Mark Mehaffey, a watercolor painter, participated in Hillsdale College’s Professional Artists Series this month. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors at Michigan State University, Mehaffey taught art in the Lansing Public School System for nearly thirty years. He has won numerous awards for his paintings, including the Silver Medal of Honor at the 146th Annual International American Watercolor Society Exhibition and the Skyledge Award from the Transparent Watercolor Society of America.
Q: When did you first start to get serious about art?
A: When I was ten years old. I had one of those flash experiences when I was in the fourth grade. I went to a friend’s house and his father was an artist, and his watercolor paintings were laying out, his sketchbooks, and I guess I just sort of knew right then and there that that’s what I wanted to do. So the same fourth grade teacher let me paint with a set of watercolors all day, and I never quit.
Q: Do you have a favorite artist?
A: Do you mean historical, or contemporary? I have so many favorites it would be difficult to list them. And a lot of my friends are artists, contemporary artists also, so I’m gonna say the same thing, that once you started that list it would be a huge, long, long list.
Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?
A: I absolutely do. Work your ass off. Seriously. There’s a lot of people that are very, very talented that end up never doing very well because they don’t work hard enough, and there’s a lot of other people out there that probably aren’t the most talented in the world, but they’re highly motivated and they work really, really hard, and those are the people you hear about. So if you really want to get ahead, just like anything else, you need to really work hard.
Q: Is there any one moment that stands in your mind out in terms of your career?
A: Besides that fourth grade? I’ve seen, you know, lots of shining moments. I guess I always have painted, and I was a high school and middle school and elementary school art teacher for thirty years, and there were a lot of teaching moments that stood out. I had a lot of good students, and quite a few of those have stayed in touch over the years, and have said how much they appreciate what I did, but concurrent with that, I was always painting, almost like two full time careers, teaching and painting, and over the years there’ve been a lot of highlights, but not really one I can put my finger on.
Q: How would you describe your style as an artist?
A: It ranges from contemporary realism — and what I mean by that is realism sort of created through my internalization of the real world: it’s my vision, that I don’t try to reproduce what I see. I try to make the best painting possible based on what I see, and my work ranges from that kind of realism to totally non-objective work that’s all internally motivated, based on the elements and principles of design. So I have a wide, broad, range of work that I do and a wide, broad range of work that I appreciate.
Q: What else do you do other than art? Do you have any other interests or hobbies?
A: At the moment, I am driving up north to go ice fishing for two or three days. So, I’ve actually been fishing longer than I’ve been painting. I started fishing when I was five, and started painting when I was ten, but I’ve kept up with both activities. So one must have balance in one’s life, it can’t always be work. My studio is in my house, and I go to work every day, usually between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m., and most days work a six to twelve hour day. Sometimes I’ll take the weekends off, sometimes I won’t, but you can’t work all the time. So, you have to have balance, you have to have some other part. Fishing is one of the ways I have that other part. I like to play a little golf, but that can be a little frustrating if you don’t play often.
Q: Do you have a favorite piece of work that you’ve made?
A: So, the painting that I look forward to the most is the next one, do you know what I mean? As soon as I get an idea for a painting, and I do that painting, I do the best job I can do with that painting, but then I let it go. And I look forward to the next painting; the next painting is the most important painting, not the previous one, not the one I did last year, not the one I did five years ago, that may or may not have won all kinds of big awards, because that’s all in the past. It is the future that I look forward to, the next painting. That’s what keeps me in the studio every day.
Q: So, it’s more about the process?
A: Yeah, absolutely, almost entirely about the process. It’s not that I totally disregard the end product, the painting, I try to do the best with every single painting that I do, but it’s like golf — if you worry about shooting power all the time, you’re gonna not have as much fun. So I play zen golf: see the ball, hit the ball, go find the ball, hit it again! And that’s a whole lot more fun than worrying about shooting power all the time. Same thing with painting for me. I enjoy the process, and don’t worry about the end result so much. Otherwise fear enters into the equation, and that’s not a good thing.