Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary McCue Bell.
Mary, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Freshman year, I took a class called photojournalism and was immersed in the photography and journalism world very quickly. My teacher was also the yearbook teacher and was able to convince me to join the yearbook. Because of that, I found myself putting yearbook and photography at the top of my priorities, and from that, I joined Mantra for photography purposes that developed into being the Chief Digital Officer, and I also began my own sort of “business“ for photography. Besides photography, photojournalism and journalism, I’ve been into art since I could hold a pencil, and I got accustomed to acrylic paints through it Zhen Music and Arts Institute. From there, I started painting and found the mediums I like best. I messed around with portraits and posted one on my art Instagram account, and someone asked to get their own portraits so that “business” itself took off also.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
For art, I didn’t always love it. At Zhen, I looked forward to painting every week for four years, but while I was assigned art at school, I never really enjoyed it. I always found it a task to finish and was never able to use acrylic paints during school, so I faded away from that fairly quickly. I found that when I’m not doing art for myself, then I never enjoyed it. But when I started doing portraits, I was doing it more for myself than for a grade, which upped the ante for me to start a kind of business for myself. As for photography and journalism, there’s always someone better than me, which is very intimidating, but because of the amount of love I have for that world, I’m always thrilled when someone’s ability to make some sort of accomplishment.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
Mantra is a jewelry company run by high school students whose profits are donated to charitable organizations. In my photography “business,“ I’ve taken some senior portraits and a lot of sports photography. I’m still figuring out what I love to photograph most, but I always lean more towards photojournalism before just photography. One thing my yearbook teacher, Margie Raper, taught me is that photography is taking a picture, but photojournalism is telling a story, which is one reason why photojournalism always stuck out to me so much more. In my art business, I focus on faceless acrylic portraits, which I used to never really like. I always saw other faceless portraits and was intrigued but never really enjoy the style until I tried it on my own. I found that because I love hyperrealism acrylic painting so much, I was able to focus on minor details and embellish them on a flat skin tone.
What were you like growing up?
I was always a very anxious little girl who wasn’t exactly shy but never outspoken in a classroom. I was definitely more of the artist speed who never fell in love with any kind of sport but was always social.
Pricing:
- $85 For my average portrait (2 people)
- No Set price for photography
- $12-25 For Mantra jewelry
Contact Info:
- Phone: 214-538-0811
- Email: Mccuetie@iclould.com
- Instagram: marymccuephotography, mccue.art.stuff, and mantraandco
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