Workhouse Artist of the Week: M.G. Stout

To view the art of Mary Gallagher Stout is to have a peek into an impulsive and fascinating mind. Stout, who once sought a career as a philosophy professor, has found her voice. It is loud, gestural and enriched by lines, color and movement. 

"To me, an artist puts a face on a period of history and tells a story of that particular time," said Stout, who will host a free endangered species series at the Workhouse Arts Center on July 16. "It's just crazy that funding for the arts is constantly being cut. So, I asked myself: 'What kind of imagery could I make to denote that reality?' And endangered species came to mind."

In the "Art Out Loud" event next week, Stout will create a painting onstage for three hours to the music of live bands.

"Endangered species require community support to survive, as do the arts," she said. "If you want organizations like the Workhouse to be here, for musicians to play and the parades to go on, you have to support us. You can't just take, take, take. You have to give something back."

Second Life

Stout, who lives in Stafford with her husband and two children, graduated Magna Cum Laude with a philosophy degree from Rosemont College in 1996. She has been painting for ten years. 

"The idea was that I was going to go to Brown for grad school and get my PhD," Stout said. "And then I got pregnant, had my daughter and had postpartum depression and couldn't leave the house.

"So we just moved into our first house and the walls were completely white. My mother-in-law said: 'Mary, I know you're unhappy about the way the house looks. Why don't you paint it?' So, I just started painting - faux finishes, murals, and people started coming by and they were impressed." 

Stout started to take classes at the Art League, and, in 2007, was accepted into the Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate Residency Summer Studio. Three years ago, she was juried in to Lorton's brand new Workhouse Arts Center. 

"I was shocked that I got juried in. I couldn't believe it. I don't feel that way anymore, though. I think that I belong here," said Stout. "Everybody has a bar of where they see themselves. For me, being an artist is a very high bar and I have not achieved that bar yet - like William Kentridge, who is just a genius."

The Workhouse

Stout's work is often loud, busy and dramatic. "I use colors in relation to my mood," she said. "I find that the work is very dark when I'm having a bad day and very light when I'm feeling cheerful." 

An unfinished expressionistic profile of an American Eagle has wild and deeply colorful feathers. The piece is timestamped by Washington Post clippings - a recent addition to Stout's repertoire. 

"I went into the District and started painting on the street like it's done in Europe," Stout said. "I'm painting real life, a news story as it's happening, and I used the Washington Post as my canvas. I gessoed it and used pastels, which are dusty and volatile. The papers have a shelf-life, and there's something really vulnerable and fabulous about that. They're very raw, they're very colorful and a part of how I interpreted what's going on right now in DC."

How does Stout pick her subjects? "It has to have some kind of a soul, some kind of connection for me. And it doesn't always make sense, but it's very intuitive and I have to feel compelled to paint something," she said. "I paint things I like, things that make me sad, things that I think should have a light shined on them like baseball games, homelessness, fishing in the Potomac - anything really."

Stout spends 40 hours a week at her studio in the Workhouse. "I wanted to work my butt off and find my voice. And I've found it and people are starting to respond to it, and things are slowly changing," she said. 

Stout has had seven exhibitions this year. Her art ranges in price from $100 to $5000. "I want people to start supporting local artists. People are so inclined to buy local food from farmers and then they go to Walmart and buy a poster when they could have an original piece," she said.  

Does she ever regret not becoming a philosophy professor?

"I am doing philosophy - a pictorial philosophy that people don't even know they're getting," Stout said. "When you first look at my pieces they look really fun, but when you think about what you are seeing, they reveal a very different story, and not always necessarily a happy one. It's really about telling people about something in a personal and truthful way."