The View: Scenes from Window of Lake Parsippany Home Inspire Artist

Artist Dannielle Mick looks for inspiration at the lake downhill from her home just about every day. Her renovated Lake Parsippany house is the perfect setting for a studio that serves as her creative and business center.

While some might see a slightly worn blue-collar community not far from Interstate 80, Mick revels in the changing seasons throughout the year here and calls it “the perfect house for an artist.”

Although she wasn’t born in New Jersey, she embraces everything the state has to offer, starting with its landscape. Mick is an accomplished artist who has won numerous awards including recognition from the American Artists Professional League, NYC; Audubon Artists, NYC and the Pastel Society of New Jersey.

She bought the house 10 years ago as she was going through a divorce and has spent the last decade renovating it. She has created original artworks which have their genesis in nature and the outdoors. Sun, water, sky and trees are topics for her naturalistic studies.

By adding windows and painting walls and doors in vibrant colors like pumpkin, periwinkle blue and purple, she is living in the midst of a perfect artist’s venue. “Light is a huge inspiration for my work,” she explains, welcoming a visitor into her ground floor studio; it’s filled with her paintings, art materials, a table and an easel on which she works.  Her tonal pastels and moody abstract expressionist pieces, open to the interpretation of the beholder.

Mick, 56, didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming an artist. She came to her profession some 25 years ago when she began dabbling in art, starting first with watercolors which she thought would be easy for a newcomer. Not so, however.

“Water stains the paper and you can’t make any changes to your work,” she says ruefully. From that beginner’s mistake she then moved on to try acrylic paint which she liked because “you can paint over it.” Still, she was learning and exploring.

Mick tried oil colors but that took too long to dry. “I’m a very immediate person,” she explains. She wanted results faster and also to work in a medium that she could change if she wasn’t happy with it.

Next she moved on to pastels “which are like drawing with colors.” And that’s where she is at this point, creating her own artwork and teaching adults and children at her Lakeside Art Studio. Every day she has the lake, trees and sky to cull for inspiration. During the summer, she might head to the Jersey shore where a friend’s Long Beach Island home is a good place to perch as she looks for new scenery to interpret.

Almost any day of the week, Mick, who is from the Berkshires area of Massachusetts, can be found painting or instructing her students  who range in age from children ages eight through 12 to adults. Her message to both groups is the same—if you want to be an artist and want to improve, you have to work at it.

Some years back, she taught a group of women who called themselves “Shared Enthusiasm.” They had all been accomplished in different fields but discovered a common link in the desire to paint and draw. But as she taught them over the course of four years, Mick stressed that they had to keep moving forward. As they began to sell their artwork she found she was more than an artist and teacher. “I’m their mentor now,” she said.

The students all learn from each other, gaining confidence and a certain intimacy that enables them to share with each other. She has provided not just creative advice but also practical business advice, from how to price their works to how to find galleries to show in and even how to attract media coverage.

“If you’re an artist, you’ve got to pound the pavement,” she says, recalling drives to Stone Harbor, three hours away at the shore to drop off her paintings and then making the round-trip home. “Then the checks start to come in the mail,” she says. “Artists like that.  It means you’re validated. And don’t we all want validation?”

When Mick moved to New Jersey with her former husband, they lived first in Madison and then in Morris Township. That last move was where she discovered “the light,” living atop a hill in Morris Township. When it came time for her to buy her own place, realtors knew her as an artist and were careful to show her what might appeal.

“This was the 11th house that I looked at and I bought it,” she said. The renovation and a new dog, Gigi the Shih-Tzu, followed.

“She found me; she belongs here and she’s like a mascot for the studio,” said Mick who is clearly happy with where her journeys and career paths have brought her.

Mick’s works will be on display starting March 27 and going through April 30 at Gallery Egan in Morristown. An opening reception will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. on April 8 and an artist’s demonstration and talk will take place on April 9 from 1 to 3 p.m.

Dannielle Mick, studio art director Lakeside Art Studio  
201-602-6224
deemick@LakesideArtStudio.com

Gallery Egan 12 Community Place, Morristown
973-998-4653
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday noon to 6 p.m.