NorCal and Shill

Mae - Artist - Throwback

• NorCal Guy • Season 1 • Episode 169

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What if the journey to authenticity in art could lead not only to personal peace but also to a thriving community and exciting opportunities? Meet Mae, a surreal landscape artist from the Sunshine Coast, who joins us in this episode to share her fascinating artistic path. Mae's experiences range from the fast-paced world of fast food and a successful wedding photography business to her current passion for creating evocative 3D art. Along the way, she discovered crypto art and NFTs, which not only provided a new medium for expression but also connected her with a vibrant online community. Mae opens up about her morning black coffee ritual, her amusing loyalty to Burger King, and her journey of blending art with technology, offering insights that are sure to inspire both seasoned artists and newcomers alike.

Our conversation with Mae reveals the transformative power of staying true to oneself while navigating the dynamic world of digital art. We explore her fascination with meditation, manta rays, and how these elements influence her creative process. From her childhood hobby of collecting basketball cards to her future collaboration with fellow artist Rich, Mae's story is one of growth, exploration, and excitement for what's to come. As we discuss global perspectives on art and the idea of living anywhere in the world, Mae's enthusiasm for Australia's beauty and her curiosity about the US shines through. Join us for a heartfelt discussion that touches on art, community, and the promise of new beginnings as Mae shares her plans for the future.

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Guy:

Who is this? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Norcal guy, norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcal guy. Norcal and chill podcast Show. It's chill time, norcal and chill podcast. What the sh? What the sh NorCal and Shill Podcast. So it's shill time. Norcal and Shill Podcast. What the sh-, what the sh-. Hey, everyone, welcome to the next episode of NorCal and Shill. Today's guest is Mae. Mae is a surreal landscape artist from the Sunshine Coast Australia. Surreal landscape artist from the Sunshine Coast Australia, she uses 3D software to create environments that evoke a strange nostalgia of foreign yet familiar. May tells stories with her landscapes, and art as primarily a form of meditation and expression for her. She leaves interpretation entirely up to the viewer, hoping only that her work is able to elicit a sense of deep peace and comfort. Everyone, please welcome Mae. Hey, mae, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Mae:

I'm good. How are you?

Guy:

I'm doing good. It looks like it's going to rain here at my place.

Mae:

It looks like it's going to rain here too, actually.

Guy:

Oh really.

Mae:

Yeah.

Guy:

We're like far apart, but at the same.

Mae:

Opposite sides of the world.

Guy:

Yep, it's morning over there, you doing some coffee tea.

Mae:

I do a black coffee as soon as I wake up, usually in bed, and then I will. If it's going to be a big day, I'll have another one like mid-morning, but that's my limit.

Guy:

Oh, okay, Black coffee. So are you planning on two coffees today?

Mae:

I am because it's my work. Christmas party starts at midday today.

Guy:

At midday. Yeah, okay, is this like an online party or are you going somewhere?

Mae:

No, we're going somewhere. It's going to be about a hundred IT guys and girls at a. We're going to an Irish pub this year, of all things, and we usually go pretty late, but we're starting a little bit earlier this year, so I'm not sure how big it's going to be, but it's usually big. So I've got to prepare myself.

Guy:

Yeah, you got to hydrate, hydrate yeah.

Mae:

And probably eat because it feels like the party is the like how do you pregame before?

Guy:

midday. I'm going to get judged for that because Australia. But you shouldn't pregame. No, I mean, mean, it sounds like it's going to be a lot of whatever you're doing over there at that party.

Mae:

you just need to hydrate and eat food yeah, I'll do that, maybe like one more coffee and then an espresso martini okay, all right really get things going pretty.

Guy:

Do you have a hardware wallet?

Mae:

I do. I have a Ledger Nano S, a green one. I love it. It's very cute and it does what I need it to do.

Guy:

That's good.

Mae:

I also have a black on black in the mail which I'm excited to get so that I can. I haven't figured out exactly what I'm going to do with two at this stage, but two has got to be better than one, right.

Guy:

Yeah, you can set them up as like mirrors of each other if you wanted.

Mae:

Yeah, and then how do you feel about I know you're supposed to be asking me questions, but how do you feel about the stacks?

Guy:

I just was looking at that last night.

Mae:

I haven't gone too deep yet.

Guy:

Yeah, Like I don't know exactly if it's like a, is that hardware wallet with a screen?

Mae:

I'm like I shouldn't have even asked this question because I don't know anything about it either. But yes, but it has like e-ink, like a Kindle screen, which I think is fancy, and you can like stack them it's in the name, you can get multiple and they magnetically stack to each other, which I just think, like imagine being at an event or something and you need your wallet for what? This is terrible, obsec, but and you just like whip out a stack of like hardware wallets right.

Guy:

So I guess I need to figure out more in depth, because it made me wonder if, like, it's a hardware wallet. But I don't want to travel with a hardware wallet, I want to leave that at home.

Mae:

Yeah it's very true so, but I don't want to travel with a hardware wallet.

Guy:

I want to leave that at home. Yeah, it's very true. So I need to look into it more, because I did see that and they were like talking about how you can travel with it and I'm like I don't want to travel with it.

Mae:

Yeah, but I mean.

Guy:

I don't understand exactly what it is, yet.

Mae:

Yeah, but I think this is interesting I have. So I started buying crypto in like December 2016. Nice, and I only got a hardware wallet when I started buying NFTs.

Guy:

Oh, okay.

Mae:

Yeah, I put them like of all things to put in the too hard basket. I put hardware wallets in the too hard basket for like five years.

Guy:

Hey, well, good, good, I mean, you finally did it. Yeah, what were your first thoughts when you heard about crypto art, nfts?

Mae:

I think the first thing that came out of my mouth was okay. So it's like the answer for digital copyright.

Guy:

Ah, okay.

Mae:

So from that perspective, I got it like it leaked right away, and I think you know I had been in crypto already. So from that side of things, I didn't, you know it made sense in terms of how. But I think the how in terms of like finding a community and actually making it happen, and that side of stuff didn't make sense to me until I found Twitter.

Guy:

Okay, okay, that makes sense.

Mae:

Yeah, cause I like I started when I started researching it. My boyfriend actually was the one to sort of tell me about it and I started doing a bit of research and it's not, like, immediately apparent, I guess, that we live on Twitter as much as we do, and so I started trying to like engage with the community on Instagram, and then that was just a flop. I'm sure it's a little bit better now, but you know, if you see a hashtag that has NFT in it, regardless of what else is in it, it's just going to be spam, like attacked on Instagram. So I struggled a little bit but, yeah, once I found everyone on Twitter, everything sort of clicked into place and I was like, okay, this is actually enormously about community, and that was when I like really started enjoying the process.

Guy:

All right, nice. So what brought you to art? How did you choose art?

Mae:

I don't know if I can really say this probably sounds like cliche. I don't know if I can really say this. Probably sounds like cliche, but I don't know if I can really say that I chose it. I'm not going to say that it chose me, but it's more of a compulsion for me, like I have OCD and I have a lot of compulsions, but it's probably one of the strongest ones, like it's the only thing. And this is since childhood. I've never, you know, I've always done different creative things, but until and this is since childhood I've never, you know, I've always done different creative things, but until I found 3D, I was never really like good at anything and I could never express what I wanted to express in any creative form. But I still did it and I think it's because it's maybe the only thing that I've ever done that I can ever just be fully at peace while I'm doing it, like it takes all the noise out of my head and I'm just focusing on this one thing. It's like the ultimate meditation.

Guy:

Okay, that's good, that's solid. What jobs have you done along the way, so I'm going to work backwards.

Mae:

Okay, Right now I'm in software analysis. I work in IT at an insurance company. Before that I was a manager of people and I will hopefully never do that again and before that I had a wedding photography business for like about five years.

Guy:

Oh, okay.

Mae:

Yeah, and that was very cool, like. So I was big into photography from the time I was like mid-teens, I guess, until I shut it down, maybe when I was 21 or 22, and it was like got a lot bigger and more lucrative, I guess, than I expected it to be and I was getting published in magazines and stuff, which was really cool. But I did it with an ex and we got sick of like it killed my passion for photography for a long time and it definitely killed my passion for him okay, that's fair so I did that, and before that I had you know, like typical teenage, fast food jobs.

Guy:

Oh, perfect, like you flipping burgers or?

Mae:

I was flipping burgers at the Australian version of Burger King Nice. Yeah, that was my OG.

Guy:

Sweet. It fits with, like you know, the crypto bear market.

Mae:

Yeah, yeah, my og sweet. It fits with, like you know, the crypto bear market. Yeah, yeah. So everyone's talking about walking back into jobs at mcdonald's. I would like, any day of the week, choose bogey king over mcdonald all right, all right I have loyalties if you were an animal, what would you be and why? Hands down a manta ray.

Guy:

All right.

Mae:

Because they just are so peaceful to me, like whenever I meditate. I did a course a couple of years ago on Vedic meditation, which is I'm not going to even try and explain the intricacies of it because I'll butcher it but part of it is a repeating sound, and every time I tried to do it I could never think of a sound and I always had an image, and the image was a manta ray, just, and my breathing would kind of go with its wings. Are they wings?

Mae:

It's, I don't know the sides of it going up and down, because I don't know, it's just like when they're calm and they're swimming. It's just such a fluid, like consistent, like rhythmic movement. You know what I mean I do, I do.

Guy:

They are very mesmerizing to watch yeah yeah, do you have a favorite food?

Mae:

I think the only thing I was thinking about this and like I've listened to most of your episodes, so I feel and I feel like a lot of people have really sophisticated answers, which is intimidating, but the only thing that anyone could like at any time of day, any day of the week or like 100 of the time, hold out to me and say, do you want this?

Guy:

and I would take it is like chocolate oh, okay yeah, I have zero discipline when it comes to chocolate nice well, except white chocolate, it's pretty cheap, yeah, yeah, that's not real chocolate thank you obviously so many people are like what when I say that to them?

Mae:

No, it's not.

Guy:

It's not, it's like wax, I mean.

Mae:

And then, like the other day, someone offered me it's called Top Deck here. It's like milk chocolate with white chocolate on top of it. And I was like why would you take like regular good chocolate and ruin it by putting white chocolate on top? Like how dare you? Having said that, kinder chocolate which has white on the inside is delicious, I will admit that.

Guy:

Oh, okay, I might walk back my thoughts on that then.

Mae:

No pressure.

Guy:

All right, perfect. Yeah, my daughter loves kinder eggs too. They are good. What's the best piece of advice you have been given?

Mae:

So someone actually said this to me just recently, which is kind of an explanation onto just like be authentic. Everyone says be authentic and it's very like yeah, okay, sure, sure thing. But he said you know, if you're putting out a persona that is anyone else's is an imitation of anyone else's, whether it's in your actions or the things that you say the people that you're going to be attracting are that person's people, or probably not even that person's people, because you're not them and so you won't ever be doing as good a job at being them as they are. Oh, interesting, so you'll get people that are kind of like in the middle and by doing that, you're robbing yourself of attracting your own people because you're not putting yourself out there. And so and it came kind of as part of a conversation about not kind of a confidence thing, I guess and, yeah, I think it really struck a chord because, like I said, it's really easy to tell people to be themselves and even in their work, like be authentic.

Mae:

But I think, whether you're talking about the work that someone's making or the actions that they're putting out there or the things that they're saying, it rings true for all of those things, like, if you're making work that you feel like is following a trend, then, yeah, there's going to be people that you attract, but they're not going to be attracted to your artwork, for you or for who you are or what you're trying to say. They're going to be attracted to it because it's hitting on a trend, and I think I would just rather have, and I think I would just rather have people in my community or people around me who know who I am and who support me because of that, Not because I'm good at being someone else, no, that makes perfect sense, because I mean, eventually, if you are, you know, in a way impersonating someone else, you get those people that like that impersonation.

Guy:

But when your true self comes out, and then they're like oh, yeah.

Mae:

That would be like devastating, I think. Like imagine if you were someone I'm just thinking as an artist in this space as an example example imagine if you kind of came in on a wave of like maybe only partially, but taking like a good deal of inspiration from someone else or like copying someone else, and then you start to change your mind about that and be yourself a lot more and like how you speak and your work and people had a like terrible reaction to it. That would be devastating, yeah. So yeah, I think it's just good to just be yourself because, like, there's always going to be it doesn't matter how weird you think you are, there's always going to be weird people who like your kind of weird. You just gotta find your weird, find the tribe of weird people that are the same kind of weird as you're weird right, right for sure.

Guy:

Do you have advice for artists joining the crypto art space?

Mae:

all of what I just rambled, all right and also, like, start with community, I think definitely yeah, if they're coming in from the outside of things, then definitely art as well. But having the right people in your community or having just the right, I don't know, like my tribe I feel like is very supportive and you know, if I'm feeling down, it doesn't matter who I end up rambling about that to, they all kind of have the ability to lift me back up and they all are really supportive in terms of sharing my work and championing me to other people, and I just think that the value of a strong community cannot be overstated.

Guy:

Very true, community helps a lot here, especially when you can develop some of those friendships. It's very helpful.

Mae:

Definitely.

Guy:

So if you could live or move anywhere, where would you live and why?

Mae:

I struggle with this because I really like it here, despite all the like. People think that Australians are just like immune to dangerous animals, but I hate them. I'm terrified of all of them and you know what? The one I'm scared of the most is actually the enormous lizards, and they don't even really hurt people, they just are there. But they creep me out a lot Like have you ever seen a picture of a goanna? They're enormous and they're terrifying.

Mae:

Anyway, despite all of that, I do really like it here. I think our natural environment is insanely beautiful and obviously natural environments are a bit of a thing for me. So I don't know that I would actually leave, but if I did leave, like if it's just a travel list literally everywhere I want to see everything. But if I had to like knuckle down and stay in one spot for a bit, I think it would probably be somewhere in the US, because it feels so central to everything and there's also some amazing, like you know deserts and like natural environments there that I'd really like to spend like a good amount of time in. So maybe the US, which could happen because my partner is American.

Guy:

Yeah, there's a lot of cool places. I mean I haven't been to a lot of them, but there's so much. I mean I guess that's every country, but there's so much everywhere.

Mae:

Yeah, I think people especially here, because we live all around the coast and there's not a lot that goes on in the middle of the country it's mostly uninhabited that goes on in the middle of the country Like it's mostly uninhabited, and so people here I think think that you know what we get on the coast is kind of what we have to offer and it's not and I think it's the same with the US Like a lot of your really cool stuff is in the middle.

Guy:

It is for sure.

Mae:

Yeah.

Guy:

Do you?

Mae:

have any questions for me? I have two questions.

Guy:

Okay, let's do it.

Mae:

Okay, number one, before NFTs, before crypto altogether, because I've heard the story of how you got into that, but before all of this, did you collect anything else?

Guy:

Yes, Ish. So yeah, I mean, when I was younger I collected basketball cards.

Mae:

Uh-huh.

Guy:

And that was the main thing I did when I was younger.

Mae:

For like trading purposes or to have a collection.

Guy:

You know, the funny thing about that is like you buy them and then you buy like the Beckett to like look up the values of the card and then, well, at least for me, I never sold any of them. So you're like, oh, it's worth worth this much, but I'm never selling it, yeah, type thing.

Mae:

so yeah, I mean I still have all of them. They're in the attic somewhere. That's insane, because they're probably worth significantly more now, I would assume right who knows, maybe, maybe not.

Guy:

Maybe, though, because I mean there's probably a lot of rookies there that are now retired.

Mae:

Yeah well, you say more now, I would assume right, who knows, maybe maybe not Maybe, though, because I mean there's probably a lot of rookies there that are now retired. Yeah Well, you set yourself up for like being able to hold onto something for a while at a young age, but it sounds like that was a good start. My second question is how has being surrounded by art all day, every day in the last couple of years impacted your life?

Guy:

I don't know if I can say I don't know. I guess it's more the online relationships, the friendships, that are more impacting me. I mean, I don't know Some of it. Yeah, I mean I guess I do have a lot of artwork on the walls. I'm staring at some of them right now Some of the physicals I've received since joining the space it kind of creeps in on you, huh it does.

Guy:

I mean, I guess the one impact is like so I've gotten back into photography which has been fun been really fun actually, so that's been a really good positive yeah, I think that's a great one.

Mae:

I think the last couple of months, we've started to see a couple more collectors that have, like, leaned into creating a little bit, which is it's amazing.

Guy:

It's a beautiful thing to say it's been awesome. But yeah, I think that answers the question. Yeah, any other questions? No, I don't think so all right if you want to do any shout outs or if you want to talk about upcoming projects. In like three to four weeks, when this pod comes out, let's hear about them, or not I guess not.

Mae:

The only thing that I have planned at the moment is my collab with rich, which will be next it's on the 15th of december, so that will be before this comes out yeah. Other than that, I'm just knuckling down and planning for next year because I really want it to be an impactful year. So I'm just trying to kind of set some things in stone that feel good to me and figure out how to make them happen.

Guy:

Sweet, yeah. Well, I look forward to next year and next week.

Mae:

Sweet, yeah. Well, I look forward to next year and next week, yeah, next week. This 12 days thing has been insane so far. Some of the artists that are involved in it is just, and the way that they've actually managed to incorporate their work with Rich's work, it's just nuts to see.

Guy:

So, yeah, I'm really excited. It's been fun to watch it.

Mae:

Yeah.

Guy:

Cool. Well, May thank you for your time and for coming on, and I hope you have a great day.

Mae:

You too. Thank you All right, bye, bye.

Guy:

Who is this? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Norcal guy, norcal guy. Norcal guy. Norcal guy, norcalguy, norcalguy, norcalguy, norcalguy, norcalguy, norcalguy. Norcal and Chill Podcast. So it's chill time. Norcal and Chill Podcast. What the fuck, what the chill. Norcal and Chill Podcast. So it's chill time. Norcal and Chill Podcast. What the fuck, what the chill.