02] If that happens, we’ll have to revisit the conversation.

Rico: [00:30:08] Yes, writing. Anyone that wants to be a writer, though, that’d be a great living. You know?
Mayra: [00:30:15] It’s not. Yeah well, I mean, the reality is the, the writers that hit it big and get, you know, seven figure contracts they’re rare. Most, most of the writers that I know have jobs. Are or they do other, other things to kind of compliment their income. Yeah, don’t quit your day job.

Rico: [00:30:44] No you don’t want to do that. But at least you’d, some of them actually do. So I know a couple of two sisters that they do a lot of editing and ghostwriting, so at least they’re still working their craft to some degree. Journalism is the same. So when you’re producing, are you, do you get something?

Mayra: [00:31:04] I do. So last year I traveled about 30% of the year. And well I got gas covering a protest in Puerto Rico. That was exciting. In my own, in like my own backyard. I went to like get gas, buy like these gas canisters out there, run all over. But no, it wasn’t. Most of the work that I’m doing now, there was a time that I did a lot of breaking news, but most of the time that I do now, is features highlighting amazing things that, that people are doing around the US.

Rico: [00:31:38] Do you ever get to speak to any authors? Other authors?

Mayra: [00:31:41] Well, you know, I am surrounded in Atlanta. I am surrounded by a group of amazing authors and a community of my amazing authors. Thankfully my writing partner, Mary Marquardt and I formed this group called Mingle and Margarita’s and we meet, yeah, we meet up. It’s a writing community and we meet twice a year to come together and talk about different things that authors and writers are interested about. And also, I belong to a group called Las Musas. It’s a Latin, Latina authors collective. And there’s about, right now, there’s between 40 and 50 of us, and these are all authors whose books are coming out in the next couple of years, and, you know, we connect with each other. We pitch panels at conferences, you know, and support each other.

Rico: [00:32:35] Do you, do you foresee Salty, Bitter and Sweet becoming maybe a movie or?

Mayra: [00:32:43] I hope so. Fingers crossed if there’s anybody from Netflix listening to this. Like, just give me a call.

Rico: [00:32:57] This would actually be a great Netflix movie, I could see that. And you’re also doing international women’s day panel books and all that.

Mayra: [00:33:00] I’m super excited about that event. It’s gonna, it’s gonna be so much fun and a great conversation. It’s on Sunday, March 8th at 3:00 PM at the Norcross community center. And it’s going to be moderated by a CNN anchor, Christy Paul. She’s also an amazing women’s advocate. And then, Marie Marquardt, who I just, I just co-wrote a manuscript with her. It’s about to go on submission. Yes, it’s a nice little feminist, we call it the feminist unicorn. Yeah, so we’re going to be on the panel talking about stories that empower girls and women.

Rico: [00:33:46] Do you like the co-writing? Is that different? How do you do that?

Mayra: [00:33:49] So that was so much fun. So, Maria and I have been working together for about six years. We started off as critique partners. So, you know, we were talking about my
writing process. Maria and I exchange chapters of the stuff we’ve written and she critiques my chapters and I critiqued hers. So we’d been doing this for a while. And then finally we’ve been talking about, writing a book, a book together, but it kind of worked on timing. She was on a contract. I was like working on my stuff, and finally we found this opening where she wasn’t on a contract and I had just sold my book and we could work on something together. So, yeah, we basically, I’m writing the Latina, one character from the Latina characters perspective. One chapter, and then she’s writing another chapter from the white girl’s perspective.

Rico: [00:34:43] So you are splitting that up chapter by chapter?

Mayra: [00:34:45] Yes. We split up the book chapter by chapter. Yes. You would think it was less work, but it’s not.

Rico: [00:34:55] No you’re picking it up. It’s almost like a writing prompt in a way. You’re picking up the last chapter. And what if your character takes it a different way?

Mayra: [00:35:02] Well, that’s, that’s where plotting comes in. We plot it. We actually sat down and plotted the whole book.

Rico: [00:35:08] All of sudden said, sorry, at the end of my chapter, this is where she’s at.

Mayra: [00:35:11] Because it’s interesting because even with this process, we had characters come out. Like, they just showed up. But you know, we just have to go with it. Cause it’s like this character just showed up. Cause we, you know, you don’t understand. That’s how the process works, right.

Rico: [00:35:26] People, I’m sure people listen to this and like they just pop up in your mind? Like, you know how does that work? Yeah. But, so she was like a beta reader for you. Do, do you do beta reading?

Mayra: [00:35:37] Yes, I do. I actually have a lot of beta readers.

Rico: [00:35:40] So beta readers are people that would read your book before it’s published like the manuscript.

Mayra: [00:35:43] Yes, give you insights and then they kind of let you know what’s working, what’s not working, what you need to fix. On top of beta readers, before Salty Bitter, Sweet came out, we also had, the publisher hired a sensitivity reader. So somebody to come in and say, hey, this can be seen as problematic. You need to work on this, fix that, that kind of thing.

Rico: [00:36:07] So beta readers your family, friends?

Mayra: [00:36:10] No, I try not to use my family or friends as beta readers because they sometimes then not to be very objective, you know, this is great and I don’t want to, yeah, I, you know, I want to hear, I want to know what doesn’t work. Like I need to fix what doesn’t work. So I usually use other authors and writers. Yeah.

Rico: [00:36:32] That’s funny. I was reading something about, the, the author that wrote the Martian and his beta readers were all online and I think it was for two years or a year. They were just feeding him stuff and they were all like techie geek guys that were collecting all this martian stuff. And he was like, if it wasn’t for that.

Mayra: [00:36:50] And you have to be open as a, as a writer, you have to be open to criticism because that’s how you get better and that’s how you improve.

Rico: [00:36:57] So that didn’t hurt if you heard?

Mayra: [00:36:57] No. The 200 rejections hurt. That hurt.

Rico: [00:37:02] I still can’t believe it was 200 times.

Mayra: [00:37:02] Yeah, my husband will attest. There were a couple of instances that I just, I just started crying and he’s like, you cannot cry every time you get a rejection.

Rico: [00:37:14] Now did you send them out one at a time. Did you bulk send any of them out?

Mayra: [00:37:16] Yeah, I did. I bulk sent them and I kept a spreadsheet with, you know, yeah with every single one.

Rico: [00:37:25] Did they include people that didn’t respond or people or they all responded, but rejected?

Mayra: [00:37:29] No. So what happens when you’re, when you’re trying to find an agent is a lot. There’s a couple of ways to go. So sometimes you can meet people at a conference and you can pitch your work in a conference and they’ll tell you if they want to read more or not. And other times you just, you do what’s called a cold query. So the agent says, Hey, I’m open for queries and this is what I’m looking for. And then you, if your manuscript fits that description, then you send them an email saying, Hey, this, I got this. Like, are you interested? And sometimes they just respond with a form letter or sometimes they request your stuff if they think it’s good and they liked it. And other times you never hear back.

Rico: [00:38:08] Did you ever get a rejection letter where they actually gave you some advice that was meaningful? Probably not.

Mayra: [00:38:15] Well, let me see. It was interesting when they actually requested to see the manuscript because it felt that I was close. That was like, okay, so they are interested in the story and, and they want to see what I have to say. So that was very encouraging. And I ultimately, I knew that whoever was gonna end up being my agent and she was just going to like it from day one and she was going to be excited about the book. I mean, from day one. And that’s exactly how it happened.

Rico: [00:38:48] Did that change a little bit through the editing process? I mean, did it have any major changes or?

Mayra: [00:38:55] Yes. I mean, it got, all books change. Like it’s like, When you, when you are writing to be published, and if you’re, if you’re serious about the craft of writing, you have to be open to edits. Because, books that, for example, the book that I’m working on right now, we are on our fourth round of edits. This is after the polished draft. So it’s gone to our agents back and forth, three, three or four times. and every time the book becomes stronger, and then now when the book goes to publisher and it gets acquired by a publisher, there’s going to be, again, numerous, numerous rounds of edits. So by the time Salty, Bitter, Sweet was ready to go to press, I think it had been edited probably between 30 and 40 times. Yeah. I didn’t like read through it, made changes that, that, that many times.

Rico: [00:39:55] Yeah. So what would you say to a young person that might be, that wants to write, they’re in high school, you’re going to be at Norcross High school at some point. What would you say to them if they said, you know, I write these profiles all the time. I haven’t really sat down to write. What would you say to them that they should do to get it done, to get the first book done regardless, good or bad, but just to finish it. Cause the right processes really it’s not a book until you finish it.

Mayra: [00:40:22] Yeah. Keep writing. You know, writing is one of those things that you learn by doing it. You know, you’re not, you’re not going to learn writing by sitting in a classroom. You know, you, you learn writing by actually sitting down, writing, getting your work critiqued and going back and editing. And then when you have gotten to that point with that particular manuscript that you just, I cannot do anything else with this. Then you move on and you write something else and you bring everything that you learned from that first manuscript into the second one and so on and so forth.

Rico: [00:40:55] It’s not surprising. It’s amazing to me. I mean, Stephen King, even, I think he wrote it by four or five manuscripts before Carrie got published. And, and then I think the Stand was one of those. But, yeah, these writers, it’s, I envy you guys. I’d love to do that, but, you know, it’s just like, it’s a struggle. I mean, to get it done.

Mayra: [00:41:18] I mean it is and it’s not. I love writing. I cannot imagine my life. Without writing. I mean, it just gives me such a sense of joy and a sense of purpose. And I love telling stories for me, something very meaningful. And the way, we, we grow as, as humans and as civilizations is
with our stories, by the stories that we pass on to one another. So story is incredibly important, in communities and humanity as a whole. Also, fiction specifically has so many benefits. it just, the main one. It just makes you happy, you know, it just, it makes you happy to read good fiction.

Rico: [00:42:04] Yeah. Makes you laugh, maybe sometimes, maybe even cry.

Mayra: [00:42:07] Yes, it does. And it gives you empathy. It builds, you know, studies have shown that it builds empathy with one another. And with our communities are so polarized right now that I think that is so important that we learn to see the world from somebody else’s point of view that, you know, we may not always have access to.

Rico: [00:42:28] Different perspectives.

Mayra: [00:42:29] Yes.

Rico: [00:42:30] Diversity also brings sometimes clarity to problems. Yes. That’s good. We’ve been speaking to Mayra Cuevas, who’s written her first published book, but not the first book in her repertoire and Salty, Bitter, Sweet. It’s going to be coming out in March.

Mayra: [00:42:46] It’s coming out March 3rd, we have a pre-release event of everybody’s welcome, invited to come. It’s going to be at the Decatur library, amphitheater. Friday, sorry, on Saturday, February 29th at 5:00 PM.

Rico: [00:43:02] And they can find more information about you or follow you on what or where?

Mayra: [00:43:06] Follow, well, the best place to go is my website. It’s MayraCuevas.com.

Rico: [00:43:11] All right, cool. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Mayra: [00:43:15] It’s been great to be here. Thank you.

Rico: [00:43:17] Bye guys.

Related Topics:Featured LatinX Reads writing YA Novels young adult fiction

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Arts & Literature

8 Theatrical Performances Coming to the Peachtree Corners Area

Published

1 week ago

April 10, 2024

Kathy Dean

Discover local theatrical performances: mystery, musicals, comedies, and Shakespeare in the Park. Support the arts with every ticket.

Photo by cottonbro studio

Mean Girls: High School Version
Thursday-Friday, April 11-12
Thursday and Friday, 6 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m.
Paul Duke STEM High School
5850 Peachtree Industrial Blvd., Norcross
Tickets: Adults, $12; students, $10 and children (ages 5 and under), $5

Adapted from Tina Fey’s hit 2004 film, the Mean Girls musical has been nominated for a staggering 12 Tony Awards. Now, Paul Duke STEM brings the high school version of the show to life.

Tickets are on sale and can be purchased here.

The Curse of the Hopeless Diamond
Thursday, April 18. 6:30 p.m.
Anna Balkan Jewelry and Gifts
51 S. Peachtree St., Norcross
Ticket: $25, includes snacks and one glass of wine

The audience-participation murder mystery is a fundraiser for Lionheart Theatre’s summer theatre camp for kids and teens; it’s being hosted by Anna Balkan and 45 South Coffee House.

About the show: Reginald and Daphne Potter are touring extensively, along with their world-famous Potter Diamond, in the company of four detectives. It’s well-known that the Potter Diamond is beautiful…and cursed!

Purchase tickets here.

Anastasia
Thursday-Sunday, April 25-28
Thursday and Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.
Valor Christian Academy
4755 Kimball Bridge Rd., Alpharetta
Tickets: $20 per person

About the show: Presented by CYT Atlanta, the show spans from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Pursued by a ruthless Soviet officer determined to silence her, Anya enlists the aid of a dashing con man and a lovable ex-aristocrat. Together they embark on an epic adventure to help her find home, love and family.

Click here to learn more.

Little Shop of Horrors
Thursday-Sunday, April 25-28
Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 7 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.
Norcross High School
5300 Spalding Dr., Norcross
norcrosshigh.org, nhs-drama.com, 770-448-3674
Tickets: $10

About the show: A horror comedy rock musical, Little Shop of Horrors centers around a florist shop worker who raises a carnivorous plant that eats humans.

Secure your spot.

Seussical
Thursday-Saturday, May 2-4
Wesleyan School Powell Theatre
5405 Spalding Dr., Peachtree Corners
wesleyanschool.org, 770-448-7640

About the show: The fantastical, magical musical is based on the children’s stories of Dr. Seuss.

Discover more here.

Breaking Legs
May 3-19
Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, May 18 and Sunday matinees, 2 p.m.
Lionheart Theatre Company
10 College St., Norcross
lionhearttheatre.org, 678-938-8518
Tickets: Adults, $18; students and seniors, $16

About the show: In this madcap comedy, an Italian restaurant is owned by a successful mobster and managed by his beautiful unmarried daughter. When the daughter’s former college professor asks for financial backing for a play he’s written about a murder, the three main Mafiosi are intrigued with the idea of producing a play. The daughter becomes enamored of the playwright who discovers, through the ‘accidental’ death of a lesser thug, that his backers are gangsters.

Find tickets here.

Finding Nemo JR
Friday-Sunday, May 10-12
Greater Atlanta Christian School King’s Gate Theatre
1575 Indian Trail Rd., Norcross
greateratlantachristian.org, 770-243-2000

About the show: The hour-long musical adaptation of the Pixar film features Marlin, a nervous clownfish who lives with his adventurous child, Nemo, in the Great Barrier Reef. When Nemo is carried off to Sydney, Marlin must overcome his fears and travel across the ocean to find him.

Learn more here.

Much Ado About Nothing
Saturday-Sunday, May 11-12
Saturday, 2 and 5 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m.
Simpsonwood Park
411 Jones Bridge Circle, Peachtree Corners
crewofpatches.org

About the show: Contemporary Classics Theatre presents Shakespeare’s romantic comedy May 11-26 at Simpsonwood Park in Peachtree Corners, Christ Church Episcopal in Norcross and Autrey Mill Nature Preserve in John’s Creek. Director Susanna Wilson’s version of the play is set in Italy during a 21st century film festival. Love at first sight, jealousy and confusion, an illegitimate sibling, mixed-up lovers, three weddings and a funeral fill this amusing look at love, betrayal and acceptance. Performances will be outside for a “Shakespeare in the Park” experience. Audience members should bring blankets and lawn chairs as no seating is provided. Shows run approximately 100 minutes with no intermission.

Click here for more information.

Want more event happening in and around Peachtree Corners?

Check out our recent article: 25+ Free Events Happening at Peachtree Corners Library in April and May

Arts & Literature

Wesleyan Artist Market 2024: Spotlight on Three Artists

Published

2 weeks ago

April 2, 2024

Patrizia Winsper

Singing birds, blossoming flowers and warmer days — the delights of spring herald the 26th annual Wesleyan Artist Market (WAM).

Painting by Meagan Brooker

Singing birds, blossoming flowers and warmer days — the delights of spring herald the 26th annual Wesleyan Artist Market (WAM) in Peachtree Corners, a vibrant celebration of art.

Discerning art enthusiasts head to Wesleyan School, located just north of Atlanta, for a chance to explore paintings, photography, mixed media, ceramics, jewelry and beyond from over 80 professional artists.

Mark your calendars: this year’s market takes place Friday, April 26, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday, April 27, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Stop in and immerse yourself in creativity!

Ashley Skandalakis

Returning to WAM for the second time is an artist who combines colors and textures not on canvas, but in an array of unique and lovely flowering vessels. Ashley Skandalakis, owner of Atlanta Planters, LLC, creates custom designs of planted pots to adorn your home or business and can fit all styles and budgets.

Before this southern belle raised in Americus, Ga. started playing in the dirt, she tried several different careers — from interior design to pharmaceuticals, technology to entrepreneurship. Skandalakis took a sprout of an idea and turned it into a blooming, multi-million-dollar business with her Lappers dining trays. Now she’s well on her way to growing Atlanta Planters.

For the past five years, Skandalakis has been making metro Atlanta more beautiful one potted planting at a time. She attributes the company’s growth to her unique style, attention to detail, outstanding customer service and beautiful products.

Start before you’re ready

After quitting her stint in the technology field, Skandalakis was in search of the next sensation that would produce the same rush her tray invention and eight patents gave her. A friend opened a new Buckhead restaurant and Skandalakis offered to replant her waning orchids. The restauranteur, lacking time and funds, agreed.

Self-taught Skandalakis took the vessels home, gathered orchids and supplies, and created striking compositions embellished with interesting stakes, moss and other plants. Dining patrons were so impressed by her eye-catching creations that they requested her business card as she carried them through the restaurant during delivery.

“When you’re passionate about something, you figure it out as you go,” she said. “Every day you wonder, ‘What am I going to learn today?’”

Rental truck road trip

At the suggestion of a painting class comrade, Skandalakis submitted photos of her fanciful florals to the Thomasville Antique Show. Two days later she committed to being a vendor in a show taking place in a week’s time.

“I had to source planters, orchids. I didn’t have a business license. I didn’t have business cards. I didn’t have a credit card processor. I didn’t have anything, but I pulled it all together. I stayed up till 1 o’clock in the morning making 45 orchid compositions. I really didn’t know how to do them, so it took me a long time,” Skandalakis shared.

Turning a $5,000 profit at that show in February of 2020 made her realize she had a new business. When the pandemic shut everything down in March, Skandalakis pivoted to outdoor containers and embraced her budding bailiwick with verve.

Busy beautifying outdoor spaces

Applying for a business license, building a social media presence and advertising led to some scheduled appointments. By May of that year, Skandalakis was fully booked creating seasonal planters for clients.

“Twice a year, I go to clients’ homes and make their planters gorgeous. If they need planters, I source those too. I love working with people to find the best containers for their space,” Skandalakis beamed.

It’s a carefully orchestrated juggling act to get everyone’s plantings done. The season begins on April 15, when frost no longer poses a threat, and runs through the end of June. Winter pots are cleaned out and planted for the spring and summer. In October, the remnants of summer plantings are removed, and containers are replanted for fall and winter.

During the Christmas season, Atlanta Planters decorates fireplace mantles and front porches with handtied greenery, garland, lights and wreaths.

Perfect planters and plants

The quest for unusual urns from across the globe excites the impresario who works with vendors to source the best, whether modern or traditional. Preferred supplier Elegant Earth makes handmade products in Birmingham, Ala. The owner is an Atlanta native who is featured in Veranda magazine this May.

Skandalakis searches online auctions for vintage and antique vessels. She also scours the trade market in High Point, N.C. When associates have shipping containers arriving from abroad, they often give Skandalakis first dibs at their treasures.

Annual trips to Europe further the flowerpot obsession. Her travels usually entail securing planters while endeavoring to piggyback on friends’ cargo containers to get them across the pond.

Several hundred planters can be found at her Marietta store on any given day. Skandalakis intentionally purchased a deep lot to house them all.

A variety of wholesale nurseries around the southeast supply Skandalakis with the highest quality plants. Annuals and perennials usually come from local nurseries. Larger landscaping plants come from all over the region where the heartiest plants intersect with competitive prices.

Continuous growth

Though planters make up the majority of her business, those entrusting Skandalakis with their pots naturally began to ask her for landscaping advice as well. To better assist clients with landscape design, Skandalakis sharpened her skills at Emory University.

“I enjoy landscaping projects. Inspired by some of the world’s best landscape architects, I am constantly learning. It’s important to continue to grow,” she asserted.

A $600 minimum per planting session covers plants, healthy soil, fertilizer, plant toppers and labor. Skandalakis’ green thumb leaves clients happy with their containers.

Clients old and new

Customers who’ve been with Atlanta Planters for a while trust the gardener’s judgment. They’re happy to allow her artistic liberty. Skandalakis knows her clients’ favorite colors and which locations require shade or sun plants.

New clients are asked to provide pictures of their home, yard and planters. She believes the outside of the home should be an extension of the inside in terms of style — whether it’s modern, traditional or transitional.

Next, Skandalakis inquires about her clients’ sun/shade situation, access to irrigation, whether they have pets and if deer are an issue.

Floral designs to suit your lifestyle

Are you a good plant parent? Skandalakis can plant superb succulents for those who may habitually “forget” to water their containers. A building’s architecture and the client’s taste also can dictate what types of plants and containers are used.

Boxwoods in planters that tell a story look best on traditional properties. Grasses in sleek metal or concrete white pots are typical of modern estates.

Bright and happy

Every day brings joy; clients are happy to see her arrive and enamored with their containers when she leaves. Skandalakis once daydreamed about people who loved their job; now she professes to be one of them.

“When you enjoy what you do, it’s not a job at all,” she smiled.

The same look of satisfaction spreads across her face when she speaks about having shown her children that we’re capable of anything we put our minds to, without limitations.

WAM

Last year Skandalakis was blown away by the phenomenal show where she made new acquaintances and gained clients. Her large planters adorned the Wesleyan campus outside as well as the gym. The show takes place during her busy planting season, so Skandalakis and her team worked on weekends to prepare.

Expect to find a variety of planter sizes and types in her booth — some planted — in addition to orchids, other plants, indoor compositions and appealing merchandise from her shop. Last year she brought cowhide chairs from a Texas auction.

Book Atlanta Planters

An enterprising lady behind two successful businesses, Skandalakis enjoys sharing her inspirational story with women’s groups.

Listen to her friendly Southern drawl as she introduces loads of products and her latest “Five Favorite Things” on Instagram @atlantaplanters.

To learn more about Atlanta Planters or to obtain a quote, visit atlantaplanters.net or call 706-289-5736.

Stop by the Marietta flower shop for swoon-worthy, seasonal merchandise at 324 N. Fairground St. and find beautiful indoor plant compositions, orchids, gifts and an eclectic selection of indoor and outdoor planters. Skandalakis and her team can “plant them up” for you on site.

Elaine Jackson

In the quaint setting of Madison, Ga., Elaine Jackson finds her muse. The quiet town allows for easy access to the mountains where she often escapes to stock stores like Dogwoods with her paintings.

Highlands, N.C. is like a second home for Jackson. She and her husband have been visiting there since before they were married; the town hasn’t changed much since then.

A self-taught floral and landscape painter, Jackson started her journey into creativity with an art class in her teen years. It wasn’t until much later that she fully embraced her passion for painting.

Born and raised in Macon, Ga., Jackson’s artistic journey took shape gradually. After obtaining a degree in advertising, she found herself working in a bustling Buckhead PR firm where she met her husband.

Upon starting a family, Jackson put her artistic pursuits on hold to focus on motherhood. Today, from her converted carriage house garage studio, she creates captivating works of art.

Discovering the artist within

Once her daughters were grown, Jackson found the time to delve into her passion for painting. She began honing her skills, initially starting with watercolors and eventually transitioning into acrylics; she now uses both mediums.

Over the past twelve years, Jackson has dedicated herself to her art full-time, tirelessly perfecting her métier through trial and error, self-exploration and occasional workshops.

Capturing Southern tranquility

Inspiration for Jackson’s artwork comes from various sources, whether it’s a place she’s visited, the picturesque landscapes of her surroundings, art galleries, design studios or even from pieces requested by clients.

Jackson finds comfort in exploring the scenic vistas where she’s lived and drawing from the unique beauty of each location. Her paintings are infused with personal significance.

“Many of the landscapes are reflective of where I’ve lived or visit often in the South which have special meaning to me. The coastal scenes reflect the Georgia/South Carolina coast or the Gulf in the Santa Rosa Beach area. The countryside pieces and pathways are inspired from when I lived in Franklin, Tenn. or visited North Carolina,” she said.

The painter’s preferred subject matter often revolves around hydrangeas. Her floral paintings exude a sense of serenity and harmony, drawing viewers into a world of lush foliage and vibrant colors.

The space between realism and abstract art

What sets Jackson’s work apart is her distinctive style which she describes as abstract impressionism — a delicate balance between realism and abstraction. Through loose brushstrokes, palette knife sgraffitos and a harmonious blend of colors, she captures nature in a way that resonates with viewers, inducing feelings of tranquility.

“It’s not abstract to the point where you can’t recognize what you’re looking at. I want people to still identify with it, but it’s looser than a realistic painting. It’s like a transitional in between,” Jackson explained.

Embracing blue-green

Her signature blue-green palette, inspired by her love for the color green, has become synonymous with her artwork, sought after by collectors and interior designers alike.

It’s helpful that it’s a popular color scheme in decorating. Working with several interior designers, Jackson stays abreast of trends. People moving to Lake Oconee often commission work from the artist. Her shades of green and blue are ideal for lake houses.

“I’m trying to work myself into other hues. I have to keep those colors off my palette, or I’ll gravitate back to them,” Jackson said. She plans to explore different colors in new paintings and collect customer feedback received by the shops carrying her work.

Super-size

Jackson paints large canvases (48”x48”) as requested by designers. Though she was once “scared to death” of them, the large-scale pieces allow her to immerse herself in the creative process, granting her the freedom to express herself with fluidity and spontaneity.

She often incorporates texture into her paintings using palette knives, sponges and even unconventional tools like sticks from the yard, adding depth and dimension to her compositions.

A growing presence

Despite the demands of maintaining inventory for shows, her website, multiple galleries and interior design shops across Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, as well as fulfilling commissions, Jackson remains dedicated to her craft. Her work ethic and perseverance have paid off, earning her recognition and admiration from art buffs and collectors.

Initially, it was challenging to get her artwork into stores. However, Jackson’s influence has grown in step with her social media presence. She’s paid her dues and today shops pursue her.

The artist is thankful to have built up her business. “I’m slowly trying to spread myself across the country,” Jackson revealed.

Although her daughters encourage her to take time off, Jackson finds it difficult. She’s in business for herself and feels the studio, just two doors away from the kitchen, calling.

A steady base of realtors keeps Jackson painting watercolor home portraits that they gift to their clients. They’re popular at Christmas, too.

As Jackson’s artistry continues to evolve, she remains grateful for the opportunity to share her passion with the world. With each painting she invites viewers to immerse themselves in the beauty of nature for a moment of respite from the chaos of everyday life.

Framing the narrative

The cost of framing large pieces is so prohibitive, Jackson paints the edges of gallery-wrapped canvases so they don’t require a frame. This leaves framing up to clients; some like gold, others want silver or wood. Many prefer to keep the paintings frameless.

Jackson does frame some of her smaller pieces (24”x24”, or 16”x20”). Usually, she uses modern floater frames. They’re not too expensive and they elevate the presentation of the work.

Her watercolor pieces are normally framed, but the artist also keeps some in a folder. People can purchase them loose and select frames to fit both their space and aesthetic.

Everything old is new again

Recently, Jackson has been exploring antique stores in search of old frames. There’s a treasure trove to be found with intricate designs and aged beauty. The artist has identified a growing appreciation for blending vintage elements with contemporary decor. She loves the thrill of the hunt!

Jackson repurposes the frames for special paintings that she thinks are fitting. Their ornate, almost gothic appearance reminiscent of a bygone era finds renewed admiration.

Other than applying a subtle wash to tone down excessively dark gold hues, the artist prefers to leave the frames untouched, allowing their original splendor to shine through. This endeavor has proven fruitful; her ornately framed pieces quickly find appreciative homes.

WAM

Preparing for art shows requires careful consideration. Jackson strives to offer a diverse selection of paintings in various sizes, styles and price points from $150 to $4,500, catering to the preferences of different patrons.

A mix of florals and landscapes — from small, intimate pieces to large, statement-making canvases — ensures there’s something for everyone.

The painter suggested a series of framed landscape paintings 20”x by 20” as a good idea for shows. Each one works as a standalone piece or can be configured in groupings. Instead of having to purchase one huge piece, people might get a few smaller ones to fit a space.

Jackson has been exhibiting at WAM since 2015, gaining a number of followers in the area. She appreciates the indoor luxuries and looks forward to client interactions.

“It has consistently been a good, well-attended show each year,” she said.

Find Jackson’s work

Those seeking to experience Jackson’s talent firsthand can find her work in galleries and design studios across the South. To inquire about purchasing a painting or commissioning a custom piece, visit her website at ejacksonart.com or follow her on Instagram @ejcolors.

Jackson’s artistic journey is a testament to the transformative power of creativity and the profound connection between artist and audience. Through her paintings, she invites us to pause and find solace in the timeless beauty of nature.

Purchase Jackson’s work in Georgia

WebbMarsteller in Peachtree Hills, Atlanta
Sunshine Village Art Gallery in Watkinsville
Dogwoods Home in Clayton
Ocmulgee Arts in Macon
Julep Gallery on St. Simons Island
Zeb Grant Design Home in Madison

Meagan Brooker

In her childhood days in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., Meagan Brooker longed to paint the sky and clouds on her bedroom ceiling. Her earliest memories include a yearning to express her creativity.

The little girl who once begged her mother for art supplies and classes was first encouraged to pursue her passion and develop her skills by a high school art teacher.

“I was doing a Georgia O’Keeffe replica in oil pastels. She walked up behind me and said, “Whoa, you’re really talented!” You always remember those who encourage you to do what you love,” Brooker stated.

Despite an early penchant for photography, Brooker’s family encouraged her to pursue pre-med studies at the University of Georgia. “Use your brain,” they told her. “You’re smart, make some money.”

But Brooker realized she didn’t want to study science for four years, much less practice medicine for the rest of her life. It simply didn’t interest her. Conversely, shifting to art second semester caused her to flourish, feel divinely inspired and never look back.

Nurturing creativity

While her mom was supportive, her dad would’ve likely continued to endorse a medical school path had he not passed away when she was in secondary school. She majored in Art Education at the University of Georgia.

Brooker transitioned to Wesleyan School after teaching elementary art in Gwinnett County for two years and participating in a year-long mission trip to Kentucky. During her second year at Wesleyan, she began working towards a Master of Studio Art degree at New York University.

Brooker has been a freelance artist for decades. She currently resides in Duluth. She’s been teaching high school art and witnessing the growth of Wesleyan’s visual arts program for 17 years.

From photography and ceramics to drawing and painting, Brooker loves working with and teaching about all types of art. Painting with a plenitude of textures and washes of color is her favorite.

Art teacher by day, artist by night

Once her young sons have gone to bed, Brooker can be found painting in her home studio surrounded by her work, an easel, tables and storage shelves.

The industrious working mom laments a lack of time. She craves longer stints in the studio to develop more robust work, both conceptually and physically.

For Brooker, painting is meditative self-care. It takes her away from the tasks of her daily life, fulfilling a need for self-expression and recreating the world around her. She derives satisfaction from depicting on canvas what she’s experienced while traveling.

Imagination takes flight

Brooker’s fascination with winged creatures began with seeing Raphael’s cupids when she was young. Later, she became enamored with birds on a wire and recently, she’s been painting birds and butterflies in flight. To the artist, they represent hope and resilience.

Her work is a pictorial ode to her father’s passing with spiritual undertones. Brooker finds flying animals and insects enchanting because they’re harbingers of something bigger than us. The artist believes there is more to this world than what we know and see.

Little loves

Wishing to spread beauty, calm and joy in the universe, Brooker creates artwork that reflects her personal experiences, wishes and dreams.

“When clients are moved by the same sentiment, it is a beautiful, spiritual connection,” she said.

The artist calls her 3”x3” and 6”x6” canvases “Little Loves.” Inspiration for these fast-selling pieces stems from a sentiment, quote or Bible verse featured on them.

Reflecting on the chosen words inspires the colors, textures and patterns the artist uses to represent them. Seeing clients emotionally drawn to her work warms Brooker’s heart. It tickles her to know that some pray and meditate with her tiny paintings before them on mini easels.

Brooker’s art

Brooker produces whimsical, textured and painterly acrylics on canvas ranging in size from 8”x8” to 46”x60”. Most of her canvases are 20”x30”. She works primarily with thicker acrylic paints, spellbound by the effects of experimenting with washes to create layers of unpredictable textures.

Palette knives are her tools of choice when creating texture with thick body Liquitex acrylic and Golden high flow acrylics. Intrigued by the unexpected, Brooker described her process.

“I cover every canvas with a layer of acrylic washes [water dotted with different colors of acrylic that bleed like watercolor and create a textural background] and however they land, color and texture-wise, I build from that as I’m inspired. I love that you don’t really know how it’s going to turn out at first,” she explained.

Robin’s egg blue, Payne’s gray (a dark blue-grey), golds, teals and some neutrals dominate Brooker’s palette. She’s drawn to abstraction because it’s harder than it looks, she said.

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” – David Mitchell

Traveling inspires Brooker’s landscapes. Working from pictures taken on her trips, she paints sceneries that captivated her, aiming to replicate their loveliness and the emotions she felt there.

“Italy is my heart,” she said, recalling her Cinque Terre series. She also painted an Ecuador series, enthralled by its mountains and verdant hills.

Wesleyan Artist Market

As an art teacher, Assistant Director of Fine Arts, Head of Visual Arts and a veteran exhibitor, Brooker has an insider’s perspective on the market. She sees how it comes together full circle.

She witnesses parents volunteering to put on this hugely successful event, giving generously of their time to the school. In turn, the faculty has more funds to better support students.

“It’s a beautiful testament to how much they care about the school and our mission. I’m very thankful,” she said.

Find Brooker’s paintings

Through her dedication to art education and her unwavering commitment to her craft, Brooker inspires others to embrace their creativity.

To view and purchase Brooker’s work, find her on Instagram @meaganbrookerfineart.

Learn more about Meagan Brooker in this episode of the Peachtree Corners Life podcast.

Wesleyan Artist Market 2024: Meagan Brooker

Arts & Literature

Wesleyan Artist Market 2024: Meagan Brooker

Published

3 weeks ago

March 28, 2024

Peachtree Corners Magazine staff

The Wesleyan Artist Market takes place in Peachtree Corners on April 26-27, 2024

Listeners are taken on a journey into the colorful art world through the eyes of high school art teacher Meagan Brooker. With 17 years of experience at Wesleyan School in Peachtree Corners, Brooker shares her passion for creativity, sharing how art has become a form of therapy and a source of inspiration in her life. From discussing her artistic process and inspiration to highlighting the importance of art for mental well-being, Brooker’s infectious enthusiasm for art will captivate and inspire listeners of all backgrounds. Brooker’s art will be displayed at the Wesleyan Artist Market 2024, April 26-27.

Tune in to discover the transformative power of creativity and art in this enlightening and uplifting Peachtree Corners Life Podcast episode.

Timestamp:

00:00:00 – Introduction of Artist Meagan Brooker
00:01:32 – Teaching Art at Wesleyan School
00:04:00 – From Science to Art: Following My Creative Passion
00:08:42 – Balancing Creativity and Exhaustion
00:10:18 – Painting as Meditation and Process
00:13:53 – Tuscany Landscapes to Inspire Artists
00:17:29 – Finding Inspiration in the Unexpected
00:20:32 – The Healing Power of Art in Challenging Times
00:23:16 – The Pros and Cons of Social Media for Artists
00:25:49 – Embracing Digital Art Tools and AI in the Creative Process
00:29:08 – Exploring AI’s Role in the Creative Process
00:31:23 – Closing

Podcast Transcript

Rico Figliolini 0:00:00

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. This year, this month, today we’re doing an interview with an artist that’s going to be at the Wesleyan Artist Market, Meagan Brooker. So let’s say hi to Meagan. Hey, Meagan.

Meagan Brooker 0:00:13

Hello.

Rico Figliolini 0:00:14

Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it. Thank you for being with us. Before we actually get into all of this, I just want to say thank you to our sponsor, EV Remodeling, Inc. They do a great job when it comes to remodeling, design and build, start from scratch up. Eli, him and his family live here in Peachtree Corners, does a great job. Lots of people know them. Anything from your bathrooms and kitchens to your whole house almost. So check them out at evremodelinginc.com. We appreciate the support of these podcasts. So now let’s get right into it because we’ve done this, I just did this interview a little while, a few weeks ago with two student artists that are going to be featured at Wesleyan Artist Market. Their stream is actually going to happen Wednesday. For Meagan and I to know you all that are listening won’t know which Wednesday that is, but it’s going to be on a Wednesday. Actually, before we go to press with the next issue of Peachtree Corners Life magazine, which has three profiles, including Meagan, of the Wesleyan artists, three of the artists that are going to be there. So this is a compliment to that. We’re going to be talking a bit about art and what inspires Meagan. So let’s get right into it. Meagan, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe how you started at Wesleyan.

Meagan Brooker 0:01:36

Yeah. So I teach at Wesleyan school. I teach high school art. I teach all levels of AP photography, and I’ve been there for 17 years, which makes me feel very old.

Rico Figliolini 0:01:51

You’re not, though. You look fine.

Meagan Brooker 0:01:54

Thank you. So I went to the University of Georgia and went after getting my degree in undergrad of art education. I taught elementary art in Gwinnett county for two years. And then I did missions work for a year, actually, and was looking for a high school job because I thought the idea of the challenge of high school would be really interesting. And, yeah, I just love my job and I love Wesleyan. And I’m very grateful to be there because obviously I’ve been there for 17 years.

Rico Figliolini 0:02:29

Yes, it’s a great school. Wesleyan school is in the city of Peachtree Corners, and they do a fantastic job and they’re growing. I mean, they’re in the middle of actually a building project right now for their STEM building. So lots going on at Wesleyan. This is just one facet of what they do. So you’ve been there 17 years and you’re teaching high school students, I believe the high school, the upper level class. Upper school, yes. In particular, what are you teaching at this point? What subject or mediums are you working in?

Meagan Brooker 0:03:01

So currently I’m teaching all levels of 2d art. So drawing, painting, mixed media, anything that’s 2d from foundations all the way up to AP, the AP level, which is kind of college credit courses. And that includes AP photography. Previously I taught photography and way back in the day I used to teach 3d as well. But I love now that I get to specialize in two d. And then we have amazing teachers who teach focus on photography and focus on 3d. So we have a great team.

Rico Figliolini 0:03:33

Excellent. Cool. Let me ask you something, because as we grow up, as we’re young and we’re getting into school and we’re in elementary and middle school, we start discovering ourselves a little bit, right? We start discovering what we like, what we don’t like and stuff. Of course, people around us, including parents, may sometimes tell us what we should like and we shouldn’t like or what we should become. I know that you inspired early on to be an artist, to go down that route. Well, maybe not to be an artist, but to go down the route of the arts versus the science. So tell us, what inspired you? At which point did you decide you wanted to be creative versus being, let’s say, a doctor or something?

Meagan Brooker 0:04:17

Yeah. Well, that’s interesting, actually. I tell all my students, like, follow your innate gut and what fulfills you and stirs you up and makes you want to do more. I, from a very young age, was always wanting to paint, create, take classes, paint my ceiling in my bedroom, even though my mom wouldn’t let me paint furniture. I was always wanting to create or create my own space or do something creative. I had a very fast working creative brain and I came from a small county up in north Georgia, and there weren’t many opportunities in the arts. So in high school I had a great art teacher who was the first one who looked at my work and said, you know, you’re really talented. And I was, you know, so I got that encouragement and that fed in, which made me want to work harder. It made me want to do more and try more and get better. So I actually went to college and started in premed because I had good grades and was smart and my family was like, you, listen, go make some money. Don’t become a teacher.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:27

Not good money there.

Meagan Brooker 0:05:30

So I started off in premed and I just was bored to tears. And it was not life giving anyway. So I decided to switch to art and have never looked back ever since then. My family sometimes wishes I might have, but they see how life giving it is for me now and how innate it is and how much I’m able to do with the creativity. So it’s come around.

Rico Figliolini 0:05:56

So you’ve never really looked back and said, maybe I should put my brushes away and do something else.

Meagan Brooker 0:06:02

No, it’s too natural. I have too much of the creative and too much to put out there to stop. I’m not really that great at anything else either. Have too much fun with it to stop now.

Rico Figliolini 0:06:18

Right? Okay. And I can appreciate that. My parents wanted me to be an accountant, hated numbers, could never do that. And just not for me. My brain didn’t work on that side for that. But teaching art, this is one of the things I learned from my youngest, right? He says to me, I asked him, I said, what do you want to be? He says, I’d love to be a writer. I want to write. I want to write novels and stuff. So he’s creative, but he doesn’t want a job, that he has to write a lot during the day, because then all his creativity is gone by the end of the day. So how do you work that? How do you balance. It’s a life balance, right? Work life. How do you balance that creativity with the work that you do all day long with other kids? How do you do that?

Meagan Brooker 0:07:05

Honestly, that is probably the toughest part of my job. And I have two young boys, so that to complicate the.

Rico Figliolini 0:07:14

How old resources.

Meagan Brooker 0:07:18

One’S twelve, he’s in fifth grade and one is eight. And they go to Wesleyan with me, which is also a huge blessing. When I started off in art education and I got into the courses and started doing the practicum teaching, I loved being able to impart the knowledge of creativity and the natural working of all of the brain work that working with your hands does in every way. And it’s not about teaching methodology to me, as much as it is like pulling out this natural creativity. And I was always fascinated with art therapy. I considered studying that, but I think art is very much a natural therapy. And there’s so many studies about how when we’re working with our hands, how our brains calm down, they can think better. They’re clearly so. Even just a 30 minutes break in the middle of the day or an hour break to work with your hands and not have to just use a different part of your brain is so good for anybody. You think about how it works with four year olds. It’s the same with 80 year olds. Being able to use my creativity during the day, it is exhausting because I feel like being asked 20 questions every five minutes. I do come home depleted, but at night, when the boys go down, when I can, I will go down and just let it all out on canvas. I will say, currently, my work is not the most conceptual. It’s more reactive, but it’s kind of more guttural and things that I. It’s emotional in a way of things that I’m reacting to in my current life. And I feel like most artists do that. It’s like where you are, your work is breathing out of where you are.

Rico Figliolini 0:09:17

I think that makes sense, right? Because inspiration is in the moment when you’re doing these things. It’s not like most artists plan these things out. Sometimes you may have in your head, but you’re working in the medium you’re working in. It could appear different, and you’re trying to rough it and do different piece from it. When you are like that, when you have to be in your space, if you will. I know writers, for example, will write with the door closed, if you will, and they know that pages and chapters will go away at some point because they’re just getting into that space. Do you find yourself doing that with art? How’s the process? Do you sketch first and then go to the medium that you choose for it in the paper or the surface that you want to put it on? How do you do that part?

Meagan Brooker 0:10:04

That’s a really good question. I love sketching and planning in my current stage, just don’t have that much time. So I tend to work out my process as part of the process and build up my layers and build it up until it’s a complete being. So the art is very much a process as opposed to being a super planned, which is my personality, more free spirited by nature. And so sometimes I will write verses or quotes or things that are on my mind kind of in the canvas as I’m going as a meditation. And then I’ll build the color, texture, and design up as part of that meditation of whatever is on my heart at the time. And the art will kind of come out of that longing or prayer or moment that I’m having there. I do small ones that are, I call them little loves, but they’re all based off of an attribute or a thought, like prayer, contentment, love. That they’re kind of prayed over in a way.

Rico Figliolini 0:11:21

I know there’s one behind you, but I put one of your pieces on the feed right now. Tell us a little bit about that one.

Meagan Brooker 0:11:29

This one. If I had a gallery show, which I hope to one day, I would call it something like an affinity for winged things. I’ve always had loved angels. I love birds, butterflies. There’s something about them that represents such hope and freedom. And so the past few years, I’ve done quite a few butterflies. And so the one on the screen here, I love the color tone in it, but I recently started adding in kind of a duo tone background with the gold and white. That almost represents a duality of. It. Kind of brings in a contrast of emotion, if you will.

Rico Figliolini 0:12:11

I see two different color spaces. A border, ragged border. Same way with. I see this. Right. This is another piece that you’ve done. Same type of ridging, same type of look. Duality. Two different worlds, two places. What were you doing here in this one?

Meagan Brooker 0:12:33

Yeah. Similar to this one here behind me. I feel like there’s always a tension in our humanity of light and dark. Right. There’s a tension we’re pulled between right and wrong, light and dark, hope and failure, or anything that could pull us down easily if we don’t pull toward the light. So when combining these hopeful creatures like birds and butterflies, with that tension, to me, it’s this representative of choosing the hope, choosing freedom, choosing to do what you can do, to move yourself to a higher purpose and to truth and to light and to all the things that God offers us in this life. So it’s just kind of representing like, yes, sometimes life’s really hard, but there is hope.

Rico Figliolini 0:13:29

Let’s go to something a little different that you shared with us. This one, it’s a bit different than the other two. Can you tell us a little bit about this one?

Meagan Brooker 0:13:39

Yeah. This one was inspired by, actually, Tuscany and the green hills of Tuscany. I love traveling. I love Italy, especially has my heart. I’m actually taking a group of the high schoolers to France this summer, and I’ve not been this part of France, so I’m excited about that. But I often will recreate images or know certain landscapes of pictures that I take when I’m traveling. Not all overseas, some here, and recreate them. And so this is kind of representing, loosely, the villas that you’ll see dotted all over the hillscape. The landscape of. And Tuscany is dotted with farmland everywhere. And these are just hilly wineries and orchards.

Rico Figliolini 0:14:29

So this was done in acrylic? Correct. And you chose that over. Do you work mostly in acrylic now, or do you work in.

Meagan Brooker 0:14:38

I love oil, love watercolor. I love mixed media. For artist market, I choose to do acrylic in the same vein. And I hope that you don’t hear this as an excuse is more. It’s just a stage of life where it’s quicker. The acrylic, I’m able to move quickly and work quicker and layer in it and get the effect, because I don’t necessarily have time to sit and make 30 oils in this stage of life. So acrylic offers me the ability to work a little quicker in it.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:10

Okay. And this particular piece, I mean, they’re all relatively big pieces too, right? Like 30 x 30 or something along those lines.

Meagan Brooker 0:15:17

That one’s huge. That one is, I believe it was 40 x 60. It’s about the size of this one behind me. And a friend bought it for their piano room in their house. So it looks really good on that big wall.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:29

Nice. When people do buy your stuff, do you recommend certain framings for your pictures, or you let them do their own thing?

Meagan Brooker 0:15:37

Usually they have something in mind that fits their aesthetic, but I love float. Personally, I think float frames look so good.

Rico Figliolini 0:15:46

So when people buy your paintings like this, I’ve asked this of other artists, how do you feel about it? You’ve done it. It’s not like it’s the 30th piece that you’ve done of the same exact thing. So you’ve spent your time doing it, and it’s leaving you. It’s almost like a baby. It’s going away. It’s going to be in someone’s house. How do you feel about that?

Meagan Brooker 0:16:09

This new series with the duality are some of my favorite new ones. And to see one of my favorite parts of doing work for clients, when people are choosing work, like at artist markets as opposed to galleries or collected and stuff like that, is seeing people’s reaction to it and why they choose it. That is such a precious moment, because I think every artist, or most artists at least, pour so much of themselves into it. And to your point, some of them have trouble letting go of it because they become precious. But when they stop in their tracks and have a visceral moment of like, oh, my mom just died, and she loves birds, and that’s her favorite color, and they’ll just start, my goodness, there are tactile things that they will hold on to that become meaning to them, that may not be the eye assigned to it, but it doesn’t matter. That’s what the beauty of art is. The expression of the color, the movement, the feeling, and the hope that people will hold on to.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:16

Wow. Yeah. I can’t imagine that feeling. I’m not an artist, so I can’t imagine that. I’m a graphic designer, but not an artist, so I don’t know how that feels. I do know how it feels to put together a magazine and send it to the printer and then have it come back in a palette of, like, 10,000 copies or something. I don’t know how that feels.

Meagan Brooker 0:17:39

That’s a relief, is what that’s called.

Rico Figliolini 0:17:42

Yes. In fact, I have two deadlines this week, so it’s going to be a relief when this week is done. Yeah, it’s just one of those crazy weeks, actually. So we talked about keeping fresh and continuing to evolve. Well, actually, we didn’t talk about evolving as an artist. You touched upon it a little bit. But how do you do travel? You do find, like you said, Tuscany was a great, beautiful landscape to be inspired by. You can’t go wrong with Tuscany. Right? Do you find inspirations in some of the simpler things in life or places that you didn’t even think inspiration would come from, or moments? Does any of that happen sometimes?

Meagan Brooker 0:18:23

Yeah. Sometimes I think back to COVID, and we were so limited, and I’m a mover and a shaker. I don’t sit still well to a fault. And so having to sit still kind of shook me. But I found myself grabbing my camera and going out in the beautiful spring light and catching these abstracted flowers that were blooming across the street and the way that the light hit them or life, noticing trees in our yard that were blooming. And I hadn’t noticed how beautiful they were at the time. Things that I hadn’t stopped long enough to appreciate. And, of course, the beauty of my children and their just innocence at their ages. And so just taking time to stop that makes me want to highlight the beauty of life as opposed to the hardship. Because anytime we can have a moment, and if my art is a moment to stop and be like, okay, let me just take a beat and find some hope and find a little moment of truth and hope in our day.

Rico Figliolini 0:19:33

Okay. COVID was an interesting period. Right? It was a bad time for many families, but it was also, in some ways, a good moment in time because things stopped. We were forced to stop what we were doing. So it was so bad at one point that if you remember the supply chain issues, ships stopped delivering, and in fact, the sea woke up more. The creatures in the sea, the whales, things were happening, air was a little cleaner. It was just different time. Right. So I can see that quiet. But you’re basically forced into doing things that we weren’t. We were forced to stop doing what we’re doing. The inspiration, I guess, can be found in many places. You’re teaching lots of kids through the years, 17 years of teaching at Wesleyan. I’m sure there’s been talented, very talented kids across that time frame. Is there any story, inspirational time, particular student or group of students or class that you felt was a moment that you want to remember? Maybe that inspired you, maybe that inspired other kids. Maybe there was something going on at that moment, or maybe even creativity out of students that you didn’t think would be creative because maybe art wasn’t their thing.

Meagan Brooker 0:20:54

Well, for one thing, that just because we came out of the conversation of just talking about COVID is how important art was to the ones who had it during that time. Teaching hybrid was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And when we were, like, on camera and trying to teach art from home and all of that. But I have multiple stories of students who. Art was their lifeline at the time, because whether home was not safe for them or whether they just needed to be out and be social or whatever it was, art was their way of their identity, of finding some way of expression that pulled them out of the anxiety, the mire, the scariness, the loneliness of the time, and a way to express themselves and kind of think outside of themselves. When you’re so glued to your phone or your computer trying to do a thing, art pulled them back out. So that was a beautiful thing and a testament to the purpose, I think, of our dedication, and I think what comes to mind, and I’ll shout out to my current AP art class, who are just, they’re so much fun, and we’re actually having our art show next week, so I’m excited about that. And they’re so creative. But I think that in this culture of, again, what we’re seeing post COVID is a lot more anxiety, a lot more pressure, a lot more peer pressure. The social media is out of control, and culture has a lot of expectations. And I think that what is beautiful is seeing the kids respond to these pressures through their art and subverting them with truth and with showing their own personality and identity in a way that they wouldn’t in social media. So their own personality and their truth is coming out. So they’re becoming more confident through their expression of art in a way that they wouldn’t without it. Right. So it’s like, oh, I am good at something.

Rico Figliolini 0:23:01

Right? No, I get where you’re going. You’re right. I could see that. But I can also see social media is good and bad. Right? Instagram, TikTok. I mean, there’s different various levels. If you allow yourself to scroll for 30 minutes, you’re losing a bit of your life. Maybe. But there are artists out there that actually share online also, and they use that medium to be able to share their art, whether it’s ceramics they’re doing or whether it’s actually watching them create something in the moment. Yeah, because that’s TikTok. I mean, does that. Right. Instagram, to a lesser degree, I think. But you could be watching an artist, a street artist, or just an artist in a studio painting, sketching the whole process for an hour or two, which is kind of interesting, right? Because you get to see the creative process. Most people don’t see that. They see the finished piece. They don’t know what Meagan Brooker to make that piece or what. Brie Hill, who was one of the students I interviewed, what it took her to make a painting and what she invested in that painting. Or Esther Cooper, who’s the other student I interviewed who does creative pastries. Right. That’s a whole different long. There’s no longevity to that. It expires at some point, you either eat it or it goes bad, but in the moment, it’s a good looking piece, maybe. Right. Talking about 3d art. More than that. Right. The scent of it and stuff. So I could see how social media can be helpful in some ways with some students.

Meagan Brooker 0:24:33

Yeah. I think with social media, we have so much at our fingertips now we can appreciate art in a whole new way, because, like you said, you can see the process. You can understand it more, but it also makes you want to try more. And there’s always going to be cynics. There are going to be people who will try to poke a hole in it. But I think we will be students until we die. I think that’s part of the creative part of teaching. Like, we always have more to learn. And so that’s what’s so fun about social media, is being able to go on and try something new or to see new work, because we’re to be inspired by something outside of us which broadens our perspective and opens our worldview a little bit.

Rico Figliolini 0:25:22

Yeah. Now, just to stick with technology a little bit, because there are students that use Photoshop, procreate, other digital products and software where you can create online in layers, brushes. We create your own brush palette, if you will. Do you delve into any of that? Do you see students using that as part of the process of what they’re doing? Are they using it even to pre plan a physical, tactile piece of art? What’s the final piece?

Meagan Brooker 0:25:59

It’s such a big question right now in the art world, and my co worker Drew Phillips has actually done a lot of research and given some talks on this. I currently do not teach any AI in what I am teaching, but I see the value of. Well, also I will say there’s inherent AI almost in everything now, like in my AP photography, and know there’s always the option of generative fill. But AP doesn’t allow any type of AI, but I think the use of it for know. So speaking of Rehill, she’s one of my students. She’s amazing. She just did with a girl being lifted up by doves with a sheet and ropes. That’s hard to take a picture of. She just finished it yesterday and it’s stunning. So maybe we can do a recap and show the finished piece. Not yesterday, today, but it’s hard to take a reference picture for that, to get her full concept in there. And we made it happen. But you could put that kind of prompt into AI and have it kind of create a reference for you, but then you are drawing it. So there’s a lot of debate about that and the crossover of what’s allowed. And, but, and there’s a lot of people who think that AI is going to take over a lot of jobs. But I’ll tell you, and this is coming from conversations with people who are working with Microsoft, AI creatives will never be out of a job because AI needs creatives to be able to create the prompts to do the job. And so the people who can think outside of the box and creatives, there will always be a place for us.

Rico Figliolini 0:27:45

Yeah, there’s so many forms of AI too, right? There’s language based, generative, there’s very various levels of AI. So you’re right though, because you need to be able to, I’ve played in it a little bit as far as writing and stuff like that, and even dolly and some of the visual elements and even a different form of sora, which is more video based. Right. And it’s not everything that people make it out to be. It takes the process of doing it almost, like you said, in some ways you have to be an artist to be able to pull out from that anything artistic that makes sense. Yeah. So it’s not as easy as people think. I get that question sometimes. Can’t you just do this in Photoshop? AI is in there. It’s like, no, you can’t just do that. You have to really think about what you’re doing here. It’s never going to look like what know, you could go into AI and you could go chat GPT and Dolly and tell it what you want and say, good, close, you got to where I need it. Add this and this, but don’t remove that and it’ll give you something completely different. So I know the prompts might be a little, you have to work the prompts the right way and stuff, but yeah, AI is a good tool to derive inspiration from. I think I agree with you there. You’re going to need creative people still, but I’m sure that’s still within the next five years that probably will be part of being taught in the creative process. Right. How to use AI as an intern or apprentice, if you will, for yourself in some ways. So you’re going to be at the wesleyan artist market. You’re going to be showcasing some of your work. I’m assuming some of the work that I showed, that we showed may be there. What type of work will you be actually showing at the show?

Meagan Brooker 0:29:33

Yeah, I’m doing some more of the, like what we were talking about with the dual duality and kind of playing around with that more, trying out some new subjects and content, but mostly that. But I want to try out some landscapes and build in some more looser sunset sunrises along with the birds and butterflies and see what I can turn out there.

Rico Figliolini 0:29:59

Cool. Anything you want to share with us that we haven’t touched base, I really.

Meagan Brooker 0:30:06

If you haven’t been out to the artist market, I highly recommend it. Okay, again, I’ve been at Wesleyan for 17 years, and I’ve been displaying at the artist market for 17 years. And believe me, I’ve grown a lot. I would be embarrassed to show you what I sold the first few years. I think my first year was actually, I taught ceramics, and so I did some ceramics, but I’ve grown a lot. But the funds of the market come back to the students. So it funds the fine arts and so the marching band, the visual arts, the theater, and so it comes back to the students there at Wesleyan. But beyond that, it is such a high level event put on by volunteers from the school, which is almost hard to believe because it’s such a professional looking event and it’s indoors. It’s one of my favorite things that we do throughout the year and I’m so grateful for those who put it on. So come out to see us. It’s a really fun event for the family.

Rico Figliolini 0:31:10

It’s going to be April 26 through the 27th, so that Friday, Saturday, and if you want to find out about it, it’s Wesleyan artist market. Just google that and I’ll show right up. Do you want to leave a last maybe word for any aspiring artists or educators? Anything you want to leave advice for them before we end the show?

Meagan Brooker 0:31:32

Yeah, I think if you feel like the need to create, whether that be writing, singing, writing out songs, it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it. The act of creating is fulfilling and there’s a reason that you are stirred to do it. And I think personally, I think that’s God working in you to bring you to a higher light and a higher purpose. And so just do your thing. It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks, as long as it’s for you and for him or for whoever else you want to see it. Just let your light shine.

Rico Figliolini 0:32:03

Cool. We’ve been talking to Meagan Brooker. She’s a 17 year veteran teacher at Wesleyan school, teaching high school kids about art, and she’s going to be showing at the Wesleyan Artist Market. So stay with me for a second, Meagan. I want to just say thank you to our sponsor, EV Remodeling, Inc. Does a great job design, build home remodeling, kitchen, bathrooms, everywhere that you can think of. Eli and his family live here in Peachtree Corners. They’re just wonderful people. You should check them out. Evremodelinginc.com. So check those out and thank you, Meagan. I appreciate you being with us.

Meagan Brooker 0:32:38 Yeah, my pleasure.