Radio Maine Episode #78: Missy Dunaway
8/17/2022
Artist Missy Dunaway has the unique ability to be far-ranging and deep in her approach to her work. While attempting to convince a fellow college student of the ongoing relevance of William Shakespeare several years ago, she gave his contribution to language as one example. A known 'word chemist,' the Bard created new vocabulary and extensively used the available vocabulary of the time: his collected works include more than 30,000 words. Among these are descriptions of 64 species of birds that eventually inspired Missy's current series of paintings, including applicable and historically accurate plants. With the help of an ornithologist, a botanist, and a Shakespeare scholar, Missy remains true to her intention of "using a visual form to communicate information that makes it more accessible to everybody." Join our latest conversation with Missy Dunaway on today's episode of Radio Maine.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine. I have an artist whom I've interviewed before in the midst of COVID, Missy Dunaway. Thanks for being here in person today.
Missy Dunaway:
Thank you for having me, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
The last time, we spoke about things like chickens. And was it a cat we also talked about at your house?
Missy Dunaway:
Yes, Thomas.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
But you've moved on to animals of a different sort?
Missy Dunaway:
That's right.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Yes, animals of the avian sort. In fact, we have an example of this right behind us.
Missy Dunaway:
That's right.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Tell me about this piece.
Missy Dunaway:
I am currently on the road to painting every bird mentioned by Shakespeare. There are approximately 64 species, but that number is subject to change. I've completed a quarter of the collection, so it will take several more years. The idea is that each painting offers the viewer as much information as possible about the bird, including natural science facts and symbolic significance. Behind us, we have the peregrine falcon. I believe it's safe to say that Shakespeare was a falconer and had a lot of experience with falconry. Curiously, the peregrine falcon is only mentioned once in Romeo and Juliet.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
To create a map for yourself, did you read all of Shakespeare's works?
Missy Dunaway:
I'm currently in the process of reading all of the plays. I'm almost there, but luckily, my project is heavily based on researchers before me. James Edmond Harding wrote a book called The Birds of Shakespeare in 1871. He was a well-known English ornithologist and naturalist. He thankfully did all the hard work for me in locating the birds. His book is one of the most valuable resources in my research. That's where I started with this project, partially because that's where I found the list.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So how does one get interested in this in particular? It is a very specific thing that you're doing. You've done a lot of very specific things. You have a diversity of interests, but you go broad and deep.
Missy Dunaway:
Yes, that's an excellent way to put it. The project started in my junior year of college, in 2008. I took a Shakespeare course to fill an elective. I wasn't even all that interested in Shakespeare. I just thought: when I graduate, I want to be a well-rounded person, so I must know something about Shakespeare. I was really surprised by how much I connected with his work and how it was so entertaining and insightful. After class, I would often get lunch with a computer science major, and we would argue about Shakespeare. One day he was like, "Shakespeare is just so overrated. I don't get it. I've never seen a Shakespeare play that I like." Instead of convincing him about the value of the themes or the artistry, I grasped numbers that could quantify Shakespeare's talent.
As an average American college graduate, my vocabulary is around 16,000 words. In just 39 plays, Shakespeare demonstrates a vocabulary of over 30,000 words. I like to describe him as a word chemist. He invented or introduced 1,600 words to the English language. He used slang and combined words. Anyone can appreciate and admire what he contributed to the English language. And so I said to my friend, "just look at birds. He mentioned 64 different types of birds, and that's just birds." That's when I thought, "oh, that would be a good painting!" So I kept it in mind.
The first time I painted on this topic was as an artist-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center, where I had a huge studio space. I laid out an eight-foot piece of paper and painted feathers from every bird mentioned in Shakespeare. I was and still am very proud of that piece– and it found the perfect home at the Folger Shakespeare Library. But I created that painting when I was 22. Since then, I have learned a little bit more about birds and found inaccuracies in the painting. For example, suppose you see a picture of a flying kestrel in a Google image search (which is what I was using). In that case, kestrels look like giant hawks, but they're actually the size of pigeons. So in my painting, the kestrel feathers were big. Other large birds have small feathers– problems like that.
I always thought that when the time presents itself, I want to recreate that painting more accurately. COVID gave me that opportunity. So I redid it, and it was sold through the gallery (thank you, Portland Art Gallery!). When it was gone, I felt a little disappointed, like, is that all there is? It's such a good idea. There's more here to explore; I want it to continue. If I want to expand it, the obvious answer is to do one painting for each bird.
That's the long story behind it.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
How many birds are you at this point?
Missy Dunaway:
17, but I'm going to redo the magpie. I hate to knock myself back to 16, but I probably will.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
How long does each of these pieces take you?
Missy Dunaway:
That's a complex question. The rendering takes between 50 and 70 hours. It's about two weeks of a brush to paper. The research behind it and revisions after it's done take just as much time, if not more. I'm not an ornithologist, an avian ecologist, or a Shakespeare scholar by any stretch of the imagination. I have to make up for those shortcomings, so I've assembled a team of advisors to fact-check all aspects of my project: an ornithologist reviews the anatomy of the birds, and a botanist checks the plants. Finally, I meet with a Shakespeare scholar who ensures I interpret the text correctly. All three advisors always have edits and revisions for me to make.
In short: each piece takes a solid month of research, writing, discussions, and painting.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
So if you were a scientist, this would be the equivalent of publishing an article every time; the amount of work you're putting into each piece, these are your visual articles.
Missy Dunaway:
Yes, that's exactly how I describe the carpet series I did as a Fulbrighter in Turkey. I was a researcher, but my findings were communicated in paintings instead of written articles.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
This is more of a thing now that qualitative research includes more visual pieces. So sitting here and talking with you, it's fascinating that the different fields are coming from different directions but encouraging the same approach.
Missy Dunaway:
Yes. I agree. And I like that because it makes the information more accessible. I hope someone who is not an English speaker can look at my paintings and learn something about Shakespeare and birds.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Yes. Some people will resonate with it. For other people, it may not resonate as much with them. But I think about the number of children, for example, who go to museums or who engage with art and because they don't necessarily have word expertise yet, but they do already have eyes. That sort of kind of creativity is being built in their little brains. I find that really appealing.
Missy Dunaway:
Yes. I remember the first time I read Shakespeare –his work is not meant to be read at all! His words are intended to be acted out on stage. Leading up to the moment in high school when I was first introduced to Shakespeare, I was expecting literature because his plays are taught as literature. My high school teacher got us all pumped up about Shakespeare. "You want romance? He's got it. Do you want action? He's got it." I was so excited. Then he says, "Okay, let's flip, open the book and begin." And I was like, what am I looking at? This is just dialogue. I was so confused, and it turned me off.
I wish that my first introduction was at a theatre. I think the visual form would have been more relatable and accessible to me at that age. Similarly, I hope my paintings translate the language into a very immediate, accessible format.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
You've done a lot of work with realism, and in particular, you've worked with one of our other artists, Rodney Dennis. It takes so much work to do the realistic paintings that both of you do– hours and hours and hours. Tell me about that process.
Missy Dunaway:
You know, I love the hours and hours and hours. At first, I thought there was no way I could do it, but I wanted to get better at drawing, and that's what it takes. Drawing has always been my weakness as an artist. The Academy of Realist Art, where Rod and I met as students, focuses on drawing. But you must be prepared to put several hundred hours into a single piece. One drawing will command an entire semester. You have to go to a different place when you're doing it. It's very meditative. I was actually crushing podcasts on Shakespeare. It's convenient research time because you can devour audiobooks, news, and podcasts.
The way technology is going and social media –information is getting cut up into smaller and smaller soundbites. I found myself craving long-form deep dives. And I have found that at the Academy of Realist Ar. It has been really encouraging because sometimes I worried my attention span was permanently altered by social media. Nope, that's definitely not the case. You can get your attention span back. It takes a little bit of practice. So many students go to that school who have no background in art and might not have had the patience for it initially. But attention is a skill that you can exercise. Once you're used to it, it's gratifying, relaxing, and refreshing.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
When I look at this piece that you brought today, I think about how you devoted an entire semester to it (we're going to show an image online for people watching the video version of this podcast). Is that unusual for someone who's working in art?
Missy Dunaway:
It may be unusual ever since impressionism. In the Western art tradition, impressionists were the first to break out of the studio and go outdoors because one of the technological advances of the industrial revolution was tubed paint. Up until that point, artists would grind their own color. There's a lot of gear. It was not a transportable hobby or career. So when tubed paint was created, people could go outdoors and study natural light, but you have to paint fast because you're keeping up with light changes. Art just broke free, especially when photography came around. Why labor for months over a realistic painting when you can take a photo? Artists were liberated to explore all these different things to express and capture. Oh, I've lost my train of thought.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
You were talking about working on one piece for a semester. I can guess where you're going– this may be used to be a thing. And then, with these new technologies, it became that you were able to do more things in less time.
Missy Dunaway:
Thank you. Yes, exactly. Perhaps putting that much time into a single piece is unusual today, but there was a time when it was the normal thing to do. But time investment varies from artist to artist. Sometimes I'm surprised, especially at the Portland Art Gallery, where there is such an array of styles. Occasionally, I'll speak to an artist that has a minimal approach. They probably get a painting done in one day, and then I find out it takes a month and a half. The image can be very deceiving to the amount of work and time that goes into it.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, that's similar to medicine, where somebody can say, "Hey, can you look at this mole? Oh, it's only gonna take you two seconds." Well, it took you two seconds to look at the mole, but it took you all of the years of education that brings you to the place where you can look at it and say, "oh yeah, don't worry about that." Or, "you should have that looked at further." So you're right that you can never really know what brings someone to a place to create a piece and how much time that is taken.
Missy Dunaway:
Right.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
It's a hard thing to understand the backstory.
Missy Dunaway:
It's true. Especially with the Shakespeare project, I'm working on now. I could whittle it to 65 hours when the brush touches the paper. But when I think about compositional planning and research, it adds a lot of time.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
And you're not just doing the birds; you are engaging in multiple different things simultaneously. I'm just amazed by the array of projects I've seen your work on. You just came back from Kenya not too long ago. How do you keep your mind simultaneously on these various tracks and move them forward?
Missy Dunaway:
The only way I can stay focused on so many different things is by researching so many other things because it keeps everything fresh. There are days when I'm like, I cannot look at another bird, and I don't want to paint another feather for the rest of my life. And then, I'll spend six weeks in Kenya for an unrelated artist-in-residence program, or I'll do a school assignment or work in my sketchbook. After enough time, I'm like, "Okay, enough of this. I'm ready for a feather again." It keeps me very engaged to bounce around that way.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Tell me about Kenya.
Missy Dunaway:
I was there for six weeks at an artist-in-residence program that I was accepted to back in 2019. My goal has always been to do one artist-in-residence program a year because it's an economical way for me to travel long-term. I get to stay for extended visits. There's terrific cultural immersion. You meet other artists while there, so it's great for networking and making friends. It offers everything that I want out of travel.
Olepangi Farm is the name of the residency in Laikipia County of Kenya, just at the foothills of Mount Kenya. I had initially applied for a site-specific project. I wanted to add a new chapter to my visual travelogue. My travel journal was published in 2021 as "The Traveling Artist: A Visual Journal." I wanted Kenya to be another chapter in that book. However, because the residency was delayed a few years for Covid, the book was published before I went. So I went to Kenya and had this excellent opportunity to revisit a project that was over. And it was really nice to bring that project back to life. And now I have it in my head to do a second volume.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
As I'm reading the work that Susan Sherril Axelrod created in the Art Matters blog, remembering my interview with you early on in the podcast and having spent time with you over the last few years as you've worked with the art gallery, I've really been struck with how driven you are as an individual. You create goals, set a path forward to your goals, follow through on them, and work at the gallery and make a living. And I know your husband, Joe, is working on his MBA. You have so much going on. Did you have a sense when you were going through your undergraduate degree that you would have all these various interests? Were you already that driven, and did you know what direction you wanted to go?
Missy Dunaway:
What keeps me driven is the fact that I feel happiest and most natural when I am creating. As an undergrad, I painted all the time, and if I was done with an assignment, I painted again for pleasure. There have been times when I thought this isn't working out, I'm never going make it as an artist, and I'm ready to quit. And then I feel so liberated, like, I have so much free time now! What am I gonna do? I'll go paint. It's just always a thing I'm doing. So I figure if I'm going to do it, I might as well continue putting my work out there. A break will come; it's only a matter of time. A painting sells, or I get a new opportunity, moving me along. Even when I was applying to my first residencies, I was rejected over and over and over again. But I just thought, this is a game of numbers, and eventually, a program will accept me.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
It is fascinating to listen to what you've put into your career because, as an artist, you're putting out works, and there's no guarantee they will sell. Maybe it does. Perhaps it doesn't. So there is an act of faith involved in all of this as well.
Missy Dunaway:
Yes. But it makes it more rewarding when there's no guarantee a painting will sell, and it does. Sometimes I think of Great Expectations and how nice it would be to have a secret admirer buying every painting I make. (If I recall correctly, the protagonist is an artist in the 1998 movie adaptation.) But at the end of that story, he's so disappointed to find out that he was being propped up by a single person, and his success feels hollow. (I haven't seen the movie or read the book since high school, so I might be getting this wrong.) But since I don't have a benefactor, everyone who buys my work has the choice not to. A painting must mean something to them, and that makes a sale feel more special, you know?
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Yes. That's also a great point that somebody looks at what you've created and says, "Yeah, I value that." That's such an important feeling. And to know that that piece will end up in their office or home. So, in addition to making money off the pieces, it's also the sense that you're creating enjoyment for someone else in their life.
Missy Dunaway:
Yes. I'm in a unique role as a staff member and a represented artist. There may be a piece that I love, but people walk by it. They don't notice it at all. It's like an invisible painting. And I start to think, "I really thought I had something there, but I guess I didn't." And then someone will stop, and it's like they met their soulmate, and they're so wrapped up in this painting. It's like what I had said about applying to something: it's a game of numbers. It is the same with viewers. Sometimes a hundred people will walk by and not pay any attention, but for one person, it will mean a lot, and that's really special and beautiful. I'm so happy that, as a staff member, I get to see that happen. Because when you see that deep connection, it's really profound.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
Well, Missy, you have inspired me. I think to keep working hard really and have faith. I'm not a visual artist, but there are parallels that many of us can draw in our own lives. And I think you're right. I sometimes think it's easy to get discouraged if you're worried about external validation. But if you keep tapping back into what drives you internally, you keep moving forward. And if you do get the external validation, that's nice. But it sounds like that's only part of it for you. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Missy Dunaway:
I have too, Lisa. Thank you so much for having me back.
Dr. Lisa Belisle:
I've been speaking with the artist, Missy Dunaway, who you can meet if you go to the Portland Art Gallery because not only is she a represented artist, but she also is a staff member. I encourage you to look into the work that she does. You'll find birds, you'll discover tapestries, you'll find other lovely pieces. And I know we're gonna see many great things out of Missy Dunaway in the years to come. Thank you for joining me today.
Missy Dunaway:
Thank you.
Learn more about this artist:
Radio Maine podcast interview #02
Radio Maine podcast interview #78