ARTIST ZOË PAWLAK ON 5 AM WAKE-UPS, MOTHERHOOD & SOBRIETY
It’s 8 AM in Vancouver. The sun is shining through the streakless windows of Zoë Pawlak’s stylish Armoury District dual-purpose showroom/studio. The well-known Canadian painter and industrial designer has already been up for hours, taking the necessary steps to care for herself and her family before heading to the studio. Before we sit down to chat on her white bouclé club chairs, Zoë swiftly gets into glam mode, swiping on mascara and a fresh coat of nail polish in less than 5 minutes. Her flawlessly painted nails are still wet by the time we sit down to discuss her lengthy artistic CV and recent entrepreneurial endeavours. Zoë informs me she’s got less than 30 minutes until the first of her nine meetings that day, the last of which will conclude at 6:30 PM. No problem. We jump in without hesitation.
PC: So you’ve been up since what time?
ZP: Since 5 AM. By about 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning, when I get started here at the showroom, I've already had a five or six-hour day. This morning I had the opportunity to create the skeleton for a project that we're pitching to a major retailer. Oftentimes my mornings will look like exercise, coffee meditation, a little bit of meandering and journaling and such. Sometimes I'll set aside morning energy when my brain is working at its finest to work on something really special and important.
“I happen to love painting, but I happen to love people more.”
PC: What's your schedule like generally?
ZP: I work about 20 hours a week painting and about 20 hours running the business. I spend time between the showroom and the studio literally doing adult show and tell. I'm showing [clients] work and explaining to them, with what I call jazz hands, why the work is exciting, and why I feel it's important and meaningful. I spend a lot of time listening. I think that one of my best skills as an entrepreneur is being a great listener.
I spend a lot of time with my clients. Mostly, we talk about life and then they happen to also buy a painting, but we really want to get to the heart of the matter, the soul, of why we're here. I happen to love painting, but I happen to love people more.
PC: What kinds of questions do you ask your clients to get to know them better?
ZP: What I'm doing is being a conduit who is working on behalf of my client. Clients being happy with custom work is very important to me. In the same breath, they hire me to do my own thing. I ride that fine line between being of service and having autonomy. My confidence in my work and saying, “OK, from this point forward I've got this, I've got you. Allow me to make the best work possible.” In order to do that, I have to do a lot of research and understanding at the beginning of the conceptual development of the work.
PC: What does that research look like?
ZP: A lot of times it has to do with helping people articulate what it is that they like. You would be shocked at how little confidence people have in themselves, in their own taste. Granting them permission to just love what they love and starting there. Then I tell them a little bit more about what the work means to me and ask questions about what it means to them.
PC: What you do takes a lot of emotional intelligence, having to pick up on certain cues that people are giving you. That must be taxing. What's the most exhausting part of the day?
ZP: I would say the hardest thing is balancing my personal life and my family life with being an entrepreneur. I find it extremely difficult to transport myself from being a mom of two teens back into the world of my creativity. It's challenging to live between those two worlds. My family has a lot of demands that are happening in real-time.
ZP: The life of a creative entrepreneur is at its best when it can meander and stay up late or follow creative desires. My life has also been extremely expensive since I was 24 years old, so I've had to, one, make quite a bit of money and, two, not be able to play and explore as much as someone would have, had they possibly been childless from the age of 24 years old.
I think there's that there’s this notion that artists are like meandering, drinking wine on a patio, smoking a cigarette somewhere and getting up at 2:00 AM to do whatever they want. That's a very romanticized vision of an artist. You and I know that artists who are working and supporting themselves and their families, have to be rigid. They have to be on their own schedule. That's why I get up at 5 AM.
It's actually a blessing too. I grew up with my children and there were a lot of challenges with that. I regret so many things. We were not prepared financially, emotionally, spiritually. We were not available in ways that I see parents being available in their mid-30s and forties.
But I will say, I heard this one quote one time, “Let your children be your reason, not your excuse.” I hold my respect for my children very, very high. They've also been the engine that's driven this whole thing because, at the end of the day, I've done it to stay alive, to support myself.
I see a lot of people also struggle with purpose. Too much time on their hands. Too much idle time can also be detrimental. I also feel very blessed to have had that reason for getting up in the morning.
PC: It’s so important to have guardrails. You have a lot going on, so what’s something you’re excited about right now?
ZP: Over my 16-year career, I've specialized in custom work. I've sold beautiful work to people and then about a decade ago designed three rug lines. That was my first introduction to industrial design. Most recently, we’ve created an oracle deck which includes 40 of my favorite paintings. We've selected them and paired them each with a word that goes with the card. I've written something that corresponds to each word and which expands on each card.
The reason we created the deck was because we wanted to have a celebration of 16 years of work. I'm most excited that it's it comes with journal prompts as well. Journaling has really helped me in my life, and so it's really exciting that people are going to be able to have this as a tactile practical tool that they can integrate into their daily practice to know themselves better. To reflect and be responsible. It is also just tied to my heart for spirituality and sobriety.
PC: In what ways has your sobriety influenced your relationship with yourself? Are the written prompts influenced by that perspective?
ZP: Getting sober from alcohol is the best thing I’ve ever done… Being a sober woman has influenced everything in my life, so, for sure, the deck comes from a level of clarity and calm that would have never before been possible had I been still using. I was also able to muster the courage to do something new like exposing my writing and investigating this whole new venture and leading my team in a new way too which requires a whole other level of consciousness, kindness and consistency.
PC: Many artists shy away from creating commercial products such as prints and reproductions. Was that a consideration in the creation of the deck?
ZP: I have always shied away from making prints as I wanted to maintain a high level of excellence over the span of my career. I never wanted to participate in the print game, but the deck feels very different to me. It comes from the place of wanting to be of service. When you start there, so many more doors open. I also wanted to serve my fans who have never been able to collect original work.
Photo: Niko Myyrä
PC: Who is this deck for and what do you hope the individuals who engage with it take away from it?
ZP: This deck includes journal prompts. I’ve been journaling almost daily since I was 12. Most people who don’t yet journal, say that they would like to. I hope that people use the deck as an anchor when they need grounding or advice and that it expands their personal self-awareness and provides some insight in really hard times. I would hope that people feel loved by it and essentially feel less alone in their (morning) routines.
Learn more about Zoë’s work via her website and be sure to follow her on Instagram.
