Nicola McLean is a visual artist whose paintings are held in private collections all over the UK as well as in America, Canada, Australia, China, and Europe. She also volunteers at her local animal shelter. Originally from Derry, Northern Ireland, she now lives in the very far north of Scotland with her husband, two westies, and a rescue cat called Lily.
How do animals and the natural world inspire your art? What’s your primary medium?
While I don’t want to limit myself to being an artist of just one specific subject, as I find inspiration in the manmade as well as the natural, I would have to say that animals are the focus of about 90 percent of my paintings. I take commissions for companion animal portraits and, perhaps because I am surrounded by so much wildlife and farmed animals where I live, I often find myself drawn to include them in my artwork. I also love to paint the designs and patterns found in nature, such as reflections on water and the arrangement of shapes and shadows made in a tangle of grass and wildflowers, and have of course been inspired by the amazing sunrises and sunsets we get in the massive skies where I live.
My medium of choice is acrylic because it dries quickly, which suits my very impatient streak and gives me the vibrancy and bright colors that I love in my artwork. I use a mix of acrylic paint, spray paint, and acrylic ink, and will paint on any surface that suits, including canvas, paper, recycled card, and most recently, beach pebbles and sea glass.
How did you decide to go veg?
I confronted someone on a beach who was being abusive to an animal (being the least confrontational person you can think of normally!), and my husband later asked me if it was hypocritical to be concerned about some animals while eating others. Of course, the only answer was yes, so I became vegetarian. Then six months later, while looking for cruelty-free cosmetics online, I found articles on veganism and was really angry with myself and the industries involved that it had taken me to that stage in my adult life to realize that cows don’t just eat grass and make milk, of course they have to give birth to produce milk, and that the egg industry routinely minces male chicks alive because they are a “waste” product. Once you know these things, you can’t unknow them, and the only reasonable action is to stop contributing to the horror by becoming vegan.
What effect has going vegan had on your health? Did you notice any differences in your creative output?
Initially I put on weight by going vegan—I felt compelled to eat any and every possible SFV [suitable-for-vegans] junk food/processed food available! Now, I try to eat more clean, unprocessed food, but it is good to see so many more vegan options available now than even seven years ago. Going vegan was never about my own health, to be honest, so, although I do try to eat a healthy diet for the most part, that’s not my main motivation for living a vegan lifestyle. Emotionally, I find it difficult sometimes to reconcile that so many people who are otherwise good and kind just don’t “get” why continuing to consume animal products is wrong on so many levels. I suppose with regards to my creative output, I focus more now on trying to convey a message with my animal art—in a non-graphic way—hoping that it will cause people to think twice about how we use animals.
Can you tell us about the “art shed” your husband built for you? I always love getting a peek inside other creative workspaces!
Steve started collecting old pallets that were otherwise going to be dumped, and he used the wood from those as well as other upcycled items either donated to him by friends or sourced from the local recycling plant, such as the round windows from old washing machines, to build me a small art shed at the bottom of our garden, singlehandedly.
The only new materials he had to buy were the wooden beams for the frame and the materials for the roof—we get very strong winds where we live, so it was essential to make sure the roof wouldn’t blow off! Thanks to a donation of three large windows, two of which were fitted in the roof as skylights, I have so much light in there even during the dark winter months, and he even built a little decked area to the front of the shed where I can sit and soak up the vitamin D during the one or two sunny days we get in the summer!
What effect has ethical veganism had on your spiritual life?
I have definitely been on a spiritual journey since becoming vegan. It led me to train to become a reiki master practitioner because I learned that animals are very receptive to reiki and I wanted to be able to use it for that. In fact, I don’t practice on people for the most part, but I do use it regularly on my own companion animals, the animals in the shelter where I volunteer, and distantly to animals around the world.
I’ve also studied intuitive animal communication and am much more open to listening to my intuition when it comes to animals, in particular, and life, in general. I do struggle with self-doubt, which makes it hard for me to believe I’m not just making things up, but I have had some really interesting and surprising results from animal communication, and it’s something I want to explore further.
How has veganism helped you with the usual creative bugaboos—comparing yourself to other artists, feeling like you have nothing new to offer, self-loathing, and so forth?
I still compare myself to other artists, although I think meditating (which is something I started to do once learning reiki after becoming vegan) helps with that, as it allows me to stop thinking about ego so much—although I think it is human nature to compare and find ourselves lacking, especially on social media, which is absolutely a double-edged sword when it comes to sharing our art.
I don’t suffer from self-loathing, but since becoming vegan, I tend to loathe humanity in general! Being vegan did perhaps help with [my] thinking I had nothing new to offer, because although I don’t paint exclusively vegan subjects, I do have more ideas now on vegan art, and, in that regard, it isn’t about me or my ego as an artist. It’s about bringing a vegan message out artistically and hopefully giving people food for thought.
What are some of your favorite foods for fueling your creativity?
When I get into the zone artistically, I can often forget to stop for lunch, and very often am still painting when I should really have stopped for the day to start making dinner! During the summer months, I love salads with pecans, cashews and baked tofu using a fantastic marinade of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic powder, mint, and nutritional yeast. In the winter it’s all about homemade soups—hearty spiced peanut soup is my favorite, full of chunky vegetables.
How do you find being vegan in Scotland?
Larger cities in Scotland, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, are really good for vegans, with a great selection of vegan restaurants and cafes. Where I live, it’s very remote, and I’m surrounded by sheep and cattle farms, so the idea of veganism isn’t that well accepted or understood. There are only three supermarkets here, and while they do stock a few vegan items, such as burgers and sausages, it’s mostly vegetarian products that they stock [i.e., made with casein or egg whites]. It is frustrating to see new products coming out online all the time and know that they will rarely, if ever, make their way to the supermarkets here. That said, because of the increase in tourism to the area in the last couple of years, one of the local restaurants did bring out a vegan menu, which is encouraging, and not always having so much choice of pre-packaged vegan food does mean we have to be more inventive with cooking from scratch, which is no bad thing.
Parting thoughts?
It’s really encouraging that veganism is becoming more mainstream, and, while the Internet can be a mixed blessing, with all that information at your fingertips, it’s so much easier to find out about things that the animal agriculture industry would rather keep hidden behind the myth of an Old MacDonald-style farmed animal utopia, and you can make a decision on whether or not you want to continue to contribute to a system of abuse and exploitation from a position of knowledge. If you can live a healthy, happy life without harming others (to the best of your abilities), why wouldn’t you?
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