Artist of the Week
Hayley Schmalz

By Lyndsie Bourgon

Posted June 25th, 2007.

Five Things To Know About Hayley Schmalz:

1) Schmalz's art is blind contour line drawing. She explains that the method is to look at the subject of your drawing and draw while never lifting your pencil. The entire sketch is drawn with one line, and the artist doesn't look down at the paper.

An artist for almost her whole life, Waterloo native and resident Schmalz learned blind contour drawing through a project in the tenth grade. "That piece was the one that made me come back to art," says Schmalz. No longer destroying her room at home, she paints and draws in a cement room in her sister's basement because it allows her to be as sloppy as she wants to be. Although involved in making art throughout high school, she took a big break after graduating.

"I didn't really understand how [important] it was to me," says Schmalz. "I realized when I was looking back on a painting that I did in high school. I looked at it and thought, ‘That's the best thing I've ever done in my life,' and I went from there."

2) Schmalz has multiple projects on the go at once. Her most recent idea involves creating a small book of drawn portraits. Meanwhile, she's been drawing naked bodies with anatomical hearts for heads on a big canvas.

"I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it yet," says Schmalz, "but I hope to finish it within the next couple of weeks. I have another book I want to do that has taken me months [to start]. I've started planning it but I haven't acted on it because I thought of a million other things I want to do first."

Another one of her projects is a series of portraits of her grandmother, whom she used to live with.

"I recently moved away and I really miss her," says Schmalz. "I was looking at these small portraits of her from the 50s. Each pose is very similar but they're each slightly different. I'm going to do a series on those photos."

3) An avid observer, Schmalz's inspiration comes from people, and she likes to see the quirks and habits of those around her.

"I find faces interesting," she says. Her planned portrait book stems from that interest. "I think [faces] have a lot of detail to them. It's going to be a teeth series; all the faces will have very long sharp teeth. I was really inspired by some of Radiohead's art, but obviously mine is a lot sloppier because I don't draw with straight lines."

Despite this, Schmalz says pop culture doesn't influence her art. "It's a completely separate thing to me," she says. "I did another project with the teeth, but it's mostly because I like the weird teeth, I like weird things."

4) Schmalz describes her art as different.

"I find it to be basic," she says. "But a lot of people say differently from what I think." She says her art is a representation of reality but in a slightly different way. In particular, Schmalz likes to incorporate anatomy into her work. "I find that anatomy gives [art] a really interesting feel, I like things a bit twisted. I like looking at a body and drawing it the best I can with one line, and then putting the inside on the outside." She gives the examples of ribs on a T-shirt, or lungs or a heart.

The reversal of inside and outside is a way of opening up the image for Schmalz. "When you look at a person in real life, you observe them as a person, but in my paintings it's like seeing a person and seeing everything about that person, inside and out."

5) Her influences include her love for Ralph Steadman, whose work she compares her own art to. "I like the messy work he does," says Schmalz. "We both use ink and we're both really messy."

Among others, Schmalz lists Salvador Dali as a favourite artist. Admittedly, she wasn't always a fan. "I never appreciated his work as much because I wasn't impressed with what I saw in calendars," she says. That changed when she had a chance to see some of his ink drawings in a museum in England. "His paintings are really amazing, but a lot of his ink drawings are incredible. They're a different character, they are surreal but they're not as dark as his other work."

She attributes her greatest artistic achievement to her first art show. "It really motivated me to do a lot more, and it made me excited to display things," she says. "Following inspiration is a big thing, it's hard sometimes. Taking in the motivation of things around me helps me get through things."

Schmalz is honest when she says she has no idea where her art will go in the future. "It's exciting for me because I don't know," she says. "I think it's going to be a hobby, but if it did get big in the future I would welcome it. I hope to keep it in my life forever."