Have you ever completely fallen out of love with your art?
In this special episode of Art Crush, the spotlight turns to co-host Paula Telizyn as she shares her candid, unfiltered journey of returning to professional painting after a long hiatus.
Following a life-altering accident in 2019, immense personal shifts, and a transition into artist mentorship, Paula packed away her brushes and publicly declared she was never painting again.
Fast forward to today, and she is officially back in her painting pants and gearing up for a major gallery show. Paula and Fi discuss the mental hurdles of getting back to the canvas, dealing with the heavy weight of perfectionism, and why facing creative resistance is a mandatory part of an artist’s journey.
Paula also unveils her new portrait series, Perception 2026. By painting 30 different women, she explores the powerful gap between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us.
If you have ever struggled with imposter syndrome, lost your artistic “why,” or wondered if it is too late to return to your creative roots, this episode is your permission slip to start again.What We Discuss in This Episode:
- Overcoming Creative Resistance: The real, unglamorous truth about stalling, losing your supplies, avoiding the studio, and finally sitting down to paint.
- Finding Your Authentic Style: Why painting abstract or landscapes wasn’t the right recipe for Paula, and how returning to portraiture sparked her true passion.
- The Perception Project: How Paula is capturing the deeper essence of 30 women and challenging their own self-perceptions through art.
- The Importance of Art Buddies: Why every artist needs a supportive peer group to break through self-doubt and isolation.
- The Power of Self-Portraits: A challenge to listeners to paint themselves and confront their own self-image.
- See the Art in Person: Join Fi and Paula at the Artcore Gallery in Derby, UK, from October 23 to October 30, 2026.
- Follow Paula’s Progress: Watch the “Perception 2026” pieces come to life on Instagram @bored.fruit.donkey or follow her on Facebook.
Subscribe, like, share, and comment!
Have you ever painted a self-portrait? Did it change how you view yourself? Let us know in the comments below!
00:00:00 Speaker 2: Welcome to Artcrush with artist Fi Marks and Paula Telizyn, where we talk about being an artist, running an art business, being a woman who’s an artist, and more.
00:00:23 Speaker 2: Hello, fee.
00:00:26 Speaker 3: Hi, Paula. And I’m particularly excited about this episode because it’s all about Paula. So I will definitely be taking a back seat if I can. I will find that very tricky. But we are talking and we have touched on this a little bit, Paula, in our previous episodes as we get our paintings and our work ready for the October show, which is actually not that far away. It’s only like three or four months, which is crazy. so where are we get our work already? I’m about to start a new series that is specifically for the show, but we’re not going to talk about that because we’re going to talk about Paula and the journey that she is having. It is not being easy because as we know, Paula had a very successful career as a professional artist. how long ago was it? Paula? Ten years ago.
00:01:32 Speaker 2: I had my accident in twenty nineteen. So, um, up until twenty nineteen.
00:01:38 Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. So even less than that. So roughly seven to eight years ago. and then she had to maneuver her career and she became a mentor, which we’re all really, really grateful for because otherwise she wouldn’t have known or brought together the fifty one percent. but, she’s now leaning back into her work, not trying to go back, but to go forwards with it. So Paula, tell us a bit about your journey, with the art world, because it is quite an unusual story and obviously it will continue to evolve in front of our eyes.
00:02:17 Speaker 2: we talked a little bit about some of the stuff throughout the seasons of art crush. like what happens when you fall out of love with your art and other things like that? Because I’ve struggled with the relationship with my art. It’s complicated and it was complicated from the get go. So we’re not going to go too much in depth on that. But artists run. In my family, I have uncles who were artists, and successful in their own rights and, female relatives who did art. That was appropriate because my family has a very, very long generations. So when I say I have uncles and all that, they were born in the nineteen thirties and nineteen twenties, so very, very long generations. But art as a woman in my family was challenging. And so I started from the get go, feeling like I was being pushed into being an artist because it was declared that I wasn’t smart enough to do anything else, which is a load of crap,
00:03:23 Speaker 3: all artists are smart. Good artists are smart people. You know, it’s not a something for people to to do when they can’t be academic.
00:03:33 Speaker 2: And we touched on that actually fairly recently, one of the more recent episodes about the perception of artists, the public, the lay people perceive artists and the general discourse around that. So we won’t have to go into that. So that’s why I’m saying like, we’ll just brush past it. So I was really successful. And one of the issues that I had with that success is there was a huge part of me that felt like I wasn’t worthy of that. So it’s a mindset thing, right? It’s feeling like I created this success, but other people deserved it more than me. So that was a constant battle I had. So when I had my accident, I was already in the process of mentoring artists. It was the very beginning stages. I was about a year into it, actually less than a year into it, but half a year into it. And It was devastating, but it wasn’t as devastating as it should have been because I was, at that point where we had just moved into our rental house. My marriage was over. My kids were going through stuff, and so that affected my relationship with art as well, if I’m not worthy of it. My whole life is blown up and art played a role in that. I’m going to just mentor artists and I couldn’t paint anyway. I didn’t have full use of my left arm for a year, and even to this end, it took about two or three years before I was pain free. And to this day I don’t have the dexterity anymore to paint. unless I really push myself. It’s like a kindergarten painting with my left hand now. so there was that relationship with it. And then when I tried to return to art, because I hadn’t gone through, examining what my relationship with art was and my feelings around it, I found it very challenging to lean back into it like it was a surface level because I wasn’t prepared to do the work. I don’t think I had the ability to do the work then I didn’t. I was still freshly mentally wounded from everything that was going on. So art was in the background constantly. It was at least doing a couple of paintings a year, but it wasn’t anything I was trying to do professionally beyond the commissions that came to me, because people still had my business cards from, shows and events and things like that. And they were reaching out saying, can you paint this? Can you paint that? And I would do it and I would enjoy it in the moment. But it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t that alignment. And so for me, the pieces feel different. Everybody acted like they were fine with them. so I’m going to take that on a surface level, but it was challenging. So when we did this podcast, which has impacted how I view my art myself as an artist, how I think about running an art business and more. It was an unexpected effect. This podcast led us to creating an art collective, creating a show that’s actually booked in and going to be happening. going back and returning to my art roots and putting my mentoring officially down. Unofficially, there may or may not be still some mentoring going on, but officially, I’m not running challenges. I’m not selling courses. I’m not doing any of that stuff because I’m focusing on my return as an artist. Part of that is returning as a portrait artist, because I meandered my way through abstract art, which turns out I hate. I enjoy looking at it, but it’s not for me. and as a surreal artist, which I love the paintings because they’re idea driven, but I get bored painting them, which is just not a great thing. Uh, and.
00:07:10 Speaker 3: It’s like making a good cake, isn’t it? The ingredients have all got to be right. And if they’re slightly not right. It’s going to taste not good. Yeah. And that’s it’s exactly the same with painting. If you are painting in a style that isn’t really you. It can be okay, but it can’t be as we go back to authentically you because you’ve not found your distinct style. And without your distinct style, you’re searching for it like you’re searching for a good recipe.
00:07:39 Speaker 2: Yeah. And hand in hand with style is like what you are painting the sort of um, is that is the word genre, I think correct for this, but it’s also like for me, it really matters because I’ve painted landscapes and sold landscapes, but again, I found them boring after a while. How many trees can you paint? Some people can do that and make and enjoy every single minute of it. Hats off to them. Right. I went to northern Ontario and went out and painted landscapes everywhere. I painted around London here. And, um, yeah, they just never captured me the way portraits do. So I had to accept that I needed to explore my relationship with art. so preparing for the show, fee and I had talked in the background about what I wanted to do, what I wanted to make my art about, because I teach my clients about having a why and I need to have that underlying why. So previously in my art career, my why was about family and loss and connection and raw human emotions. But I didn’t want to lean into that. I’m in a different space now. It’s, you know, quite a bit later. So I wanted to lean into other things that I could see that were going on around in the world with social media, as well as what I could see myself struggling with as, a person who is not the thinnest person around, although, life has improved a little bit in that area, but also as somebody who has a desire to control people’s perception of who I am. I always have had that desire. So looking at all of that, I entitled the series terribly. Perception twenty twenty six, which immediately will date it next year and.
00:09:30 Speaker 3: And also makes me think that that’s all you’re ever going to do. So the next the next series will be perception twenty twenty seven. And I know that that’s not true, but you can always change it, Paula, just because you’ve started calling it that, everything is movable and changeable. So I think, that it was a working title. And I agree, I think, what you’re doing is so much more than just perception, but it’s a snappy title.
00:10:00 Speaker 2: It’s a snappy title. And I figure because the project involves. So the project involves. I asked thirty women to send me their favorite photos of themselves the way they want the world to see them, the way they perceive themselves. And some sent me current photos, some sent me old photos. some sent me very blurry photos. I had to go back and ask for more because I can paint, but I can’t do miracles. and I asked them to also send me words as to how they would describe themselves in terms of how they show up or how they want to show up in the world, how they want to be perceived in the world. So I got a lot of a range in that as well, because the idea in this is to take the control that somebody wants, the subject person wants, and then put it through my filter of perception, because how I perceive somebody is not necessarily how they perceive themselves. So to put this to context, I have a friend, I still have this friend, and we met probably in twenty fifteen, I think, and she saw me as a certain way from the get go. We used to email back and forth. Now we WhatsApp, but we used email back and forth. And she always saw me as this amazing, wise, intelligent, dynamic, brave person. And I saw myself as this weirdo trying to figure out how to exist. But I realized that if I leaned into how she saw me, I could embrace that part of me. Her perception of me was better than my perception of me. And then I realized further on that actually was the person she thought that I was. I just didn’t see it. And that was my perception. Right? So this that’s what kicked off this project in depth. So when I asked these women, and each of them, I know to some degree, they’re not all friends. some of them are acquaintances or, or whatever, but they’re in my circles in some way. I asked them to show how they want people to perceive them. And then as the artist, I then take what they’ve given me both the words. So those become poems and the images, and I perceive them through my lens, my experience with them, how I feel about them. what I see them to be. And then when they see those works and read the works and all that, I’m hoping that will change their perception of themselves a little bit. The same way my friend changed that perception. So it’s a multi-level thing that I know will firm up in description as I sit down to write.
00:12:39 Speaker 3: you and I had spoken quite a lot about your perception of yourself and over the years that I’ve known Paula. she has featured herself in a lot of her art, which is, great. but I was very concerned about these images that she portrayed of herself because it wasn’t what, how I perceived her. And we’ve talked a lot about that. And it’s an ongoing I don’t say therapy, but, you know, it’s an ongoing task that Paula has she’s learning a lot from painting other women, but hopefully the last painting she will do is of herself. And I will go, yeah, that’s the Paula that I recognize. Yeah. You know it. So I think so. Yeah. It’s definitely been an ongoing theme, hasn’t it? I would say for the last, you know, ten years?
00:13:46 Speaker 2: Yeah. And even longer because, my self-confidence, every time I built it up, I would get kicked hard. so it ends up being this thing that I’m constantly rebuilding, removing a few people from my life, about three years ago really helped with that and defining boundaries and all of that. But it does take time. So when I talk about mindset, I’m not talking about it from a person who’s like, woo hoo, I’ve always had a great mindset. Mhm. No, no.
00:14:12 Speaker 3: you still need to work on it, you know, please don’t think we’ve got it sussed because we certainly haven’t.
00:14:18 Speaker 2: Yeah. It’s not like a one and done either. Like you’re constantly having to do things. And I think that because we have a certain personality, all of us, each of us individually have certain traits that you can’t shake. You are only so tall or you react certain ways to certain things. We will revisit the same lessons again and again in different ways. But we will be revisiting the same lessons. So if you have issues with impulsivity, for example, yes, you can control it, but sometimes it slips. So then you have to revisit that lesson again and reinforce where you want to be and who you want to be and all of that. It’s mindset and self-confidence and imposter syndrome and perfectionism, as we talked about in a previous episode. All of those things you need to constantly work on. So doing this project made me face myself and I said, I want to do the project, but I very much didn’t show. I wanted to do the project because it took me weeks to get to the point where I was going to paint and yeah.
00:15:23 Speaker 3: Yeah, you bought the canvases and thought that was it. Job done.
00:15:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Well, I, I spent weeks before then circling around. Okay, the UK sizes are different from the Canadian sizes. Do I work on stretched canvas. Is shipping going to be too much, blah blah, blah? Like I went back and forth and it took quite a while to sort out the logistic details, but it shouldn’t have. That was just me avoiding, which I recognized also in the times I’m painfully self-aware. But, yeah. And then when I went to sit down the first time to paint, I realized because I used Sharpie to draw out the images on the canvas, my Sharpies weren’t to be found. the paint I wanted to use the lid was stuck on because it had been a couple of years since I’d opened that color. My brushes were not quite right, and a couple of them, because I used to be a little bit more careless with my brushes. So the metal bit, the ferrule, had loosened, so I had to go through and jiggle all my brushes to put the ones aside that I needed to reglue. Like it was just a whole bunch of stuff. Like it was comical. I lost my iPad because I paint from reference, so my iPad wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and then it wasn’t charged enough. Like it was just insane. So the first several paintings I didn’t even share on social media, they’re not on social media because they were challenging to get into. And then I realized, too, that I wanted to show up a certain way. I wanted to burst out of the gates with perfect art. You know, there she is. Hasn’t changed in the, several years since she’s painted portraits properly, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to show up in that way. And so we all have these things that we have to work on. but being part of the fifty one percent has helped me actually talk to peers, not as a mentor. We shifted that a couple of weeks back, but as a peer. And that actually really impacted me a lot greater than I realized because I am used to being the person who leads the group. I’m used to being the person with the answers and the person everybody leans on, and I keep my stuff to myself because how can you trust me if I’m vulnerable, if I’m struggling with something that I’m telling you to how to fix? So when we shifted that it, it allowed me to explore more deeply my relationship to art and actually lean into it. So if you’re following me on Instagram specifically, I’ll put the links in the show notes, but board Fruit donkey is my Instagram. I have been painting from not from start to finish because I don’t believe in, showing how the sausage is made. That’s not, I’m not an art making teacher, but showing the progress. So the from the Sharpie drawing one in between sort of stage of painting. And then the final piece, you can see those on my Instagram which are then shared publicly on my Facebook. So you can follow me on Facebook as well. But leaning into that has really, really helped. And a couple of painting sessions ago, everything snicked into place. Like it just, it felt I could feel it, you know, the way sometimes when you’re talking to somebody and you can see that their brain went clunk and they’ve just checked out. that’s what it felt like where I was just slotted right into place and there it was, there it was. And now I don’t resist. I’ve painted a couple of times this week already, and I’m wearing my painting pants. I can go down and paint in the basement studio I have tonight. Immediately after I finish, there’s no barrier. I don’t have to think, oh, I have to change my clothing or whatever. No, no, I don’t have to. I can just go straight from work.
00:18:48 Speaker 3: But you know, all that was procrastination. So, you know.
00:18:51 Speaker 2: And resistance, the resistance was huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:57 Speaker 3: And I can vouch for that.
00:19:00 Speaker 2: Yeah. Fi was really good at pushing me as well. I mean, I admire fees, need to paint regularly. It was something that I had when I was painting and selling and doing shows and everything else was this. If I wasn’t painting, I was thinking about it. If I wasn’t thinking about it, it’s because I was at a show selling it like it was a constant live, breathe and eat kind of thing.
00:19:22 Speaker 3: It’s well, it’s a momentum, isn’t it?
00:19:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And allowing that to happen to when I’ve done the sufficient navel gazing with the help of Fee and Susan Gardner and Jela Prancic in our fifty one percent group, I think that’s what pushed me over being able to be like, okay, I can let this in. It’s safe for me to create art at the level that I should be creating it at, and with the output I should be creating it at. So the pieces that I’ve been producing now, every single one gets better and better because I’m leaning more and more deeply into that and remembering what it means to create portraits at this level.
00:20:07 Speaker 3: And I think that the difference is to do with you are now showing the essence of those people rather than what they look like, just what they look like, which we keep going around. This topic comes round and round and round. When we were talking about, perfectionism in a previous, episode. And it’s like, that’s what makes the difference when you look at a painting, it’s not just, oh, that’s a very good likeness. It’s like, I recognize that person. And a lot of the people who, who are painting, I don’t know personally, but I feel like I know them when you know the recent ones, it’s like, yeah, I know you. I know exactly who you are. And that is the skill of a really good portrait painter.
00:21:03 Speaker 2: it’s looking underneath because if we wanted a likeness, we could just take a photo. But I can vouch that they are actually likenesses. And when I’ve shared the paintings with the subjects in direct messages. They’ve been really moved, which is fantastic because how I see them is through a lens of, love and respect and this very positive connection, right? So when I paint them, I’m painting that feeling of who they are, who I see them, who I perceive them to be. and creating that feeling around them. And I’m very excited. There’s a few people who came in feeling not great about themselves. I’m very excited to actually get to them, but I wanted to wait until I had clicked into place. I was hoping it would happen. I didn’t know if it could. I didn’t know if I would ever feel the way I felt when I was at the peak of my career. But, there’s a few people I’m very excited to be painting because I know that they will have some kind of impact. Now, emotions are fickle pickles. They may feel great in the moment, and then they’ll go back to being however they are. But I’m hoping that moment might plant a seed and make them feel that maybe they are lovable.
00:22:19 Speaker 3: And as humans, that is a constant thing that we are trying to do, which is love ourselves. You know, there’s that quote about how can anybody else love you if you don’t love yourself? And I think what Paula is doing is helping people with that process, because instead of just staring at themselves in the mirror and seeing the faults, they can see themselves in a different light with a different perception. And that we all need that. We need that. So, you know, it truly is. I am deeply honored that I am one of the people that Paula is painting, because I just find it really fascinating. And I’ve got a few Portraits, and Paula has as well of herself. And it’s like, it’s not egotistical. it’s actually like a reminder of how other people see you. And that is very reassuring.
00:23:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. There is no one truth. And the minute we embrace that idea, then we can accept the nuances and the spectrum of who we are and how we are in relation to other people and events. So when somebody asks me like, what’s my favorite color? I will never say x or y is my favorite color pink. Me neither. It’s colors in relation to each other. It’s when they interact that I have favorite interactions that absolutely, absolutely love. Like I work a lot in neon so my pieces in person. So if you’re listening to this, please come to our show in person in Derby, UK at Artcore Gallery, October twenty third to October thirtieth. But twenty twenty six, by the way, but they, the neon oranges, the neon pinks, the neon yellows interacting with teal and with this greeny dark blue that I use. Oh, I love the hell out of that. You’ll see that a lot in my pieces because it just scratches an itch for me that, um, nothing else does. But if you said, well, Paula, then you must love navy blue. Well, okay. It’s fine. I look good in navy blue. Like it’s a great color for me to wear. But no, I don’t love navy blue. I don’t love neon pink, but navy blue and neon pink. MM.
00:24:49 Speaker 4: Because it’s the context.
00:24:50 Speaker 3: It’s the context. Again, color is all context.
00:24:54 Speaker 2: Yeah. But it’s always the same thing with us as people, right? We can see ourselves and I have done, and we can attest to this, that I have seen myself as the worst person alive And yet, when I interact with fee, she sees me as somebody different. We interact with other people. They see me as somebody different. Some people like me, some people don’t. it doesn’t mean that I’m not likable or that I am perfection
00:25:17 Speaker 3: it’s the same with your art. Some people will like your art, some people won’t. Some people like you. That’s what being human is all about. You cannot please everyone because if you try and do that, we all know you end up losing yourself.
00:25:34 Speaker 2: yeah. I’m excited to be back in momentum, back in sync with myself, as a professional artist and excited to be making the next pieces. I have the next one ready to go. I just need to draw her out on canvas. I do a lot of the pre work in Photoshop. no AI. I just do the pre work in Photoshop so I can make a lot of the early color decisions ahead of time. so when I sit in the canvas, I know the first two layers are going to be these two colors and then I can run from there. So what you see in Photoshop, which I’ll never share those photos anyway, versus what you see on canvas are two different things, but the initial layers are covered. I’m very excited about all of that and about the people who are still waiting to be painted. Um, and just seeing where things are. And I’m going to be taking the first four or five people that I’ve painted initially before I snicked into place and repainting them so that they get the same level of portrait that I’m now at. And I’m excited about that too, because I don’t mind revisiting portraits. It’s so strange. Make me paint another tree and I will just leave, but make me paint the same person twice. I’m like, yes, please, yes.
00:26:49 Speaker 4: I never the same.
00:26:51 Speaker 3: You know, it’s.
00:26:52 Speaker 4: The day.
00:26:53 Speaker 3: The mood, whatever.
00:26:55 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So. So it’s nice. It’s it’s an unexpected effect from doing art crush never expected to be returning to painting. I had declared myself done and publicly announced I was never painting again. And here we are.
00:27:10 Speaker 3: Thank goodness for the art world. That’s all I’m saying. Thank goodness you weren’t done. Uh, because you know, you are an important feature in that and will continue to be so. And who knows if you come and see our show, in Derby in October, you might end up commissioning Paula to do a portrait of yourself. You never know.
00:27:33 Speaker 2: I think we’ve said everything we need to say about leaning into our.
00:27:39 Speaker 3: For now. For now. And we will come back. it will be it’s an ongoing thing as we develop as artists. hopefully it helps you because I was just thinking, I wonder if the, uh, listeners, have ever painted themselves, took me a long time to do a self portrait and I’m probably due to do another one, but it’s a fascinating topic to do.
00:28:05 Speaker 2: I think self portraits are important to, in terms of being like a portrait artist. It was just part of my education. It was just seen as normal. You do self portraits, not egotistical, but the paintings of myself that I had done, that fee had sort of alluded to were really eye opening. when you create images of yourself, regardless of the medium that you use, it does reflect what you’re thinking about yourself in the moment. So it’s well worth doing. And so I would be interested to know in the comments if anybody has done self-portraits, regardless of whether they’re professional or hobby artists, if it actually changed how they viewed themselves or if it made them a little bit more self-aware. That’s an interesting thing. But I’d also want to stress that at the end of the day, sharing this journey of bumps and, imposter syndrome and everything else that I’ve gone through, I want this to be out there so that nobody thinks you wake up one day, go, I’m a professional artist, everything is great. I’m completely confident all the time. I wake up and go to sleep, eating and breathing art and not struggling with anything. And that’s not how it is, but that’s my perception of it that was embedded in me growing up. that’s what we learned in art school. That’s what we learned, in formal art classes at school with just in regular school. That’s what I saw from my uncles who never shared their struggles. That’s what we saw from the featured artists. Van Gogh, we heard about his, trials, but it was seen as adding to his art rather than detracting from it. But generally we don’t experience that. And being an artist, at least for me, is not a straight line. And it’s not always an easy path. But when it’s good, it’s very, very good. So that’s why I said, yeah, okay, so I guess this wraps up this episode of Art crush. To learn more about my project. There will be links in the show notes, but you can also go to my website at Paula Telizyn dot com and you can look for the perception twenty twenty six, page. You can also follow me on Instagram at bored dot fruit dot donkey. and you can just search my name because with a name like mine, if there’s a Telizyn there, probably me or related to me online and we will catch you in the next episode. I want to thank Fi also for her feedback for helping get me to this point. There is no one absolute pleasure.
00:30:31 Speaker 3: Paula.
00:30:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, every artist needs an art buddy like fee. Honestly. Honestly. you can catch future episodes of Art crush every Saturday UK time. Usually that’s Friday night, eastern time. And you can find us on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, audible, iHeart, podcasts and more. Subscribe, like, share and comment and we will see you in the next episode.
00:31:00 Speaker 5: Bye.
