We Are In the Illusion Business

The honesty of the job of the artist

“In The Illusion Business” ©LaurieMavesART LLC 2025

Reading through some older journal entires I came across a quote from a mentorship session I had with Bernd Haussmann. I’ve written about Bernd before on this blog. He was one of those painting mentors that came along just at the right moment. I was absolutely ready and waiting to expand on what I knew about painting at the time. Most everything I had learned up until that point about how to make a painting was self taught. The only real applicable “learning” I experienced about this art form in college was from the Painting 101 class that I enrolled in in the early 1990’s at the University of Wisconsin Madison taught by Pat Fennell. Her class hands down was the best and most educational course I ever absorbed while getting my bachelor’s degree. I spent a lot of time since then making art, paintings, drawings, collages, etc., but almost 25 years had passed since I had studied with Pat for that one class (I kick myself now for not studying with her more).

My work with Bernd taught me many fruitful concepts, but the most simple yet ultimately complex one with unlimited perspectives was, “What had I or had I not considered while making this painting?” Once you go down this rabbit hole, you may never come up for air again, but let me tell you, it completely expanded how I see the act of painting as well as the final product in grand and novel ways. Painting is often not cut and dry, black or white. Of course it can be, but 99% of the time it’s wide the f* open. And it is indeed an illusion.

i am in the business of creating brilliant illusions.

illusions that are honest and true

and yes they come from my heart

but regardless they are illusions of truth

Bernd stated in one of our coaching sessions that as artists, “We are in the honesty business. We are in the illusions business.” I find these words together “honest” & “illusions” to be a paradox. Unless all that you see in art is just that - an honest to goodness heartfelt illusion. You see a painting of a banana, it’s not a banana but an image of one. You see a brilliant landscape painting and it’s not the landscape - its the illusion of one. You see a portrait of Frida Kahlo, of course its not Frida, it’s the illusion of Frida. (Ok you know where I’m headed at this point). I believe this is just one of the reasons I never strived to be a realist painter. As much as I truly appreciate the time effort and energy it takes to create an illusion of realism, many times people confuse it with photography. And as much as I find hyper realism crazy cool as a concept, for me it never hit the mark. If I wanted to copy something, then just take a photo. Or maybe I never had the patience to truly develop that skill set (yes that’s more likely).

Revisiting the phrase “ we are in the illusions business” got me thinking about what it is that I do when I make those big grandiose abstract images. I’m trying to create a feeling, an atmosphere, a place of sorts you can go in your mind, something to contemplate more on. But even though it’s a real thing, at the end of the day, it’s only cotton canvas with oil paint - it’s only those two things, maybe pencil or oil pastels here or there. But physically it’s just paint and canvas. I use these tools to create the illusions of feelings, the illusions of space and time, the illusions of fantasy land and sea scapes. And when you believe the painting I make for you delivers you to a certain destination real or imagined, then my work has been successful.

Growing up as a kid, my parents had this painfully boring landscape painting hanging over the living room sofa. The colors, the style, ugh, all of it made me want to take a nap. I wish I had photo of it to share with you. When I say painfully boring, I mean it. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I know you liked that painting and would say, “I liked to imagine myself walking down that path.” ) All I could take from that painting is if I walk down that path, I may as well not come back, because I would become dead from the boredom while walking on that stupid boring path. Have I said Boring enough to bore you to death? My mom and I have extraordinarily different tastes in art, clothes, food, etc. She will tell you the same thing (go ahead and comment below, Mom, here’s your big chance!) But she is one of my biggest fans and I appreciate all that she does to share my art with her friends and her community, even though we like very different kinds of art.

It’s interesting today to consider all of the thousands and thousands of illusions I have created over time. I once did the math and figured that if I made a drawing or painting of any form shape or size since I began making art that I likely have easily created over 5000 images. This is my creative math at work: 2500+ weeks have passed since I started making art in preschool, and likely an average of 2 works a week since then because many years I made multiple images daily, and I cannot remember a week that went by when I wasn’t doodling in a journal or sketchbook - so now we’re at 5000 images. That makes me a full blown bonafide magician’s assistant.

The image today shows a feminine figure whispering dragonflies with stars falling from the sky, roses in her hair, and wears a necklace that states, “I am in the business of creating illusions.” If there’s any way I can pass one of my illusions onto you, please comment below, or send me a direct message. At 53 I have so many of these filling up my studio closet I need to find homes for them all. Of course every day that I wake up and get to keep on keeping on, I’m still going to make new images, new illusions for me to enjoy, new images for you all to witness. Substack has been a fantastic way for me to share with those that find creativity worthy of exploration - and consideration.

Are you in the illusions business? If you are - post one of your works below. I can’t wait to see what you choose to share. In the meantime, I’ll get back to work, putting pink here and some black sharpie there in my Sketchbook Diaries of an evolving Art Therapist.