Most people are usually a bit confused when they look at Belgian artist René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images for the first time. The painting is of a simple smoking pipe with the phrase “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (”This is not a pipe”) written below it. Magritte, who was a 20th Century surrealist, was making a philosophical case that the painting is not really a pipe, but the image of a pipe. And if one were to delve into the the etymology of the word “image” and further investigate Magritte’s epistemological claim, then it could be that the statement is, at the very least, semantically true. But what if Magritte merely failed in capturing the true essence of the pipe? What if he was incapable of conveying the details of the real pipe into his painting? Undoubtedly, there are plenty of artists who can paint a pipe––but to do so in a fashion that would literally bring the pipe to life is what ultimately separates the wheat from its proverbial chaff.

Margot Bloom is an artist who has spent nearly her whole life bringing images to life through the beauty of watercolor. But Bloom takes it one step further by undergoing the arduous task of capturing human life and reproducing it over a blank canvas. Her keen eye and masterful use of light and color are key attributes in producing her mesmerizing water color portraits. Bloom is an avid painter and currently teaches art to children at KidsArt in Chino Hills, CA. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with her and talk to her about her artwork and how teaching has made her a better artist.

Ben Millikan (BM): According to your website, you began painting early on as a child. How old were you and who or what inspired you to pick up a paint brush?
Margot Bloom (MB): My mother. She painted and was always very artistic. She always colored with me and painted with me as a kid and encouraged me to be artistic. It’s funny because then I had a daughter and I painted with her and it’s like we continued that cycle of mother-daugher painting.

BM: Being mostly self-taught, was there a particular point in your life when you realized that you wanted to be an artist?
MB: All though school I always leaned that direction. But I think it really clicked more as an adult. I use to go to my kid’s elementary school and approach their teachers and ask if they had any open class time for me to teach art to the kids. I had painted a mural in the school and had done a portrait of the principal so they knew I could paint and they would give me their free period to teach art classes. That’s when I sort of started to think that I could do this art thing for a living.

BM: What medium or mediums do you work with?
MB: I teach all mediums: acrylics, oils, pastels. I can do all of it and I have to be able to do all of it for when I teach. But I’m comfortable in water color which is a little unusual, because watercolor is backwards from all the other art mediums. With watercolor you have to think backwards and you have to go light to dark. I don’t know if I’m backwards, but the first time I took a watercolor class it was so easy for me. It’s always been my paint of choice.

BM: Your portraits are incredibly captivating. What are you attempting to convey to the viewer when you sit down and begin to paint?
MB: Well, I work from photographs because most of the time my portraits are children and children will never sit still long enough for me to paint them. I always tell parents to get a picture that you look at and say, “That’s my baby!” and you see the light in their eyes and you feel their life just oozing out of them in that picture. That’s what I want to give to that parent: that moment in time, that second when they look at their kid and say, “Oh my gosh, remember that!” The emotional connection is really what I’m trying to get.

BM: Is there a certain trick in attaining that life-like quality that leaps off the canvas?
MB: I spend so much time on their eyes. I sit and work with a magnifying glass and look at every little fleck in their eye and try to duplicate it. And I put every single freckle on that kid and I map it out. A parent looks at their child every single day and they know where their kid’s freckles are because that’s their baby. So if they are gonna look at that painting then I want them to feel that same joy as when they look at their kid.

BM: Do you have a particular painting that is your favorite?
MB: There’s one that sticks out in my head: it’s a picture of Jed, who was a friend of my son’s in elementary school, and he’s eating spaghetti. I really like that one. I’m proud of that one because painting reflections on chrome things is really hard work.

BM: Who are some of artists who have influence your style?
MB: I like Steve Hanks. He is a modern day water colorist. Amazing work! (Laughs) I aspire to be Steve Hanks. And I’ve always loved the masters: Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Michelangelo. But Steve Hanks in my favorite. I just love his work.

BM: They say that the best way to know you’ve learned something is to teach it. How have you grown as an artist as a result from being an art teacher?
MB: The teacher thing has sort of structured me a bit more. It really made me hone in on the craft more because I obviously need to know what I’m doing in order to teach people. It’s made me focus more on my painting and working at Kids Art has focused me more as an artist. I love showing people how to do what I do and I love having students who just want to take it all in. I love the kids and I love being around them.

BM: You were also doing the books for your art school as the manger of KidsArt. What’s the biggest difference between the business side of art and art itself?
MB: A lot of artists are a little scatterbrained because that right side of your brain is not a logical side. I’m always thinking “creative! creative!” and my house will be a disaster. Running a business has made me focus more and teaching has been a great thing. It’s really hard because business is not art. I would put on that manager hat during the day and do all of the bookkeeping and all of the management of the classes and then at 3:00 take that off and put on my teacher hat and switch to the other side of my brain. But I really just wanted to teach and be an artist and stay in the right side of my head. That’s where my comfort zone is.

BM: We now live in such a digital age where a vast majority of artwork can done on a computer. Does hand-painted artwork still have a place in society? What is its importance?
MB: I think it totally does. Hand-painted paintings are history. If you look at museums they are filled with them. And it’s a gift from God. I think that a hand-painted painting is really the core of everything. In order to be able to do those things on a computer you have to have skills and you had to learn those skills manually. It’s the basis of everything––it’s like the bones in your body. And it’s funny because a lot of artists who do digital artwork say that you lose that feeling, that touch of feeling, holding the brush and touching it to the canvas. I’m not very gifted technologically, so I will always be a person who does hand paintings!

BM: A hundred years from now, when someone looks back on all of your work, what do you think will the defining characteristic of your art?
MB: Wow, that’s a deep one. (Laughs) I hope that they say: “She really loved those people and you could tell that she loved what she was doing.” And I hope they say, “Wow, she was really skilled!”

BM: What inspires you to continue painting today?
MB: Every time Iook into someone’s eyes I feel inspired to paint them. I feel my ability to paint is a gift from God and I feel closer to him when I paint.

>Written by d/visible contributor Ben Millikan.

All images are courtesy of Margot Bloom. All rights are reserved. Copyright 2010.
Please visit her website at: www.bloomportraits.com for more information.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 7:05 pm and is filed under In-depth, Interview, Art & Design, Community, Watercolor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.