SEEDS

Being an Artist and Entrepreneur: What I learned, What worked and What failed.

Being an artist and entrepreneur sounds fun but to be honest it's a really sad and difficult existence (in the beginning at least). That was a joke. This is the life I chose for myself and I love everything about artrepreneurship and my journey. I can’t speak on other artist entrepreneurial journeys, I can only tell you about what I know so well which is my experience. 

SO… When I graduated college it was established that I was an artist. I mean since I was 10 years old I knew that but with my new degree I knew I wanted to be an artist professionally. The problem is when you’re in art school they don’t tell you how to do that. They do a great job at teaching you all the things about your art. The techniques, how to think about what you’re creating and why. In their defense they do help in a business sense by teaching you how to talk about your art. That is very important when it comes to connecting with art lovers and making some sales but they don’t  teach you how or where to place your art and actually sell it.

SO… When I graduated I just wanted to make art and sell it. Simple as that. I graduated with a BFA in photography. The goal was to work as a professional photographer and sell photography for a living while making & selling original paintings. Not only did I not know how to do this, but I had no idea how I was going to get people to pay the price that I needed them to pay. Through trial  & error and lots and lots of failures, eventually I was able to create a system and make enough to pay my rent, buy supplies and keep my art business going. 

That took me 4 years … 

Leading up to that point I did everything I could to learn how to sell artwork. I researched tons of artists and became their fan. I read specific books about art sales, finding your artistic voice and researched popular styles that were more likely to sell. I searched for the answer to the 1 million dollar question. What makes people want to buy my art? I dug down deep and had to figure out what I wanted to paint and who I was through the art that I would create. I made hundreds of paintings and I finally narrowed down my subject matter, my voice and what my brand stands for. I absorbed and applied so much knowledge to creating artwork and a business around it I can now show other artists exactly what to do to build, run and grow a successful art business. 

How did I get there? 

Because I had to teach myself, it all came from watching the trends of the art world, learning by doing and consistently making the work. 

What worked and what didn’t work… (for me)

This part is for the artists. There are a lot of different resources out there and ways you can springboard your career. In my opinion, these things are all situational and speak directly to who you are as an artist and what type of art you create. None of these resources are off limits, but I think you need to know who you are and what you make so that you can make the right combination of choices.

Grant money

Coming from an academic background, Grants, Scholarships and Scholastic funding is a common resource for anyone doing project based work.

Starting out, when I thought “How am I going to fund my career?” This was the first thing that came to mind. 

If you have artwork or projects that fit into the specific grant guidelines then the Grant path is the path for you. For some reason this never worked for me.

I’d spend hours drafting up proposal after proposal. Even creating artworks to generate a Portfolio to submit. At the end of it all, I’d still be left with an unsure feeling of whether I would get the grant or not. If I did that would be a huge win, but if I didn’t I’d be in the same predicament not knowing what I would do to get the money I needed to produce the amazing paintings that were in my head.

Crowdfunding

I saw crowdfunding as an opportunity for me to tell my story, connect with other people and in turn sell artwork that I truly believed in while sharing that belief with the patrons that buy in.

Now, crowdfunding is a very complex and, in my opinion, difficult way to fund your art practice.

In my first crowdfunding campaign I was brutally honest about what I wanted and needed. I think I could have delivered my message in a softer, less vulnerable way. Anyway, I told my story and I let it all hang out. It kind of worked… I did successfully raise about $10,000 but my goal was a little too high. For the particular crowdfunding platform that I used the campaigns were “All or Nothing” campaigns. I had a goal of about $15,000 and if I didn’t raise the total amount or more then I’d get none of the money and all of the funding would go back to the patrons.

The first thing that I needed to know about crowdfunding was to set my goal according to what I needed. Not what I wanted. Next, I needed to know who my audience was specifically. I thought I needed to share my story with anyone and everyone and hopefully they would give to my cause. I also needed to focus on my project and not the money that could help me create the project. When running a crowdfunding campaign it was so easy to focus on how much money I wanted to raise and lose sight of the true reason why I was running it in the first place. I lost focus of the project and did not take the time to explain the intricate details of my project, why it was important to me and why the patrons should care.

I just didn’t know enough about crowdfunding and that brings me to my last and most important point. 

I NEEDED HELP.

As artists most of us are solitary creatures. We come up with ideas on our own, create our work on our own and go through the rejection or praise of said creation on our own. It was only natural for me to see a new challenge and try to take it on all by myself.

Collaborations

Collaborating with other artists has to be not only one of my favorite things to do but also one of the best decisions that I’ve made as an artist and entrepreneur. 

Artist collaborations helped me to fine tune my collaborative process, sell more art and expand my audience. The cool part about working with someone else to create a piece of art or a series is you get to see what your styles look like together and you both benefit from overlapping fan bases. 

It doesn’t matter if you're a collaborative artist or not. I recommend collaborating with an art friend or an artist that you admire. There are so many benefits and so much to learn.

Learn How to Sell

For the most part as artists we know how to make the art. We spend so much time working on our subject matter, refining our style and what we want to say. We become pros at the art making part really quickly. In order to have a financially successful art business you need to sell art. The most important thing I did for myself and my business was invest in opportunities that taught me how to sell. This skill is arguably just as important or more important than the quality or subject matter of the art itself. 

The thing about selling is that it is virtually the same across all products. Sales is sales and if you learn the basics of sales and your style of sales ( how YOU specifically sell) then that can be applied to your art practice and there you go! The sky's the limit for you and whatever goals you have for your artwork or art business. 

Overall I love being an Entrepreneur and an artist. When I started out on the journey I had no idea what it would be like. I imagined it would be the dream, making artwork that everyone loves and happily hands over their hard earned cash for. To my surprise it was not that but it ended up being a lot more rewarding than that pipe dream. I was pushed to try new things, take classes to expand my knowledge, invest my own money into “things” that made my business run smoother and more efficiently and use all of the different skills I have. I went from the mindset of “I’m here to make and sell paintings” to “I am building a household brand”. That is what this experience has pushed me too. It's more than just making beautiful, thought provoking artwork. It’s about connection, reach and inspiration for all while pointing out the reality that we all have multiple things to offer the world. If we can collectively wake up to that truth and put our efforts into refining those offerings then we will all see growth like never before.

-Von

My $500 painting sale. Why? And What happened?

I always wanted to make art affordable for everyone. Artwork at a great price for myself and for art lovers. Over the years I’ve noticed most artworks are priced really high. This is mainly because artists charge for their skillset and their product. As an artist that part made sense to me but I realized that it caused a divide between the artist and the beginner art collector. Most artists that take the leap into selling their artwork in a public way have been working on their craft for years before they’ve made the decision. They want to charge what they’re worth in skillset and product from the start. The problem is they’re not able to charge the prices they deserve to charge at the point in their career. This is the basis of my $500 custom painting project. Before jumping at this idea, I had already been making paintings for about five years and I had sold my fair share of artwork priced well over $500. The issue I ran into was I wanted to reach more people across a wider demographic, but I was stuck in the same circle of art lovers who could comfortably afford artwork priced above $1000. I wanted to expand my audience and begin to connect with and build relationships with new art lovers. 

Immediately I began to connect with an audience with people that had growing families, people that were new homeowners, and young professionals at the beginning of their adult careers. In this process I learned a fair amount about this demographic. I noticed that most of these people had a good income but they didn’t have a ton of disposable income for items like artwork. Sure, it’s possible they would pay $6000 for a unique custom painting but in most cases it wouldn’t be the most financially smart thing to do. I spoke with many of these people and I knew that they loved original artwork and wanted to buy, but it wasn’t necessarily something that they could afford at the artists price. 

I fell in love with this idea because it gave me the ability to dive deep into what I love to do, which is paint nonstop. This idea opened up a handful of opportunities that would help me to grow as an artrepreneur. I was able to work on my sales techniques, meet new art lovers and build life-long relationships with the most interesting and amazing people. I grew in ways that I couldn’t have imagined by simply putting all of my energy into creating & executing ideas for custom paintings.

I learned a valuable lesson about people through creating custom artwork. People are way more creative than they give themselves credit for.

You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve spoken with someone and they said “I’m the I’m the least creative person” and 10 minutes into the conversation they’ve come up with some amazing off the wall idea that will translate into an incredibly creative and beautiful painting. The crazy part about it is that it just comes out in our conversation. No matter how off the wall the idea is, I let them know how possible it is for me to turn this idea into a real tangible piece of art. Just like that, their idea is brought to life. That same person that believed they didn’t have a creative bone in their body has now created a unique and special piece of art.

This project ended up being so special to me because I was able to connect with so many people. It gave me the opportunity to help them bring their ideas to life and ultimately spread the message of The Flower Boy brand. I got a chance to challenge myself pushing my art practice to produce at a higher level than ever before. I see this type of production becoming a daily operation for me. I truly enjoyed the challenges and troubles of this project. Completing all of the work was a satisfying relief and an experience that I can now say I really needed to understand where I am and where I can go as an artist. This project pushed me to be more versatile, open minded and understanding of the value of the complexity and simplicity of artwork. The spectrum from simple to complex can control the power and impact of the work depending on the subject matter. 

This project started with a problem that I wanted to solve; the divide between the artist and the beginner art collector.

I love these ideas of mine that turn into projects, because they end up becoming the stepping stone for the next best idea. As usual one thing leads to another. With that being said, I’m so excited to continue this journey and continue on connecting with new and existing art lovers creating more unique, interesting and special artworks.

-Von

I love color.

If you’ve seen my work it’s obvious. I’ve loved color ever since I was a kid. I always had the most vibrant sneakers, especially during the throwback era. I loved to match my throwback jerseys with my sneakers. My older brother would tease me because I never had a “normal” pair of sneakers that could go with anything. by that he meant I never had a pair of all white or black sneakers. No neutral color sneakers to wear with any outfit. I was drawn to the crazy patterned vibrant non-matching sneakers. I guess that’s how my love for color initially started to show up. It was always just there. Naturally, I’m drawn to colorful things. I didn’t begin to understand color until I went to Columbia College Chicago to study photography. During that time I learned all about the different elements of photography that could help to create a dynamic beautiful image. One of my favorite elements is color. 

Controlling the intensity of colors in an image is the most fun for me. To take that even further, controlling how those colors complement each other makes it even more satisfying. In my process, complementary colors are the key to creating something beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. Once I was able to understand how colors worked together then I was able to run with the color rules along with the ideas that I wanted to work out. At that point, I knew I would be able to create artwork that would be aesthetically pleasing. 

A color is only as prominent as the colors relative to it.

All colors are relative to the colors they’re presently next to. It’s all about the overpowering or under powering of the current color combination. When I’m making a painting I always consider this rule. When beginning the painting process I prefer to default to contrasting colors that usually compliment each other. When I’m choosing those complementary colors I’m often drawn to choosing colors that are opposite each other on the color value scale. I normally choose two vastly different color values while keeping them generally complementary. I want the stark contrast. I enjoy the science of color and love to experiment with unlikely color combinations. My overall goal is to create something aesthetically pleasing as well as thoughtful and engaging.

Once I was able to understand color palettes and the manipulation of color, then I was able to use my own system to create customized color palettes. Now, here’s the fun part. I’ve created a process where I design each original painting digitally. I form the perfect digital composition and select all of the colors 

that I will use digitally. I then take those cover values and then plug them into my Behr color app. The color match function gives me an exact color ID and from there I can go to any store that offers Behr paint and have that color produced exactly as seen on my computer screen. Now I have an exact layout of what colors I’ll be using and a road map for exactly how I will execute the painting. This makes the actual painting process 100 times easier because now I don’t have to think about the infinite creative choices I could potentially make when painting. They’ve already been thought out and planned. Now all I need to do is execute the painting.

Choosing the right colors in a painting make the difference in how aesthetically pleasing the artwork will be. In my opinion it doesn’t really matter what you’re painting. Now take this statement with a grain of salt, because what I really mean is if you start with colors that compliment each other you are destined to create something that is aesthetically pleasing. Most times when someone looks at painting for the first time. The first thing that they notice is usually the color of the art. They will usually mention something about how the colors go together. It could be a painting that is boring to look at or could it could be a painting with a negative subject matter. All in all the color will be the first thought and the subject matter will be the second. 

-Von

When I first began this art thing or whatever you want to call it. I guess it would be selling art or making art professionally. Basically, treating my art like a business. When I first started this, all I had was ideas and a little bit of skill. As I started to create more and think about what I wanted to do with my art, I realized I didn’t have much of a direction. I spent time thinking of a way to make a clear path for my career but I was unsuccessful because I had no reference for a standard. I immediately began to scour the internet for resources. I wanted a black and white “How To”. As I searched the web I also spent time reaching out to other artists, shooting my shot at galleries and potential clients. I came to find that there’s no right way to do it. The art world as a whole is made up of many little individual art worlds, the individual artist’s wold. I found out that it works differently for everyone. Every individual artist needs to do the work for themselves and figure out how their art works in the industry as a whole. It’s based off of your artistic voice. Your voice is determines what your art looks like and what your art is saying. When I realized this I came to understand that there’s no “How To”, no outline, no roadmap. I have to create my own plan and roadmap that works for me. In the building of my roadmap I found these three resources combined, amongst others, to be the staple of my ever evolving roadmap. In combination with other resources, videos and conversations I’ve had. I use these books to create a simple plan that I follow daily.

 This first book that I stumbled into is called “Find Your Artistic Voice” by Lisa Congdon.

As a start I wanted to get a general understanding of what an artistic voice is. I was interested in standing out and understanding my style. Once I got into the reading I gained a lot of insight into how that all works, how you find your voice. I was lead to this book because I felt I needed clarity. We can all agree that the art world can for the most part can be very vague and general. There’s not a lot of clarity for new artists trying to navigate the art world. I think a lot of new artists spend a lot of time making things and trying to figure out what they’re doing. Sometimes, arguably the majority of the time, we procrastinate. We don’t actually make the work because we don’t know what we’re doing, where we’re going, or if it will work. It can easily feel like a waste of time if we create something that doesn’t fit in with all of the other things that we’re creating. Anyway, that was a least my experience and I know a lot of others that can relate to this type of process. I really enjoy this book because of the light it sheds on the process of pinpointing and defining your artistic voice. Really what makes up an artistic voice. Here’s a spoiler. Generally, it’s really a handful of things. It comes down to skill, style, medium and subject matter. Those things can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. It could be as simple as the color red is an amazing vibrant color. Or as complex as American society was created to serve white men. This was a major piece of information that helped me to understand what my artistic voice is. It also helped me to shape my voice and my style. Once I became aware of what I was naturally saying then I could lean in. So I came to find my voice and style but only after the brutal, painstaking process of making what seemed like an endless amount of paintings. This was prompted from a list that Lisa shares in the book. It is 10 steps to building artistic skill. Here it is:

1. Begin
2. Practice 
3. Keep showing up 
4. Practice more
5. Stretch yourself 
6. Practice 
7. Practice 
8. Note your improvement 
9. Practice more
10. Repeat

5 of these 10 steps are practice. This is the real key to finding your artistic voice and building artistic skill.

The next book is “Art, Money, Success” by Maria Brophy

Now it was kind of a natural occurrence or a natural flow of thinking because once I had a good understanding of my voice I need to figure out how and where to sell my work. I went on a quest for resources that would tell me: How to market my work and How to sell my work. By default I think most artists have an idea that you should sell your work in a gallery. Or give your work to someone you can “Take care of that for you”. Well, this book helped give me perspective on how and where I could and should sell my work. It sheds light on different ways to sell your art and ways to make multiple streams of income from selling one painting or art piece. Maria Brophy does a good job of giving the reader a broader perspective on how to sell artwork. It gave me confidence in the fact that I could sell my own art and I didn’t have to depend on some entity, gallery or some kind of backing to successfully sell the art. For me this book has become a really valuable resource because it gives real life examples and suggestions on how an artist can get themselves out of their studios and into the public eye. Most of the principles in this book are rooted in basic sales techniques. I also find this book really helpful because it takes into consideration the idea that not everyone is great at selling and not everyone has the personality to get out there and go talk to hundreds of people. I think there is an art to picking up the phone and calling 500 people. It is not easy. This is understood so, Maria is sensitive to that fact and offers alternative ways to make this option feasible for all artists. She gives examples of thinking outside of the box and creating some kind of system where you could have someone else do it for you. You need to know how to do everything or be able to do everything. You just need to know how to do your job, which is making art. Now, because your art is a business you don’t have to do it alone. You just need to create a plan and start to work the plan and if need be recruit others who can help you to successfully execute the plan. Again, your art is a business! If you don’t treat it like a business, the chance of you growing financially is slim. If that isn’t your goal then sure, you can be successful sharing your work, having your work displayed, you can even win awards. It’s all up to you. I refer to this book every month. Constantly it feels like. I can’t even tell you how many times I refer back to this book, but I’m always reading it and I’m always looking for new ways to adapt what Maria is saying to my art business and my life. “Art, Money, Success” is a really great resource in combination with “Find Your Artistic Voice”.

Lastly, “Aesthetic Intelligence” by Pauline Brown.

Now, I actually found this book by mistake. It was definitely a ‘What you’re looking for will find you’ situation. I was hanging out at a friends house and I need to go to the bathroom. So I’m walking through the house trying to find the bathroom and I ended up walking into a roommates bedroom. Normally if I walked into the wrong room I would just turn around. this time was different. I saw this really cool Mid-Century modern bookshelf and all of these fashion books. Weirdly enough I started to look at these books and I saw this book called “Aesthetic Intelligence”. I thought ‘wow this book sounds really interesting’. I just want all of the information, I want to be smart so anything dealing with intelligence, I’m in. I read the first page and from there I was hooked. I got the book for myself and boom. The icing on the cake. “Aesthetic Intelligence” is the completion of the Holy Art Trinity. For me the combination of these books work so well as a crash course to creating, selling and presenting art in a polished professional way. This a great read because it talks about the art of aesthetics; how the biggest global brands have mastered the aesthetics of what they do and their origin stories. This book helped me to gain a better understanding of what I want my brand to be, what I want my brand to say and how I want the brand to look. It also gave me some insight onto some things that I could do to make my brand stand out and expand the customer experience from initial purchase to opening the package. Pauline Brown drives points on principles rooted in brand image, brand identity and most importantly the little nuances of your customer experience that personally communicates to customers. I highly recommend this book. It continues to be a really helpful resource for me as I start to now build out a bigger, broader and more cohesive roadmap. 

Now, if you know me you know I rant and rave about these books. They seriously changed my life and the direction of my art career. Before I read them, I was making a lot of artwork, but I had no idea what I was doing. I was walking around like a chicken with my head cut off. I had no direction. Therefore, I had nothing to focus on. Just a lot of ambition and a lot of creativity. With that, I will continue to encourage artist who are trying to grow their brand, show and sell their artwork. pick up these books and read them because these resources can really help you to sharpen brand of your artwork to a clear direct point. 

All in all, The Holy Art Trinity of these books have become my have become the base of my roadmap and they have helped me to successfully grow my business, sharpen my skills and tell the origin story of my brand in a clear and direct way. I’ve noticed that as long as I continue to refer back to these materials I can see improvements in my business as a whole every year. 

-Von

I overthink.

If I were to diagnose myself with some type of defect that would be it. Overthinking 100% of the time. I never had a problem with it until recently. I always felt that I was being thorough by evaluating my decisions. Thinking about what I want and calculating how I wanted to approach it. 

I’ve been getting hung up on these “calculations” my whole career as an artist. Overthinking the things that I’m creating, overthinking what I want my brand to be/do, and overthinking what move I should make next. Being a self taught painter and entrepreneur I’ve felt like an amateur the majority of the time. So, I made it a priority to constantly learn new things, try new techniques and test the market. I spent a lot of time focusing on testing my artwork in front of different audiences. Really trying to figure out what works. The strain and pressure of it all taught me that there's no value in anyone else's opinion of my work. I came to realize that it’s all about what I feel and my opinion of my work. To tell the truth I knew that going into this. For me it just happened to be one of those things where I didn’t believe it and I needed to see for myself. 

I am cerebral. I like to take in all the information that I possibly can and then turn that information into something. I have to be productive with it. I got all of this insight from this weird Enneagram personality test. By the way, it took me forever to even take the Enneagram because I was overthinking.

I was like “OK well why would I want to do this?” 

“What’s the purpose of this?”

It’s incredible how I can not do things because I want answers, but I will get the answers if I just do it. So, I finally take it and I get my Enneagram number (5) and it tells me I am the type of person that wants all of the information. I believe that a person is never done learning. I am aware that I don’t know everything and I feel like I don’t have enough information ever. I thought

“wow this is this is really true”.

I’ve slowed myself down so much because I’m constantly reminding myself there’s more to know about all subjects. So that results in me seeking & gathering more information and just piling it on. Not putting the information into action it’s become the action of gathering information. Now, once I've learned this I immediately started to reject this behavior. I didn’t like it. I wanted to be more productive. I didn’t want to be this person that just gathers and doesn’t produce. So I started to make a change. It was kind of easy because I knew how. I’d gathered that much info that I could pivot and pick a direction that would help me break out of this behavior. 

Over the years I’ve studied the art game and it’s players. I was led to abstract expressionism by one of my favorite artist from Brooklyn, New York. His name is Christopher Florentino. He goes by the artist name “Florie” and practices Abstract Expressionism. This is an art form where the art is created subconsciously. In my case it’s subconscious painting. It’s so fascinating to me and I’m sure it can be approached in many different ways. The goal is to paint without thinking. It’s a freestyle and whatever you’re feeling at that time is what will come out. In a way it’s similar to meditation. I fell in love with it because it scraps the plan. It forces me to be present and to connect with myself in the moment rather than thinking about how others people may judge the work. Whatever happens, happens. Once I grasped this concept I decided to do 30 paintings in 30 days to really solidify this practice. Now, when I did this amazing things started to happen. First, I developed a style and a signature that I felt was most natural to me and my voice. Next, I began to think about each painting differently and detach from the artwork. I started to look at each art piece as it’s own unique thing.

The work no longer needed to be perfect products that needed to appeal to the masses. 

This exercise forced me to make art regardless of how I felt. It force me to take control of the commitment then I had within that commitment and make art when I didn’t have the energy, when I was feeling uninspired and when I felt I didn’t have enough time to make something “good”. That really tested me as an artist. It made me reevaluate how seriously I took myself and how seriously I took my work. Now, this is still an interesting concept to me because I want to take my work serious but I don’t want it to be a burden or hinder my performance. I recognize that there has to be a balance with it. I learned to except myself where I was. Some days I would make a painting that I thought could’ve been better. Sometimes I made paintings where the colors just like they didn’t work together at all, but I learned to approach it with the mindset of

“that’s what I picked at the time and that’s ok".

It doesn’t matter if it matches or looks aesthetically pleasing, that’s not what it’s about. I become more comfortable with that feeling and that philosophy began to move throughout my life into other areas outside of art. I shifted my focus to being present and being me. 

Ultimately I had to come to terms with the reality that I cannot effectively make art that is aimed at trying to connect with other people. I need to just make the art that I connect with and in turn that work will automatically connect with other people. So, this is where I am now on my journey. I’m in a place where I understand the art that I’m creating. Although I’ve learned to create better art on the fly by flushing out what I’m feeling in the moment, I still have artwork that is very much planned and calculated. I think It’s important to be able to do both.

 -Von

This painting always reminds me of the saying “one thing leads to another”. That holds true pretty much for the majority of my projects. I get hundreds of ideas a day, most of those ideas I’ll write down. Others, I won’t and only a small percentage of those ideas actually get completed (I did notice that the ideas that I do write down almost always end up becoming a completed project). This painting is called “Face to Face” and actually has a really cool story. It was an idea that I had back in 2019 and it’s kind of how I made my way to the new experimental portraits that I am creating currently. The portrait came about when I got the idea to move into portrait painting. Before that I had been painting anything and everything but had not yet chosen a focus. I have a BFA in photography and spent my time studying  photojournalism while I was in college. I looked at a lot of street photography and photo essays (a lot of true, raw, in the moment, unedited photography). This was my course load and after a while I got a little bit bored. I wanted something different and I was drawn to portraiture and studio photography. Working in the studio you get to make a photo the way you see it in your head or how you want to see it. You have 100% control over your images and subject matter. It was a nice change of pace for me and a big contrast from street photography or “Documentary Photography” because when you are taking photos in a documentary way, what you see is what you get. Also, you want to try to keep that image as true as possible. Now, it’s only going to be as true as what’s inside of the frame. That is the only context you have without an explanation. Whatever is happening in that little rectangle is what is true in that moment. All of that led me to my want to take portraits and eventually paint portraits.

I started by looking at work from photographers that I admired. The goal was to find images that I thought were lit amazing and had amazing composition. I was always looking for something unusual. I had gone to school with lots of amazing photographers so I decided to check out some friends that I studied with and see what they were working on. I stumbled on new work from one of my good friends Bianca Garcia. She is a fashion and music photographer and has a large portfolio of beautiful portraits. I looked through her portfolio and I saw this image of these two women with their faces transposed together. I thought “oh wow this would be really cool for me to paint”. Now, at this point in 2022 I would just grab that image from the internet and paint it without asking. However, I was just starting and Bianca is my friend and I thought “maybe I should ask her if I could paint this picture”. I thought “I don’t know if there are the terms or if she had a contract or something like that”. So, I asked her she said yeah. Great. So I went to paint this picture and just kind of went for it. I remember it was the first time I would be doing a portrait like this. I was really obsessed and gripped by it. I stayed up all night painting and I remember having no idea what I would call it. As I was posting it on Instagram at 6 AM, a song by Daft Punk popped up called “Face to Face”. This immediately resonated with me. I always like to explain how my artwork is a reflection of who I am and what I’m going through at the time. When I was making this painting I was at a crossroads of sorts. I was facing myself as as an artist and coming face to face with decisions of really defining what I want to do with my art. The original “Face to Face” painting was initially on dictionary paper and it was a diptych. It was two canvases put together it stood vertically but the horizon line connected both canvases. The dictionary paper was a kind of driving the point of defining oneself and so that was the inspiration behind the painting. I had a lot of fun making this painting and I got a lot of really good feedback. I got so much good feedback I thought “Wow!, Yeah!, Great!, Cool!, this art is about the sell immediately!” But no, it didn’t sell immediately. It actually took about three years to sell it. That was so interesting to me.

I can get impatient sometimes. At the time I thought “OK I got a lot of interest but it didn’t sell so it must not work”. So I moved away from these types of paintings and started to do other things. It wasn’t until my cousin hit me up and said “Hey, I really like this painting and would like you to do something like this for me and my boys”. I said “OK cool! this sounds like a cool project, let’s do it”. I got everything I needed from my cousin and created “The Three Canvas”. That ended up being another really good painting for me that really shined a light on my creativity and gave this style of portraiture some momentum. It was so interesting to see that it all started with the “Face to Face” canvas that moved into a custom commission and then that turned into more of a commercial sales channel for these types of portraits. I now I can take images given to me by each family, digitally assemble them together and create these really cool colorful portraits. 

So yes, one thing does lead to another and another and another. The thing that I find so inspirational about his phrase is that it’s so simple. If you have the courage and confidence to begin it will then lead you to where you ultimately want to be… eventually. 

-Von

Building a brand is extremely difficult. When I first started the Flower Boy I had a specific goal in mind. It was to introduce the universal concept of spiritual mental and physical growth. If you were there with me when this all started, you were able to see where I’ve been with the brand and art that I created. I imagine some of you have continued to follow where I’m going with the brand and the new artwork that I am creating. If you are new to my journey, Welcome. I want you to know you have joined me at the perfect time and things are starting to get really good. 

The initial goal of The Flower Boy is still intact. Although my focus has changed in the content and subject matter of my art. I still feel that I’m on track just as I was when I first began. At that time, I was in a place of exploring my sobriety and growing out of a place of shame. I was beginning to become more comfortable with who I am as a sober person and artist. At that same time I was  building a brand that I wanted people to connect with on a personal level. I wanted others to gain awareness around their connection with spirituality and specifically growth in all situations. My aim was to share my story in hopes that I could connect through vulnerability. It was effective, but in the process I learned that it’s not all about hitting pain points and airing out dirty laundry to connect. It’s more about being human and understanding that there are challenges that we all face as we grow. That there may be mistakes along the way that we have to overcome. The challenging piece of this revelation is that we may need to go back over and over until we win the situations that feel “unwinable”

(yes I made that word up). 

I create art to speak to and connect with a broad audience. However, This work is personal and really about me. So, the flower faces that I created over the past 2 years were a direct reflection of what I felt and what I was going through at the time. I knew that I was facing major life changes and I felt that I didn’t know my identity as an artist. I was also still finding my identity as a sober person. The flower face is a direct representation of that feeling. It is a metaphor for the specific growth of my identity. Because the subject has no facial features, you can’t identify them. You can only identify the growth by how big and overgrown the flowers are. That’s really how I felt at the time. I felt that I couldn’t really see myself, I could only see how I was growing in these different ways. Now, as I’ve gone through that season I’m in a place of understanding who I am and I can see myself clearly. I can understand what I do and am meant to do as an artist. I can also understand what The Flower Boy brand is about. Now I’m focusing more on what the faces of each subject looks like and what my face looks like. It’s the season of clarity. The understanding of identity and how those identities are faced with troubles. How they deal with the duality that comes with life. I am now exploring the idea that our minds are always split. We want to do the good thing that most times is more difficult and is not as fun. We also desire what is more fun and pleasurable, but could be bad or harmful to us. We want to do what we know will be selfless and beneficial for others, but also help ourselves selfishly as much as we possibly can. This is the idea that I am drawn to now. Even though these ideas differ from each other. They are all encompassed in the universal idea of growth. I am happy about the direction I’m heading now because I can see how the brand is growing, how the business is growing and how my faith is growing as I continue to push forward.

-Von

Welcome to the Flower Fam! 

This is an open forum for you to share your experience of mental, physical and spiritual growth. A place where you can share your creative ideas freely and connect with others through art.

I am so excited to begin this journey with you all and I can't wait to see where it goes from here!

-Von