In my third interview in this series, I had a lovely conversation with Simone Michiels. She’s a modern-day “renaissance woman” currently living in The Netherlands – a former teacher, nursery worker, parent, painter, paint maker, facilitator and coach for an online arts community called “That Creative Space”.

Shelley Skail: Hello, and thank you for making the time to talk with me today. You’re involved in a lot of different creative endeavours – making paints, painting, working as a community organiser and coach for the online art community that you’ve created (That Creative Space). You always seem to have a lot of ideas on the go – where do they all come from?

Simone Michiels: Yeah, where do they come from?  For my art I don’t think I really have ideas. That used to worry me because other people have ideas of what to draw and I would sometimes say my idea was ‘some sort of colour, and shape vomit that needs to get out…’  I started to learn that by painting I get to do a little inner work and a little healing. I’m getting to know myself better and that’s the reason I started to do abstract work.  

I did do illustration years ago, but I always got stuck on the ideas.  I always had ideas of what to draw but felt like ‘this is not me’ .  It didn’t feel like me, so I started to transition to abstract – I needed something to help me express, to get it out, and that was abstract art.  There’s no perfectionism – well there is, but it’s not like illustration where I think it needs to look perfect or look a certain way.  With abstract art it’s like opening a gate and letting it out.

With your abstract art it sounds like it’s raw expression.

Yes. I had been thinking of the question ‘where do we end?’ Is it my skin?  Or do I end where my stories end? The ripple.  So art is an extension of the self. I promise you I’m not high [laughing] – I’m a born philosopher and I’ve been thinking about these things for as long as I can remember. 

I do have ideas but they’re very vague and I find it difficult to put things in words so I put them into colour and marks and shapes.  For my art I know at some point I have to, maybe, start making a bit more sense if I want to sell it to people, but it’s more that I try to take that inner world and put it on a canvas.

Art has always helped me. I had a difficult childhood and art always helped me make sense of the world and think ‘that’s it!’.  So is it ideas?  Maybe, but it’s also me trying to make sense of the world, of my inner world, and how I relate to the world and other people. 

So it’s almost like processing – you process things as you create?

Yeah! It’s so weird to put it into words!

And for other things – the community for example.  I’m not a people person – I’m very introvert and highly sensitive, so it’s so funny that I’m doing this.  When I entered the world of Instagram I never thought I would be a community builder – earlier I had another Instagram for a bit of illustration work but nothing serious, and then I started an Instagram account for my paint making, and then I started a Patreon account because it seemed like fun. After a few months of my Patreon someone told me, “I came for the paints but I stayed for the community.” And I realised that we were building a community there and it was more fun than making the paints or shipping the paints to people and I thought ‘I like this’.  

It’s the same with the community now. I know I have to plan stuff because I work together with Stephanie so my ideas come when I sit down and I start to brainstorm.  And that often leads to coming up with ideas the evening before I have to sit down because it’s always very foggy up here [points to her head].  And brainstorming with someone is so important to me because when I talk to Stephanie I say “I’ve got this vague idea of what I want to do with the community this month and it doesn’t even really make sense to me but can I just put it in a voice message to you and see if it makes sense to you?” And I do that with her.  She has her own ideas and she clarifies my ideas and I’m like “yes! That’s it, that’s what I’m talking about!”

So I do have ideas constantly but they are so vague – I have to sit down and start to paint, sit down and start to write, sit down and start to brainstorm. And when I do that the fog clears up and it’s like ‘ahh this is where I’m going!’

It sounds like you might have a seed of something in your head but once you externalise it then it can develop and grow-

-into something and then when it’s starting to turn into something, then I’m like ‘yes! That was a good seed, I knew it was a good something but I didn’t know what yet.’ And that’s why I love working with Stephanie, because she understands me, and for other people I think it might be super frustrating. 

I started to realise that when I was making paint and I would make a palette of colours.  People would say “you’re so good at picking colours together – how do you do that?  Do you have a method?”  I felt like such an imposter.  And it’s still the same with picking colours for my paintings –  I don’t plan, I just sit down.  I start with one or two colours and I look at my colours and I think ‘that looks great with this, and let’s just experiment. Maybe it’s a risk to add this colour but who knows what will happen’.

But with making paints I sometimes felt like an imposter because I don’t plan or think about colour theory – I know colour theory very well but I just go with what feels good.

Like you trust your intuition?

Yeah. I’ve learned in the last couple of years that that’s okay.  I always felt like such an imposter – everybody on the internet seemed to know what they were talking about and I used my intuition I guess.

I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I think that’s one of the things that’s so engaging about you is that you’re very genuine.  Because there are a lot of people on the internet who sound like they know exactly what they’re talking about, who position themselves as experts, and… I’m not buying it, you know?

Yeah!

Whereas people like you who say “I don’t really know, it just seemed right,” that jives with me because in similar situations I would say the same thing.  Like, yes I know a lot of theory but there was no conscious-decision making in this, it was just what I felt like.

And I think that comes from our subconscious – because most of us read about colour theory.  I didn’t go to art school but in my high school/college I did art and art history so somewhere it’s all stored subconsciously and we use our subconscious – that’s where our intuition lives.  So I guess we do know on a certain level.

But sometimes I hear people say “oh, colour theory – we shouldn’t be mixing these colours” and yeah I know that and that information is stored somewhere but it’s not like I’m using it to think ‘let’s think about those colours or what composition it’s going to be’.  For me it’s limiting if I have to pick a few colours or if I have to pick a composition when I start because then I go from my body to my head and I start to overthink things, and then there’s the inner critic and the perfectionist, and it limits me. 

And what you said about people positioning themselves as an expert – and I think I can speak for Stephanie here too, but it’s always been like this for me – I don’t position myself as a teacher, not even if I were to make a class. I’ve always said to Stephanie that I don’t see myself as a teacher, and I’ve also said that in the community, “I don’t know more than you but I love this journey and I would love it if you would come along on that journey and learn together” It’s how I’ve done Instagram for the last couple of years – “this is a journey and I’m going to explore! I’m going to make mistakes, who’s in for the ride?” And that’s also how I started the community.

That’s super interesting, thank you!  I’m going to swing around to favourite artist or artists now – do you have any?

How to narrow this down?!? I love so much art and so many artists. But let’s see if I can bring this down to a few artists that I think I’m influenced by.

First of all – Joan Mitchell.  I discovered her work about a year ago although she died many years ago, she’s an abstract expressionist.  She’s one of my favourites, although it’s not like I know her work very thoroughly.  I got into art when I went to art school for Photography – my parents never took me to museums so I’d never seen art when I was little.  

The next artist I’m going to mention has the same energy – Jason Craighead.  He’s also an abstract expressionist and what I love about these people – some people would look at the work and think “that’s just brush strokes and marks” – I look at the work and I see their ripple. This is their insides on the canvas. 

Beach Painting for Buddy, 2021 by Jason Craighead

I was in a museum a few years ago and there was this installation of clouds.  It was just clouds and most people were just passing it by.  The clouds were huge and they were moving a bit and it completely sucked me in – I was staring at this thing for about 20 minutes. I was with a friend and he was like “why do you like this so much it’s not even pretty?” and I said “I don’t think I care for pretty”

I like it when something pulls me in and I know for sure that Joan Mitchell’s work does that.  I also have that with Willem de Kooning.

Some people see brush strokes, I see the extension of these people.  I think it’s why I like abstract art so much.

But I’m also a huge fan of Marie-Noëlle Wurm’s work.

I love her stuff too!

Whether it’s her more illustrative work or her more dark, abstract stuff, it’s also the kind of work that pulls me in and I’m looking at it and I want to be there – or not because sometimes it’s very dark, but still it pulls you in.

I think that was more than three, right?

That’s four, but you can keep going, that’s fine!

Okay, last one, because I was always a big fan of his work when I studied photography and that’s Todd Hido.  I think it’s the same with his work.  Over the years I’ve started to see a pattern of why I like certain works.  He makes portraits, but he also makes photos of houses and interiors and also nature, and does this thing with light and it’s very atmospheric. And again I see his work in real life and the pictures are huge and you want to go in. I love his work.  And let’s stop there!

#11385-1781 by Todd Hido

Okay!  So… of your own art work, do you have a favourite?

Hmm… I think – honestly because they surprise me so much, I put them on the wall and took a photo of them – it’s two recent pieces that I made. They don’t have a name yet, but for now those are my favourites.  

There are also some “Shitbook” pieces – I like the smaller pieces on old book pages.

But you know, the thing is that I don’t even like the work I made recently when I did my first time launch, selling my work in May (2022). And I was actually proud of what I made and now I look at it and I’m like [cringe].

Oh really?  Gosh, that wasn’t even that long ago.

Yeah, I know.  Maybe that’s a sign of growth?  I don’t know.  It also scares me because that’s the difficult thing about selling work, it will be maybe forever in someone’s home and what if you don’t like it any more as the artist?

I’ve heard about artists who have bought work back from people.

Yeah?  Because it was so cringy?

Maybe they felt that, obviously the people who had it disagreed.

Yeah.

So I think you’re not alone in that feeling.

Yeah. And I think I experiment so much and every time I make a painting I feel like I’m getting a bit closer and I think that’s an ongoing thing forever.  Every time I make a painting I think ‘this is who I am’ but you keep changing as a person so your art keeps changing.

So I think I’m going to go with the 2 recent pieces that I made that I put on the wall yesterday.

At the beginning of the year I wrote a word down and that word was “untamed” because I’m very good at taming myself.  Because it needs to be pretty or people need to like it and those thoughts keep you small.  So now I think of those two works and for the first time this year – outside of my shitbooks – I think ‘yes! I didn’t hold back here’  So I like it, I don’t know if other people like it but I like it.

Of all the many things that you’ve got going on, do you have a current passion project or labour of love?

I’m always painting so that’s always a labour of love. But I sold a collection of art for the first time in May this year –  smaller pieces on paper – and I want to launch a collection of paintings at the beginning of October that are on canvas.  It’s super scary because my inner critic is telling me I’m not going to sell anything because it’s more expensive than the tiny paper pieces but I need to try it – I need to start somewhere.  

So that’s something I want to do in October before we go to Switzerland. I want to launch a series of paintings, or maybe just a few paintings. 

And now I’ve said it out loud I’ve got to do it…

That’s awesome – I’m looking forward to seeing it!

Now I imagine from what I know of you, if I ask you to tell me about a day in your life you’re going to ask “what day?”

[laughing] Yeah, you’ll need to pick a day because they’re all so different.  And I like that because I hate the idea of doing the same thing every day – I did that for 15 years and it drove me up the wall crazy.

You were a teacher, right?

Yeah, I was a teacher for 15 years.  Oh, that’s so long! 

So let’s talk about today – a Wednesday. I used to get out of bed at 5am when Elin [my daughter] was still getting up very early.  I like my mornings slow. If I have that feeling that I’m rushing and I’m rushing my kids, that’s not a good start.  So I try to get up early. If I have to leave the house at 8am I won’t get up at 7.30am, the latest I’ll get up at is 7am because otherwise I’ll feel rushed.  We have a pretty easy-going kid who can do a lot of her stuff herself in the morning. Today I had to bring Elin to daycare, so I start with a glass of water because it’s good for me, coffee (I need coffee), and sometimes I will eat something. On days when I have to go to the daycare to work I do eat a bit because otherwise I will forget to eat during my working hours. I’m not really hungry in the morning but I try to eat something.

Most days Jan (my partner) takes Elin to daycare but today it was my turn because I had the car, so I had to do the drop off.  

I started a daycare project – long story short we have some Ukrainian refugees in our city and our city found some places to house people and one of these places is a huge cruise ship in the harbour of Rotterdam.  The boss of Elin’s daycare is a very entrepreneurial, pioneering person who knows how to get things done. She said “there are 0-4 year olds on that boat who aren’t getting any education and they don’t have anywhere to play, so let’s do something for those kids.”  Within two days she’d found a piece of grass near that boat, put up four tents, and decorated those tents.

I joined that project because I needed some money so I can relax a bit into the [creative] process.  When I was constantly needing to paint because I needed the money it interrupted my flow, so I thought, ‘I need a job with some money so I can relax into the painting’.  So I gave her a call and asked “are you looking for people maybe?” and she told me “I’m going to start a project, I think you might like it.” So that’s how I rolled into this 2-3 month project.

We work on a field with some huge tents and that’s where we entertain toddlers for a few hours.  It’s only the mornings because we’re in tents, in summer and it gets really hot.  Especially today – it’s like 30oC, in tents… So yeah. That’s what I do in the morning.

On Wednesday I don’t have to pick Elin up from school after a morning of working because she’s at daycare.  And I love it when Jan is not here – I mean I love him but I have the house to myself and that doesn’t happen that often.

There is a total joy in having the house to yourself!

Yes! I can sit down, have lunch, and watch television for two hours.  I can also do that when Jan is here because he’s not judgemental at all, but I can feel like I have to go do something because someone else is in the house.  In the beginning I was very tired after a morning with the toddlers because I don’t speak their language, there is no structure, they have this history of fleeing a country and some kids have some difficulties settling down, there is a lot of trauma, mothers that are depressed… There’s a lot to take in.  So in the beginning I would get home on Wednesday and I would fall asleep on the sofa.

So there was a few months when I did less painting, but I’m getting the hang of it now.  So Wednesday is a day for painting, like Tuesday, and I paint! That’s what I do with the rest of the afternoon. 

Then in the late afternoon I pick up Elin from daycare, and then it’s the standard things – cooking dinner and having dinner. Although I’m very lucky because I don’t have to do the cooking most of the time.

I think I remember you saying Jan does most of the cooking?

Yes!  I do also, sometimes, but I have to give him that credit, he does most of the cooking. But today he’s on public transport so I’ll get the cooking started. Then Elin goes to bed – honestly I admire people who can paint or do something in the evening.  But when Elin is in bed I need to sit down on the couch and watch TV.  I don’t even know how people sit down with the iPad and draw while they watch a TV show, I can’t.  I just need to sit down, either with a book – although I’m usually too restless to read, so usually it’s just Netflix. I like watching TV because I can turn my mind off, so I can watch TV for an hour and then go to bed.

That sounds really nice.

Yeah, it’s really mundane – I used to do meditation, journaling in the morning and I was like ‘oh my god I’m starting to look like all these wellness coaches’ – and I thought ‘do I want to do this? I’m a fairly relaxed person I don’t think I even need meditation that often, or that rigidly’.  I don’t like the rigid structures – the whole getting up at five and journaling and meditating. I did that for a year. I like it, especially in the morning having the house to myself, but also I felt like I had to do it because, because… I didn’t even know why.  I learned that I like to get up early so I don’t have to stress in the morning but I don’t have to get up at five any more. 

I’m not a getting up at five person either

No… There is something magical about getting up at five and hearing the birds and no people yet, but in the winter it’s hard because it’s so dark at five in the morning. It feels like you have to get up in the middle of the night, and that was difficult.  

Thank you for sharing your day with me.  My other, very nosy question is can you finish this sentence, “if you really knew me, you’d know that…”

Hmm, I have to get into Jan’s shoes… You’d know that I’m just a big old softie, and over-sensitive and that I cry a lot.  I think maybe I’m very empathic, I’m highly sensitive. I don’t like to cry in front of other people, but when I’m alone I like to cry when I watch TV or read a book.

That is a bit surprising, that you’re ashamed of it.  Because of how openly you speak about things like that I didn’t have that impression.

I come from a family where showing your emotions is not something that we do – we don’t say ‘I love you’, we don’t show our emotions.  I remember when I was little, and I was watching Bambi where the mother dies, I was crying and my mum was like “are you crying?!”

But it’s Bambi!  It’s universal?

Yeah, it [expressing emotions] wasn’t normal in my family.  They still don’t do it.  But Jan is a big old softie who cries too.  So him being so comfortable with that makes it easier for me.  And sometimes we know we’re both crying and I look at him and he’s like “yes I’m crying!” [laughing]  You know Queer Eye – almost every episode! It’s a lot of crying when we watch these.  

I love Scandinavian detective shows, and that’s maybe something you would also know if you knew me really well. 

Oh interesting! Thanks for that and now on to my last question… do you have a favourite joke?

[laughing) No! Not a joke, I have humour – a dark, twisted, kind of sarcastic humour, but I never tell jokes. Jan and I have the same humour, he knows exactly what I find funny – it’s often memes. We send each other memes and jokes on Instagram and I’m often laughing out loud. For example:

They’re brilliant!  I love them.  

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You can see more of Simone’s art on her Instagram, or join her Patreon to get deeper insight into her art and art process, and keep your eyes peeled on her website for her new collection launch in early October

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If you enjoyed this interview with Simone Michiels, you might enjoy my other interviews with

• Elise Aabakken
• Françoise Blayac
• Vicky Jeffery
• Taylor Carroll
• Jen Dixon