Following the Call to Create: Artist Aimee Maychack Comes to Minnetrista
“I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.”
Doing art full time is a dream for many artists. It is not an easy feat for many, but Aimee Maychack is an artist, who after years in another career field, has decided to follow that dream and make art full time.
Over the past year they have chosen to sell their home and leave a stable-albeit strenuous job, to now move from place to place across the country to pursue what, for most of their life, was more of a hobby. These days, they are entering shows, connecting with other artists, and visiting maker spaces, to deepen their knowledge of printmaking and life as an artist.
Aimee describes the past 30 years of their life as being in the “helping profession.” First, a chemical dependency counselor, then in fire service after 9/11. They also served “as an educator, grant writer, civilian paramedic in the Air Force, captain, and most recently, a flight paramedic.”
If we look at Aimee’s work history, the trajectory of their life did not seem to say next would be “artist.” But that, to me, is one of the most beautiful things about their story. It happened in reverse of what many artists experience.
Young artists throw themselves into this profession, get burned out and hungry for more money, or find that without the prompting and structure of school, art is not as fun or viable. Some end up going into the very fields Aimee left. All of this is okay to discover about yourself as you figure out what is important in your life.
As Aimee writes on their blog: “Being an artist is not a get-rich-quick scheme or really a good plan towards a sustainable living. Making art, whether it’s a physical thing or a performance, is an obsessive passion. A passion, a gift, a pursuit to share the artist’s magic with the world.”
Aimee’s words remind me that art is deeply personal, but also that sharing art is part of the work itself. It is dialogue between the artist and the viewer, even when no words are exchanged. Viewers bring their own experiences and share in the dialogue, often making the work more than the artist originally intended, giving greater life to it.
Much of Aimee’s art is about this dialogue. The use of hands, instead of full figures, is purposeful and meant for the viewer to approach the work without attaching inherent biases. From their blog, Aimee writes, “It's not about our individual interactions, but about recognizing the whole of our shared humanity. This is the space I find myself in with this project—focused on the collective, beyond our differences. In today’s climate, this can sometimes feel harder to embody, but it's what I want to see in the world. It’s the conversation I want to be part of.”
As an observer, bringing my own experiences with me, I see, like the hands represented in Aimee’s prints, something that relates to everyone. That life, whether we plan for it or are forced into it, can make a great change in course. Regardless, in the process we grow, sometimes painfully, into a person we couldn’t have imagined before. And these changes don’t happen once but many times and at many scales over our lifetime. Aimee beautifully wrote of this time in their life, “I don’t know exactly what comes next. But for now, I’m standing in the space between endings and beginnings, with no ground beneath my feet.”
What places have you been and where are you now? What is the story of your life?
You can follow Aimee’s journey on their website and on Instagram.
You can also meet Aimee on Friday, October 24, here at Minnetrista, for a Linocut workshop they will be leading. Sign up here.
