Bio Number 5 (Cue Mambo#5)

 

 

 

 

What is there to say about Maisie DeGraaf? A girl from the small town of Ingersoll in Southern Ontario, Canada. She was the first to graduate high school in her family and the only one to pursue post secondary education. Maisie has changed her mind many times in her life. From wanting to be an astronaut when she was 6, to a neurologist in high school, to a pathologist in university, to an artist in college. At Lakehead University, Maisie started to discover her need for artistic expression after the death of her long term girlfriend. She finished up her Applied Bio Molecular Program and headed off to Sheridan College, where she studied hard to learn art.

 

            While studying art, Maisie met her current partner, who took her travelling to China. This experience was the start of one of her artistic passions, travel. A lot of her work is commentary on current day China, the good and the bad, and the people caught up in the politics of the country. A more realistic style, she enjoys drawing complex architecture in marker, pen, ink, and pencil crayon. She also enjoys incorporating Chinese calligraphy and writing into many of her pieces.

 

            Maisie also has another passion that she has incorporated into her work. Animals. Working at a pet store during her final two years at Sheridan College helped invigorate and give inspiration into her art. A lot of commission work was done for customers in the store, and if you visit Tail Blazers Oakville, you will see a piece still hung up.

 

            More recently, Maisie has been expanding her area of expertise when it comes to art. Photography has become an area of interest and Maisie shoots a few photos for the social media channel she runs for a business, Tail Blazers Oakville.

One of Maisie’s earliest works was in graphic design, where she designed by herself an entire pamphlet on her physical disability and distributed them out for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome Awareness month in October. This was before any art schooling. The pamphlet including organized information, hand drawn pictures, and a neat design. After that, Maisie began to realize graphic design was not her strong suit.

 

Maisie still continues to do art, mostly commissions of people’s pets, but plans to travel and draw more in her travel journal are in the works.