Maggie Sutrov:  It’s wonderful to be here. I think well, living here has so much to do for my art for me. I grew up here on the island {of Maui} and went to college in Canada and all my art was still about Maui, so I ended up coming back here. I was planning on taking off again, but things sort of came together here. My art has, for the most of the time primarily been plane air painting, painting on site around the island.

Rose Deniz:  So great, tell me a little bit more about what kind of art you have done and what you’re doing now?

Maggie Sutrov: Well, I fell in love as a teenager with oil painting and started driving around the island basically as soon as I had my driver’s license and painting these places in very much sort of an impressionist-expressionist sort of style, responding to the energy and the colors. I love color. After college, when I cam back to Maui, I opened my own art gallery, my boyfriend and I.

And {we are} building our own projects, which some have been ongoing and some are very much still in the beginning stages, but very much around the idea and feeling of us all being artists. Expressions through all the arts being such an integral part of the human experience and…

Rose Deniz:  So…

Rose Deniz:  {What about the idea that} everyone can be an artist? That  really interests me and it sounds like it’s infused your work in a lot of ways and the kind of new directions that you’re talking about taking. So how do you see everyone being an artist?

Maggie Sutrov:  Well I think there’s a couple of ways in which that applies. First of all, you talk to any five-year-old, they know they’re an artist. They know they can dance. They’ll draw you a picture right then and there. It’s in us all and it’s been in all of us since human beings first started gathering together and telling stories and first started drawing on cave walls. It goes back 30,000 years, 40,000 years that date remnants of drawings in Australia.

Rose Deniz:  Right. Some sort of value.

Maggie Sutrov:  Yeah exactly. So that’s the role of the artists in the community, I think whatever your job, whatever your career is has become something that people are starting to see as necessary. It’s not just the fine artist, the painter, or the sculptor, or the classical musician, or whatever, it’s…

Rose Deniz:  That’s what I was also curious about…

Maggie Sutrov:  We are all artists.

Rose Deniz:  Do you distinguish between artists with a capital A and artists? When you described the artist as being sort of something that’s natural and intuitive to everybody, we were talking about story (or you mentioned story).

Maggie Sutrov:  Between an artist with a capital A, and then basically anyone who is expressing themselves, I think sometimes I do but mostly that’s in terms of how we are operating within the society.

Going and seeing a symphony or seeing an opera, going to the art museum, {people are} partaking in the human experience because these traditions have been there but people…

Rose Deniz:  Yes.

Maggie Sutrov:  …seeing themselves as separate from that I think is something that needs to {lessen}.

Rose Deniz:  It depends on where you align yourself individually,

Maggie Sutrov:  Mmhmm..

Rose Deniz:  And that’s really interesting. I also know people that would never want to take on the identity of artists. They don’t relate to it at all. But I don’t think that’s the issue. We’re not necessarily talking about having the ability to paint or draw. Although I imagine we’re going to think similarly along the lines that everybody can draw. Everybody can learn how to draw. But that’s different than let’s say, having creative life.

[Cross talk]

…but people who don’t find some way to be creative are definitely going to, they’re going to have a hole inside of them. Whatever {it is}, raising your kinds, or whatever, creativity has got to come out.

Rose Deniz:  So again that comes back to value. I’d kind of like you to talk about what you think gives something {value}, whether it’s a work of art or an experience of value in a creative sense.

Maggie Sutrov:  Well, I think there’s kind of two sides to value when you talk about art. I was thinking about this earlier, and when you’re making something creatively, whether you are doing it within your own art practice or you are, say cooking in  your own home, there’s enjoyment. You get {something} out of it personally. The meaning it has for you.

Rose Deniz:  I do think there are people that can make something for themselves and enjoy it in the privacy of their own home, and these are activities or ideas that are really not necessarily related to sharing.

Maggie Sutrov:  I don’t think it’s really a story until we share it with other people, and we start to create meaning when we share what we’re doing. So I think this is where creativity and story come together, because if you share it with other people it enlarges the experience of sharing your perspective with them and they’re getting to see that.  And if you have something in common there’s this resonation that happens.

Rose Deniz:  It’s a powerful thought to think that story joins us all together, and also the flip side of that would be that if stories aren’t shared then there’s some breakdown with the way we communicate and relate to each other.

Rose Deniz:  Which makes me think that in terms of, of say, how you share your story that there really isn’t a hierarchy of one way being better than the other. A painting isn’t better than a short story or memoir or vice versa. But I think it depends on what medium in which you need to share your story. How do you see that coming up in your work or when you work with other people?

Maggie Sutrov:  I think that people will be drawn to different ways of working depending on how they see the world, if they are an auditory type of person or if they are a visual person, or a tactile person. For me, it’s always been visual arts and color and story, and when I was double majoring in visual arts and creative writing in college, my writing notebook basically was just full of drawings and doodles.

[Laughter]

[Laughter]

Rose Deniz:  We have a similarity with this one. In fact, sort of the other way around. I was in the art department, but writing. And even recently to this day, I have wrestled with how can I do both? Do I have to give up one for the other? And more and more I feel like it’s not an option for me to only do one. I mean it, I need to do both. It’s just part of my creative work. The question has been how do I present my story? How do I present both sides?

Maggie Sutrov:  Hmm. Well, for myself, there have been times in the past where I was writing and making art about the same subjects. Like somehow the scenes or the locations or the stories or the plot itself were showing up in both. More and more lately, though, I’ve been playing with ways of combining them more directly, like in illustration, and I was not at all a comic book kid growing up, but the combination of visual and story that comes together in graphic novels and such {is so interesting}.

Maggie Sutrov:  {Illustrations are} amazing me more and more, and I’ve been working in illustrations a bit lately.

Rose Deniz:  So you’re kind of in new territory and it does sound fascinating. I think once we get out of our comfort zone, that’s when we start asking really serious questions. Serious not meaning, you know, downtrodden, but serious like how could this work together? Can I try a different combination? Can I do something different that makes me even a little bit uncomfortable because it’s new? But you almost are compelled to do it because it contributes to your story.

Maggie Sutrov:  Definitely. I think it’s something that I’ve really been thinking about more lately, and what has shifted for me has been how do I want to connect with people through my art? What medium? I used to {and still do} my oil paintings of landscapes and such, and that used to be my number one thing. I did not do reproductions of any sort. You came to the gallery, you saw the pieces, you could reference them on the website, but it was about the originals. And now I’m viewing projects like how am I going to create this to be something that people can interact with online?

Even if there’s a physical piece of it, the stories and the interactions I want to have with people are not tied to the specific location or the specific object. That’s a part of the experience.

Maggie Sutrov:  I think it still can be, but it’s, it’s different {now}. There is basically {a need} to have a more interactive sort of experience. I think the internet allows for so much more back and forth and communal experience and such.

Maggie Sutrov:  I think it was something that happened over time. It partially came out of  having a gallery and having an infrastructure that you had to care for and you were tied to. And then playing with things that were not tied to it. Doing events where you were using a space for a couple of hours, doing a class where people showed up and did this and then they left. And then being a part of so many things in the digital world and feeling like this is where people are sharing their stories now.

Rose Deniz:  Yes and I also think that contrary to what some people may believe, working in a virtual or digital way actually brings people together. I’ve seen more real life connections happen as a result of reading someone’s blog or interacting with somebody online. It’s still a means to connect in person.

Rose Deniz:  There are multiple ways that you can connect with people and connect these various stories. You mentioned teaching a couple of times. So I am curious about how you see the teaching that you do contributing to your overall {artistic} work?

Maggie Sutrov:  Well the teaching is such a fun thing. It’s a lot of work but it’s really so much fun because each class in a way is sort of like a collaborative art project. I show up, I have certain ideas in mind but it’s really it’s what comes out of the group of people. Sometimes I’ve got ten adults in the room or 25 first graders in the room, and if they’re all putting their creativity in, they’re finding out things about themselves that they didn’t know were there and finding new ways of expressing themselves.

Rose Deniz:  Not to mention that when you enter a classroom and you know it’s about creativity and art, it’s also a safe place to explore and…

Maggie Sutrov:  Definitely.

Rose Deniz:  …if you’re with a group of people and they’re all doing something similar or you’re all asking questions or drawing, and then it’s really amazing when you can see even minor transformations in the space of an hour; to see someone go from, hey, you know, I didn’t think I could do that to wow, I actually can.

Maggie Sutrov:  Definitely. I think I mean especially with adults. Sometimes it’s the inhibitions. They’re all bared and right out in the open at first and telling me that it is painful in itself but it’s like…

Rose Deniz:  Yes.

Maggie Sutrov:  …they’re like shaking in their chairs sometimes and it’s like I can’t believe I enrolled myself in an art class. I’ve been wanting to do this for 15 years but I’m scared I want to run out the door but then you put some art supplies in their hands and then before you know it the next thing they are saying, they’re like I feel like I’m six again.

[Laughter]

Rose Deniz:  Great.

[Cross talk]

Maggie Sutrov:  {When} you feel like you’re a kid that’s when you’re getting back in touch with that piece of human experience.

Maggie Sutrov:  Well I like the things that you just said. I was like wow! OK. Sure. That sounds good.

[Laughter]

But it doesn’t…

Rose Deniz:  Yeah go ahead….

Rose Deniz:  Right.

Maggie Sutrov:  And so it came from inside you, and all those bad drawings, and I wouldn’t even call them bad drawings, but those drawings that did not come out the way that you wanted them to, are the ones that get you to where you want to go and you’re probably going to discover something different than what you had in your mind originally anyways.

Maggie Sutrov:  But they’re part of the journey. And so be thankful for those drawings too.

Rose Deniz:  Yeah.

Maggie Sutrov:  The, whatever it is, if it’s the bad notes while you’re learning to play the saxophone or whatever it is, that’s all part of the journey.

Rose Deniz:  When you’re uninhibited and you’re just, you’re just working, you’re just getting it out. You’re getting that first draft out, you’re getting that first, you know, layer that first catch on paper when you’re not thinking about the final product or the project when it’s over that’s when all the good stuff comes out. And it’s hard to sort it out and to see it as good stuff when it doesn’t look pretty or it doesn’t look finished or it was raw. It doesn’t feel good because then you know you’re getting something authentic out.

And how is that tied to ship? How does it all come together, how do you know when you’re done? How do you see shipping your story? How do you see putting your story out in the world? Your creativity out into the world?

Rose Deniz:  Right.

Maggie Sutrov:  …{you don’t get to experience} that gift if you don’t put it out there. You’ll never know.

Rose Deniz:  You’ll never know. When it is viewed alone and {you’re} working alone and there isn’t this goal to share it, it can kind of thwart your desire to keep on creating because you feel like nobody’s going to see it.

Rose Deniz:  …point out things that you like. It doesn’t even have to be about your own work but just engaging with other people, you start to see what other people like and then there’s this ongoing conversation about art, about creativity, about interest or pursuits. So it’s not as difficult or isolating. There are hundred thousand ways to share now.

Maggie Sutrov:  And to be part of {each other’s} stories.

Rose Deniz:  Right.

Maggie Sutrov:  And then you can contribute to the stories.

Rose Deniz:  Be part of the story, yes. To be part of somebody else’s story too. Because the conversation online is interactive and it’s collaborative.

Maggie Sutrov:  Definitely. And, yeah. It’s creating this story that that resonates with somebody, and I think that’s all the more important if you’re creating something that either the product or the idea is a little bit abstract.

Maggie Sutrov:  …surfer and ocean lovers. But then if you deal with some more abstract ideas, and I think all the pieces that go into the story become even more important because it’s it’s what are people resonating with. They’re catching the humanity that you’re expressing, whether it’s the colors or the way you talk about your art or the way that you show your process. Whatever that is, some movie that you put up that shows some other aspect of what you do. And then that that, you don’t know what’s going to pull them in but finding out what is pulling them in, finding out what they’re responding to and getting that feedback and and…

And then this group of people who are inspired, affected, and maybe purchasing are all there for whatever your aim is for the project, whether it’s just creating a community or making a living as an artist or just meeting people.

[Laughter]

Rose Deniz:  In some ways, {Art is Dialogue} came out of my frustration that I had paintings that I couldn’t time travel with or be there with in somebody’s house so we’re looking at it at the same time and talking about it at the same time. {Not being able to be in more than one location at a time} made me start to break down my ideas of what art really is, and ultimately it’s this essence, this experience that we’ve been talking about. The story and that the medium can change, the time zones can change, the cultures can change but if you really connect with somebody or something that experiences creativity, it really breaks down those walls.

Maggie Sutrov: Well there’s a lot of things that are sort of in the beginning stages right now. There’s stuff that’s not online. We’re still sort of formulating, but very much ingrained in all these areas with story being at the root of it.

I’ve been doing some illustrating.

I’m planning on doing art projects that are a part of reaching out to people in different areas of the arts and different areas of the globe and finding out what they’re doing creatively, and helping magnify that. {Projects that} extend the arts and {bring} awareness and community.

Maggie Sutrov:  It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Rose, too. It’s wonderful connecting the arts and our ideas across all this distance.