I fist sketched Maisy May Marrs at an event called Blend. I then saw her at Blank Space where artists are permitted to come in each Thursday to work in an open studio environment downtown. Through Facebook I asked if I could sketch her studio and she agreed. Her husband Ron was home for vacation for a week so we agreed to set up a time around lunch for me to stop by. Maisy had prepared a delicious bean soup and I chowed down before getting to work. The small studio room is known as the Pink Room because the curtains are pink and when the morning sun comes through it makes everything in that room and some of the living room a pink hue. . It is a tiny and intimate space being perhaps a 10 by 10 foot cube. At first I considered sitting in the doorway but I only got a view of Maisy’s back from there, so I shoved myself into a corner of the room where she kept her witch’s broomstick. She has drawn me several times and I always laugh out loud at the results.
Maisey began to sketch out one of her wide eyed little girls as I began to sketch the studio space. I asked about a funeral urn which was on a top shelf and it turned out to be her mother’s ashes. There were dried roses and a high school art piece which was a coffin shaped box with a nude woman struggling against her bonds and a red robed priest inside. Maisy’s art on a whole is fun and lighthearted. Some of the pieces look like children’s drawings. It was refreshing to see such childlike innocence in her work.
Outside her studio window she can see ducks as they swim around the apartment complex retention pond. it started to rain outside and then the rain slowed. Ron called out from the living room that he was going to get the mail. As soon as he left and got half way to the community’s mailboxes, it started to pour. Maisey looked out the window anxiously. When he got back she shouted out, “Did we get anything good?” Ron shouted back, “Some junk mail and pneumonia.” I started to run out of time and all the infinite detail in the room was overwhelming. Maisey would peek over once in a while to see what I was up to. She kept the afternoons work fun and light. It was great to sketch and laugh the afternoon away with a fellow artist.
