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Olivia MacDonald
173 Plays5 years ago
Boston-based artist, Olivia MacDonald is best known for her ink drawings she has been creating every day since the winter of 2018. She holds an extensive collection of thought-provoking and unconventionally playful black and white designs, metaphors for her daily experiences and thoughts. Self-taught, Olivia began creating art as a means of expression and experimentation ever since she was a child. After receiving her BFA in creative writing with a minor in illustration in 2020, she now works as a full-time artist and entrepreneur.
Her commission work ranges from custom tattoo designs to music album covers, gig posters, logos, and product labels for worldwide clients like Hilko Guitars and Brahmin designer handbags. She is a featured artist with Strathmore Artist Papers and Sakura of America and her work has been exhibited in local establishments and art fairs.
https://inkbyolivia.com/pages/about
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Volante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And for this episode, we have Olivia McDonald, who is a sketch artist. She's based out in Massachusetts.
00:00:30
Speaker
and someone who I encountered on Instagram at our handle, Inc. by Olivia. I'm very pleased to welcome you, Olivia, to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. Thanks so much for having me.
Olivia's Creative Beginnings
00:00:46
Speaker
One of the things I ask each guest, and just to get a little bit of your background,
00:00:56
Speaker
Going back when you were a very young child, did you show any artistic inclination or what was your personality when you were younger? Were you creative? Yes. I'm from Boston. I'm an only child. So I was always thinking, always creating to pass the time. I was pretty independent.
00:01:21
Speaker
and always making something. I had a little craft table when I was younger. My dad still talks about me cutting with the scissors there so carefully with the craft paper and the scissors. And I was always making little sculptures out of female clay and sketching, coloring, even as a young child. And
00:01:50
Speaker
I was also interested in writing since I was young. Me and my mom used to go on little walks through the neighborhood and I went with my little notepad, writing down notes of things I saw there and written up different descriptions of things I saw and later put them into little stories that I made. And also musically, I was dancing since I could walk pretty much.
Artistic Inspirations and Education
00:02:19
Speaker
My grandmother had a dance studio, so I did tap, jazz, pretty much everything there. So I was pretty artistic in different fields. I also love being in nature. It gave me a lot of inspiration for my art, as it still does now. I'm part Swiss. So that's in Switzerland, there's a lot of nature of mountains.
00:02:47
Speaker
And that influences my art a lot. And so as far as the types of art that you enjoy, as far as things that you consume as an art consumer, does that correspond with your interest in writing and in sketching? Yeah, it does.
00:03:14
Speaker
Um, some of the artists that I enjoy are street art. Um, gives me a lot of inspiration for my own art, like Kipto. He's a graffiti spray paint artist. He does it all over the world. Banksy is very famous. Maybe, you know, and he makes a lot of social commentary, which I like to include in my own art, different issues and different
00:03:44
Speaker
messages. Tattoo art inspires me a lot too. I have a tattoo machine that I recently got and that I enjoy practicing with on fake skin. It's a different feel than sketching with fine liner pens, which I do, but I enjoy doing that. And also minimalistic art I enjoy as well. It's pretty different from my kind of
00:04:12
Speaker
more realistic type of art, but with colors, I enjoyed also painting, even though my art is black and white. And music inspires me too, all different forms of art. I like more acoustic music. I always listen to music when I'm drawing or painting. And literature and poetry also inspires me.
00:04:41
Speaker
I just graduated college and I was a creative writing major and illustration minor. So creative writing has always been a part of my life and my
Sketching Style and Daily Practice
00:04:53
Speaker
things I enjoy doing. Some of my favorite authors and poets are thorough, very nature inspired philosophy type of work. And Wendell Berry, he's a poet from the South.
00:05:11
Speaker
And it's also very nature inspired. And in my own art, I like to create drawings with different things intertwined in them, combining different types of objects and people into one. For example, some of my recent work was a wind up bunny hopping.
00:05:41
Speaker
like a wind-up toy and like a feather with mountains on one side and the feather on the other side. I also like mechanical drawing, mechanical like steampunk inspired art. So many different kinds.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, and it's one of the things that I noticed in your sketching, just as far as the connection between objects, like the mountains on both sides of the feather, where it sneaks up on you and it's a really subtle and beautiful effect. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. About your sketching, I wanted to ask you about that and see if you can talk about
00:06:33
Speaker
you know, the decision to do a sketch per day and what that experience was like and how that helped you grow as an artist. Yeah. Currently I'm up to 567 posts every day and it's been a crazy journey this whole year and a half about
00:07:00
Speaker
I started with a skateboard deck where I did with Micron pens, a Medusa figure with snakes in the hair and a bunch of flowers running throughout it. That was my first post and my progress on that skateboard. Then I decided I want to continue this and draw every day. And my reason behind it was really to
00:07:29
Speaker
not only expand my own creative abilities and skills, but also to give hope to other people because people need every day some inspiration, some hope just to keep going with their days. And it's been every day I get my inspiration from the things I do.
00:07:57
Speaker
that somehow intertwined in my art or how I'm feeling that day is somehow incorporated into there. And from the daily drawings, I've expanded into making t-shirts with my art, making prints. I started a website, Inc. by Olivia, and it's just really grown from there and seeing the
00:08:25
Speaker
My followers comments and their support on each drawing helps me to keep going and I've even gotten some DMS from people saying that I my art has helped them through tough times and that's really the best reward that I could ask for Yeah, and thanks for sharing that um, I mean I think I think that's an incredibly powerful thing and
00:08:52
Speaker
And just to see the impact that art has, that it appears each day, like in the case with your work, that it appears each day and that folks can take a look at it and just kind of rely on it for the imagination that you expressed.
Pandemic Influence and Artistic Themes
00:09:12
Speaker
There's just great power in that. Have you found, let's talk about art during a pandemic.
00:09:22
Speaker
Uh, you know, have, have any of your views as far as, you know, arts role changed or, or been impacted and also your day to day as, as an artist, can you speak to with, um, uh, within the pandemic, some of the changes that have, that have impacted your art? Um, yeah.
00:09:47
Speaker
My art has changed a little bit since the pandemic hit. For example, like different feelings incorporated into my art, like isolation, more people distancing has incorporated. Like, I believe I did a crab once, like a hermit crab with a house on its shell.
00:10:16
Speaker
and different things like that. And also addressing different social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement, which has also appeared now during the pandemic. And there I did a portrait and included a quote from Langston Hughes, I too, saying America. And his description there with being Black
00:10:46
Speaker
And also specifically in the pandemic, my art hasn't really been too much about like different feelings of sadness or anything like that. I tried to keep everything positive and give people hope or maybe take their mind off of the pandemic and the crazy things happening right now in the world.
00:11:16
Speaker
and maybe show them that things will be OK. And I also include different quotes in the captions of my art to support the art that I draw. And so you've been impacted, and it's manifested at times in your art.
00:11:46
Speaker
Can you tell me, I mean, I know you have an interest in, in, in have studied, uh, you know, writing and also with a visual with, with, um, your sketching. And I've asked this, uh, question of various guests in different ways, but my main question is, do you find yourself going towards one or the other when you need to express a certain emotion or you feel a certain way? Do you find that you veered towards the, you know,
00:12:16
Speaker
uh, sketching sometimes and creative writing at other times? Um, that's a funny question because usually I always go to sketching for some reason, even though I'm a creative writing major, I go to drawing and making things with my hands first. And the writing just comes naturally like on the side. And whenever inspiration comes, then I just write and keep writing.
00:12:47
Speaker
um but um the drawing has been a constant in my life through the daily drawings and so yeah the writing has come on the side but they both inspire me in different ways and they both motivate motivate me to stay creative. Yeah and
00:13:11
Speaker
Another question is you've done a lot of different forms of art from when you were younger to present and participate in those. Do you have any answer to the question of what is art? Do you have a theory of art? Yeah, art can be. I think that's a pretty broad question. Art can be anything really
00:13:38
Speaker
But personally, I think it's an expression of feelings, emotions, something like very deep that you want to get held onto a page or through a song or through writing. And it can be anything. Like for one of my internships at the time during college, I went to Art Basel in Miami. It's a pretty famous art convention and they have
00:14:07
Speaker
different art there. There was a banana on the wall taped with duct tape onto the wall. And is that art? You can be the judge. But my opinion comes from what is art. It's really something that makes the viewer feel something and maybe experience something in a way they never thought to before.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Another question I have is, what or who made you who you are now?
Cultural Influences on Olivia's Art
00:14:49
Speaker
I think all of my different experiences have made me who I am. Being half Swiss and half American has made me who I am in a large way because of the split
00:15:04
Speaker
half of my family being in Switzerland, half of my family being here in the United States, and the split between the nature and the city, a big theme that comes up in my work, in my writing, and in my art too. And it's really formed my identity in that way.
00:15:25
Speaker
and also my years of school have made me who I am and rigorous classes have taught me about hard work and persistence and different teachers have also opened my eyes to different creative outlets. One specifically was my middle school teacher for English opened my eyes to creative writing and poetry and from there I
00:15:53
Speaker
decided to create little sketches alongside my poetry. And that then manifested into in high school, I became the poet laureate in the high school, where I spread poetry throughout the halls by writing different poet poems and posting them there and inviting different musicians and poets to the high school to
00:16:23
Speaker
spread their art to the different students. That's fantastic. Olivia, you mentioned a couple times your Swiss background. And I think you had mentioned, as far as what some of your sketches, kind of a connection to nature or maybe some of the tradition in Swiss painting.
00:16:51
Speaker
Like for everybody else, I mean, can you identify pieces of that background when it comes to art that kind of made you, you know, who you are by having a connection to that background? Yeah, for example, some of my art, it includes a lot of mountains. I love to draw mountains and different details in them because in Switzerland it's very
00:17:19
Speaker
mountainous and very picturesque and I like to contrast that with like skyscrapers and some drawings which you find here and here in Boston and but in Switzerland that influences me because I feel like their culture is
00:17:48
Speaker
more simpler, more, uh, slower than the busy city life. So there's that contrast too. Yeah. Thanks for that background. Um, uh, another question, um, I know you've been creating, uh, you know, for some time, you know, back to when you were younger and creating various things, you ever step back and ask,
00:18:16
Speaker
you know, why it is that you create or related to that, do you feel you have a question to create or not? Or that's just the way you have to be? Yeah, I think that's just the way I have to be. It's just a part of me, always making things, always creating, making art, writing. And I write to express what I'm feeling or
00:18:44
Speaker
Britt put a positive message into the world and maybe someone can relate to it and find something positive and uplifting in it. And that just motivates me to create more. And as far as as far as with the sketching that you do, is there
00:19:09
Speaker
Do you end up connecting with a larger sketching community at large? I mean, do you know each other? Do you group that way? Or is it just kind of more of an outlet, this is the way that I express myself and kind of unto yourself? Yeah, at first it was just myself. I was just drawing in this black and white ink style because I enjoyed drawing with pen.
00:19:39
Speaker
But through Instagram, through this platform, I found so many other creative people drawing in ink like me. We even started a little group, me and a few other ink artists. Art by Kari is one of them. She's based in Oregon. And she also creates nature-inspired work.
00:20:06
Speaker
Through that, we all connect and share our processes, share different tips on creating art, maybe different pens. And yeah, I've made many different artist friends through Instagram. It's been a great platform. When you're doing some of the nature pieces, are you directly
Sketching Process and Community Engagement
00:20:31
Speaker
observing? Are you out in nature or what's your process as far as how you capture that?
00:20:36
Speaker
Yes, some of the drawing, I don't do like sitting in nature and drawing for my daily drawings. Sometimes I do that when I'm painting or just sketching in my other free time. But for the daily drawings, I usually take a picture for reference of what I'd like to sketch and to have a little gallery of pictures that I have
00:21:05
Speaker
like as backup, or I use different reference photos from the Internet and combine them in different ways to make each work my own. I got a big question for you, Olivia. It's the title of the podcast. Why is there something rather than nothing?
00:21:39
Speaker
That's also a pretty big question. But I feel like if there's nothing, there would be no feelings, no hope, no world if there was nothing. And also if I didn't decide one day to start drawing every day and keep it going, I wouldn't be where I am right now. And I keep working towards
00:22:06
Speaker
making something from nothing in a way. And every day I start with a blank page and there's nothing, but I make something from it. So I'm very blessed to share my gift with others and to express it to a greater audience. And that makes something from my art. Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And we're chatting with Olivia McDonald.
Future Plans and Tattoo Artistry
00:22:43
Speaker
And Olivia, at the end here, one of the things I want to always do is connect, you know, artists to their audience. And what ways can folks connect with, you know, your creative outlet in in just
00:23:03
Speaker
reiterating again as far as Instagram, just so everybody knows where to find you. Yep. Um, listeners can connect through Instagram at ink by Olivia and there they can DM me or email for commissions, which are also open or ink by olivia.com. I sell prints of my R T-shirts, um, skateboard decks and stickers.
00:23:31
Speaker
And also in the future, my hope is to create a YouTube to explain my process more and share different art tutorials and things like that, too. Oh, yeah. And and thanks for mentioning those. Could you add could you mention a few more things as far as your work on tattoos? I'm a tattoo and enthusiast myself. And I saw that you
00:23:58
Speaker
you know, design some and you said you got a machine. Could you just go a little bit more into, you know, like what you do with that and where to come in contact with you for the tattoo stuff? Yeah, right now I don't do the actual tattooing. I just design tattoos for different people who ask me to commission me to design their tattoos. For example, the first tattoo commission I got was
00:24:28
Speaker
When I started my Instagram, somebody actually contacted me and they got like a half sleeve on their arm of a drawing I did with a woman and an octopus on the head with the anchor and a boat. And then it's just grown from there. I also did a mechanical octopus, an icon camera, different
00:24:57
Speaker
types of tattoos. And in my own tattooing practice, I have a tattoo machine and I've just practiced on an orange and fake skin. I've also done a real tattoo on my cousin, actually, a little bike. But I would like to continue tattooing and maybe get an apprenticeship
00:25:26
Speaker
to translate my art more professionally onto the skin, possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's wonderful work and thanks for giving a little bit more information about that just as far as, you know, my personal interest. And thank you so much for your creativity and, you know, your daily sketches and, you know, everything that you put out there.
00:25:55
Speaker
I certainly noticed it and I wanted to thank you for the joy that it brings because it is wonderful work and it's really a beautiful project of the imagination and just wanted to let you know it was appreciated and to thank you for joining the program. Thank you. I'm so glad you enjoy it and it's a great program. I love that you feature different creative people on this podcast.
00:26:22
Speaker
Thanks so much, Olivia, and hope to talk again soon. Take care. You too. Bye now. You are listening to something rather than nothing.