High Five with Artist Michael Doyle

This summer, Aide-mémoire is leaping into a new, exciting adventure: brick-and- mortar! For the past few months, Aran's been pouring a heaping cup of love and hard-work into the new shop, getting it ready for our opening day celebration this Saturday, July 10.

One of the best features of our new shop: our makers! We're delighted to have a portion of our shop dedicated to supporting the talents of LGBTQ, BIPOC, and female-business-run artists.

To highlight our many, marvelous makers, we've created a fresh blog post series we're calling, High Five: Five Serious and Not-So-Serious Questions for our Makers. 

We're happy to share this first post with Michael Doyle, an artist from our own backyard right here in Seattle. His colorful, expressive drawings and paintings instantly charmed us. We can't wait for you to take home one of Michael's lovely notecards. 

Hello Michael! Let's dive in with this first question - what kind of rituals or routines do you have in your creative process?
MD: I’m big on rituals, I find them very helpful especially when you’re creating good habits around your creative process. When I get to my studio the first thing I do is open a window, light a candle, burn a little incense and turn my music on. 

What's the one tool in your studio or workshop that you can't live without? 

MD: That would have to be my paints. I love my paints so much, I couldn’t do my work without them. I can use just about any paintbrush and paint on anything but I have to have my favorite matte acrylic gouache paints. My favorite brand is Flashe.

If you could climb inside a time machine and travel back through time - where would you go? 

MD: That’s a hard question! So many moments in history that I adore. But I think I’d like to travel through Italy in the 60s and take in all the great food, clothes and music. I love Italian movies from that era, like Fellini’s Juliet Of The Spirits. I just want to live in that film.

You just found $20 on a walk. What would you buy?   

Probably a magazine and a candy bar.

You're at a playground. Do you go for the swings or the slide? 

Slide for sure, I love slides. Plus swings give me motion sickness. 

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Thank you for indulging our curiosity Michael! Discover more of Michael's work at michaeldoylestudio.com