Alumni in the Arts Wilhelmina Peace ‘08 When did you attend the Lycée International? I began at the Lycée International in 1996 at the tender age of six. I graduated in 2008, after a very challenging few years preparing for the behemoth of the Bac. Please give a quick synopsis of your journey after the Lycée. I took a gap year after graduation and worked in a café in the heart of Paris. I then relocated to Belfast to study cultural anthropology at Queens University. Shortly after getting my Bachelor’s degree, I found out I was pregnant. My son Silas came to me as a blessing and a bomb. I spent nearly all my 20s raising him, taking on odd hospitality jobs and trying to tune out the destructive relationship I had with his father. In the midst of this, I came to the blinding realization that I wanted to be an artist. I began to treat my arts practice as an actual job, despite the fact that it brought me zero financial income. Any chance I got, I was either drawing or learning about art. Very slowly, I built up my skills and my confidence and began to submit my works to group shows. I started working in Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Centre (MAC) so I could be immersed in art. After building up a substantial body of work, I was accepted to the Fine Arts program at Ulster University and quickly gravitated towards printmaking. Around the same time, serendipity led me to become part of an incredible artist community in the heart of Belfast called Vault Artist Studios. When I began to lean more into my arts practice, I finally had the strength to end my very broken relationship. Although I had vowed to give love a rest, I met someone who opened my heart again and empowered me to embrace my creative potential to its fullest. We now have a little baby boy named Ilan who is the incarnation of bliss. What is your current profession? What in particular do you enjoy about your field? The umbrella term for what I do is “freelance visual artist.” I necessarily have to create my own opportunities if I am to stay afloat. For example, I’ve created independent art courses, given workshops from my studio, made art for festivals, designed posters, illustrated book covers, sold work at markets and fairs, and submitted my work to galleries. Being freelance means you have to be incredibly outgoing and organized, and this is even more true when you are an artist. The business of being an artist can be divided into three strands. The first is creating new, exciting and challenging bodies of work. The second is sharing your work and skills through galleries, social media, shows and fairs as well as teaching courses, giving “artist talks” and facilitating workshops. The final component is writing up funding applications. Where I am, based in the UK,
there are countless opportunities to apply for government or arts council funds. These provide the money for me to buy materials and equipment, create new projects, and experiment with new ideas and collaborations. I can’t pinpoint when my interest in art started because it has always been there. I can, however, summon a couple of instances when I met the right people in the right place that catapulted me in exactly the right direction. I formed some valuable connections at mother and toddler groups in Belfast. One artist mother invited me to the Vault when it was still in its embryonic state and I have been devoted to this creative community ever since. Another time I volunteered in a printmaking workshop outside of the city. I volunteered because I thought it would allow me to get my foot in the door, network, learn tricks of the trade, have access to equipment, help on various projects, and steep in a world that I was certain I wanted to be part of. This proved to be a very wise move because in addition to all the above, it has also put me on the radar and offered me exciting new opportunities to work with local schools. I enjoy absolutely everything about my work but if I had to pick one thing in particular, it would be the perpetual dance between solitude and sociability. Both are necessary to my practice as an artist and I enjoy trying to find a balance between the two. If you had the choice, would you do it the same way again? I think about this question a lot. I have absolutely no regrets about my kids, but I must say to the young adults and teenagers reading this (parenthood spoiler): it’s hard. So hard. Give yourself the chance to grow and make mistakes. Otherwise you’ll make them while running after a toddler. As for me, I guess I really could not have done this any other way. Every choice I made, the good ones, the bad ones, the ugly ones...they all brought me to who I am today and for that I am grateful. Most of life’s defining lessons are learnt the hard way. But I repeat to all you young readers, just wait before committing to parenthood. What do you feel you gained from your American Section experience that has carried over into your current life or driven your life choices? In the classroom, I learned how to write, how to think critically about a piece of work or a historical event, how to dissect a question in order to answer it pertinently, how to fall in love with literature, and how to present information and material in an engaging way. Learning how to write a proper essay can seem tedious and aggravating, but I am so glad I picked up that skill. I was shocked and frustrated at first by how much writing is required from visual artists (I draw pictures, I don’t write books!) but when I finally accepted that it was an immovable pillar of the artist’s career, I came to enjoy writing
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