NATALIE VERRIEST

ARTIST

Natalie Verriest is a Sydney-based artist working in film production and as a freelance painter. She is a tenacious and extremely talented ‘slashie’, constantly expanding her practice and knowledge base within arts and business. She chats to us about how she got to where she is now, the importance of supporting artists and how to skilfully navigate the tricky world of ‘working for free’ and leveraging every opportunity to build your career.

Working in multiple fields, what’s your go-to description of what you ‘do’ for a living?

Well, I think that my job title, when I introduce myself at a party or to somebody new, I say I’m an artist and I produce small corporate films. I think it’s that element of being a slashie, you’re doing more than one thing… you’re doing hyphenated jobs. Like, you can play with it and talk about different elements to different people. Sometimes people understand the artist element better, and sometimes people will resonate more with the film side of things. You can choose what you wanna talk about.

How did you get to this slashie position?

I mean, it was a bit of a wild ride...  because when I was at school I definitely studied art as a side subject. It was like ‘oooh, I’m doing all this serious stuff, and this will be my two units of fun cos I’m doing 12 units’.

I was really driven, and it was like if you’re a top performing student you should wanna validate that and be a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer. There’s kind of a funnelling that happens in high school and that made a huge impression on me. I got into a law degree straight out of high school, but I went on a gap year and when I was away I decided I didn’t want to do law.

What do you think made you have that ‘aha!’ moment?

My British cousin did work experience at a law firm and she told me a story of how some of them had beds in the law firm so they could sleep overnight and start work again. They barely saw their families. I was just like… okaayyyyy. That really scared me off, because that is not a lifestyle I wanted.

And then the second moment was while I was travelling in Europe. I was seeing all this art everywhere and was in a place that appreciates art and culture on a scale that’s way above where Australia is at culturally. I was chatting with a guy from Melbourne who was older than me and a musician, and he said ‘I manage music events but there’s a part of me that always wishes I was on the other side’.

I had 3 days til I had to accept my degree in art theory law.

I wanted to be a lawyer for artists – to do
dealership or work for a big gallery.
In my mind it was like ‘oooh you’re on the fringe of art... but you’re being smart as well’.

I really thought about it and realised I didn’t want to risk wanting to be on the other side. I need to try, you know? And, it was risky, but it felt right. I also told myself that I can still go back to law. I had to remind myself: I can still redivert.

Another note on that, is now I reflect on how gendered all those pushed subjects were. Because, I think when you’re a smart woman, it’s very much pushed that you should try and ‘make it in a male dominated role’. Lawyers, doctors, engineers – it’s all male dominated. The arts are weird, because it’s predominantly females in art school, and even in high school, yet it’s mostly male successful artists – but it’s still seen as a feminine industry. So you’re kind of battling trying to prove that you’re beating the patriarchy by being smart and being validated by being better than the boys, and I’ve only reflected on that recently. Like, I did not have that consciousness at 19.

I think I was so scared of seeming like I was crafty or cute, or taking the ‘easy route’ by being an artist. At parties when I was meeting all my lawyer friends’ classmates, I would always say, ‘I did get into a law degree, but I decided to do fine art’.

I was embarrassed about trying to be an artist.

Did it feel like a big weight off your shoulders when you found your niche?

It felt empowering, like self-empowering. I did still have to deal with social expectations. You get these fake brag rights from doing well at school, and I think I used it as a way to validate and almost be quite egotistical, just be like ‘I’m so clever, but here I am… painting’. You know?

I understand now that there are so many different types of intelligence. There’s the type of intelligence that can fly an aeroplane, there’s the type of intelligence that can build a beautiful house, you know? Or a beautiful table! There’s the type that can sew a garment in the right way. And they’re not better than one another. If you’re good at your job, you’re fucking valuable. Full stop.

Amen.

Someone said to me, ‘I think you would’ve been a good lawyer, but you have the potential to be a great artist’. And I was like ‘I hope that’s true’, because I don’t think being a good lawyer would’ve been enough for me.

What subjects did you do at high school?

I was in an accelerated maths class that did the School Certificate in Year 9 and then the HSC in Year 10. Then in Year 12, I did four units of English, advanced maths, French beginners, Visual art and philosophy. I got on the [philosophy] program because I’d been accelerated in maths and there’s a program through the University of New England where any student who is accelerated can do either philosophy or cosmology. It’s wild, I was learning about morality of religion and happiness, aesthetics and beauty… all these mind opening subjects. I was literally doing a metaphysics essay alongside my HSC subjects.

How do you feel about the HSC?

You get your results the day before your ATAR, and I bawled my eyes out. I was so unhappy with some of my marks cos they were a couple of marks below… my perfectionism was rampant. That’s something I’ve had to work on now, cos we reward perfectionists – but it’s actually mentally draining and unstable. You cannot keep that going. Now that I’m in adulthood and I’ve been through uni, I’m working, the challenges of starting a business, I realise that getting 95% in everything is just untenable.

How did you find the change from high school to university?

It was a shift. I think I got saved because I did a double degree in fine arts and arts, majoring in film studies in the arts component. So from the get-go I wasn’t just painting. If I’d just painted, I would’ve gone crazy. I needed the kind of academic rigour that I was used to, to help have some quantifiable marks and some that were feeling more a bit up in the air.

When I was doing art [at high school] I was one of 12 people, a very small cohort. And then you go into 120 of the best people, almost in the whole state, or in the Sydney area – and everyone loves art. You’re one among many.

Everyone felt so much artsier than me, and I felt really fraudulent. Like, this nerdy geeky gal among blue hair, piercings, Doc Martens, all these cool vibes… And I was like, ‘omg what am I doing?’

I felt much more at home in the film studies departments, it was just more familiar basically.

I did the best electives fucking-ever. It was amazing. I did management electives, I did philosophy electives, I did an international law elective. I did interesting things that captured me. And I felt like, why am I learning film and art if I don’t know about the world? Like, it was very clear to me: I’m hungry for knowledge, I’m at uni. It made sense to start broad.

How do you define success in an art context given it is so subjective?

Look, people do think art is super subjective. I’ve changed my views on a lot of that. I feel like there is something that intrinsically makes something good or bad, aside from people’s appreciation. I’ve got to the point where I can look at an artwork and say ‘this is amazing AND I don’t like it’. You know? Or, ‘I love this but I know it was easy to make’.

So, there is a taste element to some of that, or just like an eye you get for it.

Being in a creative field you must be familiar with interning and how often it can become exploitative, how do you feel about interning?

I loooove this question, and the reason why I love this question is cos I think I did some of it right… I don’t have any regrets about the free work that I did. And the reason that I don’t have regrets is because I capped it. I really had a sense of ‘ok this job is for 2 months’, and you’re working for almost nothing, but I’m gonna be learning a lot – and knowing that I would leave if I wasn’t. I had that boundary in my own head.

So to talk specifically about one of the times where I worked for very little money, I was on a feature film as the production intern. It was very low budget and they were doing everything they could to make it better. But that meant that I was working like 3 levels up from what my official job description was. Which was a) very difficult, but b) very rewarding. Because in the back of my mind, I was like well if I totally fuck this up… it’s not my fault. And that was liberating.

I was also working on the weekends, so I was so drained. But I learnt heaps and I networked. Literally today, this is 3 years later, I caught up with the producer of that job for coffee. The line producer got me my current job at a corporate film company.

I tried to open myself to new opportunities, I talked to everyone on set – ‘tell me about your job and how you got here’. It was like osmosis.

What should you avoid when interning?

I’ve read articles about interns that work for free for 20 months. Like, NEVER do that. Just never.
Flat out no."

Or if you’re literally just getting coffees. Basically, if you are unsure if you’re being valued, or unsure that you’re learning, just get out. Because those are the two most important things.

Do you think there’s ever a time that just getting coffees is worth it?

I think you’ve got to gauge how much you’re seeing. Because, if you’re getting coffees but you’re outside of the room, so to speak, no.

But if you’re inside the room, then yes. For example, on the most recent film I worked on they were having production meetings inside the art department because it was the biggest room. I was putting up all of the reference images that they’d used for different locations, I literally spent 8 hrs putting up hundreds of printed photographs, but I could hear the discussions that were going on – like what are the problems with this location, what do we think about this, how are we going to resolve this issue with XYZ… I could’ve been switched off to all of that, but I was like a bat. I was making mental notes and thinking ok so how would I go about this? How would I solve it? And that’s just a mindset and an awareness. And feeling lucky to be in the room. You’ve gotta be like a sponge to be good at what you do. If you wanna learn, it just comes naturally. I was really like, ‘oh my god, I’M IN THE ROOM!’.

You should be excited to be in the room, but you shouldn’t feel so lucky to be there that you feel like you’re not owed anything. Because you have to respect that, as early on as you are, you have value. Just by being there and turning up. And they need to meet that with some form of value.

Tell us about your experiences in art school –

Look, art school is hit and miss, compared to uni as a whole. I love to learn, like I love it. Uni was hard cos there was so much to juggle, but I loved learning. Art school… I don’t really respect how a lot of the teachers gave feedback. And, I struggled with that majorly. In a lot of ways, I had a creative deficit after art school that was really difficult cos I had so much unconstructive criticism about different elements of my practice, that I felt like I was just literally gonna give up.

I’d be doing something very specific and on a road and it would be, ‘why are you painting this? This could be a performance artwork’. And I’m like, I’m doing a painting major!

That would’ve been so influential hearing that! That’s the person who is marking your work!

Exactly, I’m such a perfectionist and I had my whole thing set on validation and getting good marks. So, then I did a submission for an emerging art prize. I put those unfinished works in and ended up getting selected as a finalist. So I finished them, and made the whole series. Which also had extra video works that I’d conceived and an installation element. It ended up winning the whole prize, which was open to all artists in NSW under 30. I got a decent prize packet, $5000, which is AMAZING for an artist. And the judge just loved my works and said that they were a really in depth analysis of a really complex issue. But I didn’t even finish them in art school because I was so stunted by people’s feedback. And I was disappointed that that had an effect on me, but it also really made me disrespect the way they taught us. Because nobody was giving me constructive criticism about the materials I was using, the colours I was using, the form it was taking. They actually were kind of cutting my ideas down from the seedling.

In saying that, I did a couple of electives at art school that changed my life. Like colour theory, composition and design, life painting. Outside of my core subjects was literally like, I’ve never felt so alive, I’m in fucking heaven. And then I had my film studies, which I adored, and I was doing Iranian film, and feminist film theory, you know… Italian neorealist cinema and documentary cinemas. So, the subjects that I struggled with were at most 25% of that degree. If I had sat at home telling myself I would paint and learn about painting I reckon I would’ve scratched 3% of the surface of what I learnt at university. I’ve no regrets for a single dollar or minute I spent at uni.

That’s what we want to hear, especially from an artist. There’s a lot of talk about ‘you don’t need to go to uni to become an artist’. Were you creative as a child?

No actually. And to be honest – this is a controversial thing to say – I don’t think I’m a naturally talented artist. I think I have a lot of ideas, which I’m so invested in expressing that I have to use art to express them. So I kind of push from a conceptual place, and then the art is the means of that.

How did you deal with the creative fallout from uni moving forward?

I decided to invest more in myself. I was paying for art coaching and to be part of a Skype group around art – that’s when I started to discover how much all this judgement had an effect on me and my growth. There’s an amazing book by Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, and it deconstructs what kind of criticism works for artists and what doesn’t. I kind of started to undo some of that learning.

How do you feel about marketing yourself as an artist?

I think one of the key things is you’re not promoting yourself, you’re promoting your business. And even if you don’t see it as your business, you’re promoting the artwork. So the artwork exists independently of you, and you need to do it justice. Like, in the same way you would talk about a good friend: ‘they’re amazing, they’re dedicated, they’re this!’ You know? You’re not over exaggerating what they are! You have to create a sense of objectivity, where you’re not being selfish or self absorbed by talking about what you do.

How did you learn to market yourself?

Straight out of uni I got involved with the NEIS program, it stands for New Enterprise Incentive Scheme. Basically, if you’re on youth allowance or welfare you can participate in a program that allows you to create your own job. You’re paid the same rate, you get free training and you can earn money from your business on top of it. It’s amazing. I learnt more about the legal structures of business, operations, marketing etc. For example, they taught us how to write a little press release. I didn’t have the concept that a newspaper didn’t write an article from scratch… I thought that everything in a newspaper came from them asking ‘do you wanna be in the newspaper?’. So my first experience with that was with a small Central Coast art exhibition. I literally wrote to the newspaper with the article and said, ‘please see attached’. I’d basically written where the exhibition was, who was involved, what the purpose was, and then they came and took a photo. Without [doing the NEIS program], I wouldn’t have had any idea that that existed.

So you were actively looking for things to put yourself forward for?

Definitely, you have to lean in.

I think that people that don’t know what’s available, that’s a weakness in your business plan.

I wouldn’t hire somebody who didn’t have a proactive attitude. Every industry has it and – I’m stereotyping here – but a lot of artists wait for things to just manifest on their doorstep. I don’t think you can think like that. I listen to a lot of business podcasts and a lot of entrepreneur podcasts and that’s where I get more of my can-do attitude. Then I listen to more painting and creative stuff for my creative vision. Ultimately you need both.

How did you find things you put yourself forward for?

I mentioned that I used to pay for art coaching. It was with an amazing lady called Felicity O’Connor, she’s an artist and a licensed psychologist. We would have sessions where she could help you undo some of your blocks. And we would have a lot of accountability within the group. We did a group show together for example. So, if you create those spaces where you have to perform, you trick yourself into achieving something.

I only applied for the emerging art award because I created a facebook group of Central Coast artists under 30 and said to them ‘we should all apply for this, who cares if you don’t get it, it’s better if they’ve seen your work this year and then the next time you apply they will have already seen you’.

That’s SO amazing! Such a simple and easy fix!

I didn’t even put in that much effort! Then when I was doing my solo show, they called me and said ‘we’re open to having an emerging artist in the space, do you want to do a pitch?’. I pitched it, they accepted it, and then I was like, fucking hell, how am I going to make a whole show? I have no money, I’m literally broke, and I’ve just pitched this huge expensive show…

So I applied for three grants, I spent two months writing the first two, got rejected on both of them, and the last one I applied for really ad hoc for Creative Partnerships Australia. It was matched funding, where they match you dollar-for-dollar. I got accepted. I honestly didn’t try as hard [for it]. And I think it made my application better, because I sounded like a human not a robot.

And so, I didn’t have a choice to be honest. I had to make it happen. And I just researched, I talked to people, it was just like, how am I going to get all this money? I ended up raising $7000 and getting matched, so had $14,000 to play with, which is still tiny. I worked for free for 18 months, 3-plus days a week for the show, still worth it!

But also, I was approached at that stage because I’d already put myself out there.

Ripples…

Slow ripple effect. Perfect analogy!

Then also mailing lists and going to events. I went to a Bendigo Bank networking event, which was just a community event. I met somebody that was head of the Leichhardt Business Chambers, and the first email they sent out was just a standard email to their whole mailing list, with the Women in Business [community program] opportunity… and straight away, let’s try. I spent an hour on my application and I sent it.

And there you are!

And there you are!
But, if I didn’t go to the Bendigo Bank event after work on a Wednesday, none of that would’ve happened.

Don’t sit at home and wonder why opportunities aren’t coming for you. I’m not saying go to something every Wednesday, but if you’re not going to like 3 things a year, you’re not trying hard enough.

How does your support network fit into your goals?

If you have big goals and you share them with people who are close to you – if it’s your family, your friends, your coworkers – and they feel like you’re not gonna get there… that is immediately disregarding part of your goal. You have to have people around you who support your goals. A lot of my friends are amazing, corporate, successful people, and they were happy to lend me money so I could go away on a hens trip and pay them back in instalments. They’re happy to shout me a little wine every now and then. They’ve never once belittled my choices, and I’ve kept them in my life; cos they understand that it’s an intrinsic part of me, they understand it’s a difficult industry, and they respect that. And they are a huge credit to my success.

But, that’s not easy. The housemates you have, the friends you have, who you work with and your partner kind of need to fit into the goals. They’re not separate.

What do you find motivating for you to paint?

Well, I think having external deadlines. So, by chance when I got into the group show, I obviously had a deadline. And then when I had the solo show, I had an even bigger deadline. And I think that that definitely motivates you in a positive way. It makes it feel more like work. Which is positive, because it legitimises something… Like, if you go to a café and someone can make a coffee in an hour, you’re probably not gonna be super impressed, even if it’s the best coffee ever. We need to learn that time elements are part of every job. And sometimes I feel like ‘I wish I had three years to paint this’. But, you know, how many lawyers the night before a case are like, ‘fuck, I wish I had another five weeks to work on this’, and that could put someone in jail!

I do this thing called the industry test, where I say to myself, ‘is this the case for basically all industries?’, and if it is then I’m not allowed to feel hard done by.

That. Is. Brilliant.

Honestly, it’s just reality. Like, I also have to wash my clothes, brush my teeth, make my dinner…

At the end of the day it’s part of the job, it’s a part of doing it well. You’ve gotta learn to work within parameters.

Is self-care a part of your work life?

I go to therapy quite a lot, which is really important. When my mental health is bad, everything stops. So it’s a non-negotiable now, I have to do it to maintain my anxiety.

Especially working alone in a creative headspace…

Does a footballer go to physio? Yes.

Does an artist go to therapy? They fucking should!

I had therapy this morning. And if I can come into the studio and feel like she’s helped me solve 3 problems, I’m gonna start painting 45 minutes earlier. I think my strength is when I have a problem I don’t avoid it, I try to solve it. And if I can’t solve it, I try to reach out. That’s been a 5-year process.

I got stuck on a painting for my show and I emailed a lecturer that I had at uni three years ago, booked an appointment and went in and saw him with photos of my paintings, asking ‘how do I fix this?’. And he was happy to help me.

Because you asked!

It’s so logical! I was paralysed before that. And he was like, ‘oh, you need to glaze it’. And I was like, ‘oh yeah! That’s right, we did a whole subject on that. Thank you’. It was a breakthrough.

So, when I get stuck now, I’m like ‘ohhhh that’s right, people can help me, you’re probably not the first one to come across this’ But to do that, you have to be willing to ask for help. If you reach out in the right way, it’s amazing the support that you can find.

People love to help people!

Good point!

Check out Natalie’s work here or stalk her insta.

Interview Grace MacKenzie & Haylee Poppi

Edit Grace MacKenzie

Photography Karina Lee