Artsy Shark
A Site for Emerging Artists
Featured Artist Caroline Z. Marcos
Jan 4th
Featured artist Caroline Z. Marcos draws her inspiration from the spirit. Enjoy her portfolio and see more about her work by visiting her website.
I am in love with color and form. I use them to create works about meditation and introspection. For me it is an act of meditation itself to make the work. I often explore personal narratives, symbols and archetypes, much like the traditional meditative imagery of Mandalas; the ancient Sanskrit word for Circle. Some of my pieces tell a story, with the archetypal symbols, like birds, and femininity which allude to a memory or a dream, the past and present.
I incorporate text as a pictorial element that sometimes clarifies or convolutes the narrative. Text is both a visual element and an information tool. Abstracted color and natural forms are overlaid with text, collage material and encaustic wax. This approach to working in mixed media lends itself to creating a visceral world made with multiple layers, an approach that imbues the work with meaning. Therefore, it is the layering process that acts as a metaphor for the layering of the soul, the depth of the unconscious which is the well, from which my imagery is extracted.
As an Orthodox Christian born in Egypt, and as an American, two main figures have influenced my life; that of the American artist Georgia O’Keefe and the father of monasticism, St. Anthony the Great. I especially admire the quiet solitude which both of these figures spent their lives trying to capture. I believe Georgia O’Keefe couldn’t have brought the world’s attention to seemingly insignificant natural imagery, giving presence to bones, flowers and clouds, without her quiet solitude in the New Mexico desert. This quiet solitude can take one to a desert within, much like the desert of Egypt, where the first monastic, St. Anthony the Great set foot to venture the same internal terrain. There he discovered light and dark, deceptions and truth and struggled to hold onto the light and truth. The inner desert is full of rich unconscious imagery that I’m excited to elucidate everyday.
What are your goals?
My main goal that I am working on within the next 3-5 years is to have solo shows and get gallery representation. In effort to do that I’m working hard to create sold bodies of work and intermittently entering juried exhibitions that are local to where I live. I hope to eventually make a full living form my art. I believe that it’s what I was created to do. I spend much time evading this truth and not believing it for myself but I’m proud to finally own this truth for myself.
What are you working on now?
Currently, I’m working on a series about meditation and introspection, I’m considering using different types of imagery, including representation as well abstract imagery, and mainly acrylic paint with collage. I sometimes use text when it’s relevant to the work (either enhances the concept or brings in a balance in the formal element of the piece). The sources of my text vary from lyrics of inspiring music, poetry to verses from Scripture that mainly focus on praise and meditation.
What inspires you?
A lot of different things inspire me, sometimes unbeknownst to me. Mainly I would hone it down to Music, nature, colors and words and other artists.
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Want to Rock Your Art Business This Year? Start with Your Collection
Jan 2nd
By Carolyn Edlund
Artists need a cohesive, signature body of work. Create a great collection for your targeted audience.
Artists often look for ways to increase business, such as better marketing techniques, creating more income streams, or licensing their work. Another major factor that can affect your bottom line is your product line – and thoughtful development of it.
As you consider how to grow your body of work, take a look at the big picture. Are you selling one-of-a-kind pieces only? Is your price spread limited, restricting your market? Do you want to break out this year, or even explode your business by tapping into ways of selling you haven’t tried before?
Courtesy Shawn Messenger
Many readers have their illustrations and artwork on products such as greeting cards, prints, handpainted clothing, and other retail items which can be produced in volume. If you can produce in multiples, such as pottery, jewelry, clothing or other handcrafted line, prints of your work, or using your art on self-produced products, you open yourself to the world of wholesaling. If this is your choice, make sure to crunch the numbers and price your work for profit at wholesale.
Selling wholesale not only creates a huge boost in volume, but helps stabilize your business as well. There is nothing like having orders from a repeat customer base of retailers to keep regular income flowing through the door of your studio year round.
In my own experience running a production ceramic studio for twenty years, I had about 150 retail stores at any given time as active wholesale customers. Although each account was different in the frequency and volume of their orders (and there was an expected turnover of about 20% each year), it brought enormous stability, which allowed me to hire assistants and make projections each year based on a known quantity.
An added bonus is that as you develop your own book of business, you will be able to show receivables and gain the credibility to successfully apply for a business loan to expand your operation if you wish. Bankers love hard numbers, and most businesses have this kind of data. You will too.
Back to focusing on developing your product line. Plan carefully so that as you ramp up to create a new, cohesive and exciting line for your business, you will be able to:
- Open new and broader markets for your work
- Spread your price points to appeal to more customers’ budgets
- Enhance your brand
- Increase repeat sales
- Put yourself in a position to cross-sell more of your line
- Rejuvenate your business by adding lots of exciting new items
As you consider new directions for your line, make sure you are designing what you enjoy doing and would be happy to stay with. After you come up with a core look for a collection, start branching off into more related products. Necklaces need earrings and bracelets to match – and pins, hair ornaments, even ankle bracelets. Tabletop items look great in groupings. Pottery is a natural for a collection. Working in themes offers endless opportunities for collections.
If you design more than one collection, you may want to make one higher-end and one with lower prices, to catch a wider audience. Name your collections. Give them life, make them memorable. Go into your design process knowing who your target customer is, what they buy and why your work will appeal to them.
Courtesy Shawn Messenger
Now, let’s increase the ticket. Think pairs or sets. If you can sell several of a product rather than one because they are in a set, each sale jumps immensely. Artwork in themes should be created in series to be displayed together for a bigger ticket price. Why would you sell one kitchen-related print when you can create a set of four to be hung together? You can stress this point by not offering them as singles. And if you license your images, all the better. Art publishers love artwork in a tightly cohesive series. They know and value the power of collections.
Collections make a statement. They look good when displayed. They create a buzz. Rockstar designers know this. Start looking at the websites of artists and craftspeople you know who are successful. They all started with good ideas and expanded on their signature styles.
What designers do you know with a well-made, popular collection? What inspires you to create your own?
See more of Shawn Messenger's glass art by visiting her website at www.shawnmessenger.com
Featured Artist Isaac Marzioli
Dec 31st
Artsy Shark presents the work of freelance illustrator Isaac Marzioli. Check out his website for more of his extensive portfolio, and the many projects he is working on.
In 2006 a few friends put together a gallery which I was a part of. That led me to do a solo show in the gallery at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank in 2009.
It was a fantastic experience, not only the process of creating over fifty illustrations in under two years (The gallery was divided into three sections, one inspired by vinyl toys, another was children’s book art, and the third contained my original watercolors), but also to show my work in a place where so many important eyeballs could see it.
A large section of my gallery was devoted to a series of cute little square characters called Squaremania. They garnered the attention of a producer who was just passing through – and we’ve been working together ever since. This year we attached a writer to co-create a cartoon based on those characters. It’s an incredibly long road with many twists to get a show on tv, and while we’re making headway, the finish line is still quite distant. The gratifying part is having created something that I’m proud of and that others are enthusiastic about.
In the meantime, I’m also partnering up with a couple of talented artists to create game apps and vinyl toys. And beyond that I’m starting to explore licensing artwork by building up two brands that I’ll start shopping around in 2012.
There are a lot of ideas that are still on the ground floor. And while I can’t expect that every one of them will lead anywhere, it’s going to be a lot of fun trying.
Artists Look to the New Year
Dec 29th
By Carolyn Edlund
Artists talk about the year just passed, and their resolutions for 2012.
Some took risks, or had tough learning experiences. They all grew in their businesses and their art. Here are their stories:
2011 has been a year of reviewing my true vision as an artist and making necessary adjustments. It has also been a year of growth for my art business as I have gained representation with new galleries due to my diligence in marketing myself via LinkedIn and other online venues.
Being added to several art consultants rosters will bring new commissions and sales for 2012. I already have several acceptances for juried fine art exhibitions across the US so 2012 will be a continuation of the progress made in 2011 getting my artwork out for collectors to see and purchase.
This past year has been pretty good, and I’ve had a slight increase in sales over the previous year. Every year I add a few more goals to my list, in addition to ones that carry over from previous years. For instance, one of my annual goals is to add another gallery, and I try to find at least one new one every year. I usually lose one every year, too, due to closing or performance issues; so it’s actually very hard to gain ground on this one. Other goals that get repeated every year are things like booking workshops, writing magazine articles, entering juried shows, earning Signature Memberships, teaching classes, etc.
This year, the extra goals on my list include joining more artist societies near my new home, more plein air painting, expanding my online sales, and producing a new DVD. This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s on top of everything else I already have on my list that gets repeated each year, so it’s enough!
I definitely want to spend more time making art in 2012 than worrying about art business. In 2011 I had the busiest exhibition schedule of my career with five solo shows spread over four states. I met several benchmarks such as showing at a large public university in a large city via the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. It was also a big step to show my work for the first time in the leading art markets of Miami and New York. Meeting many of my online contacts in person was a great experience as well which has led to other opportunities in the pipeline. But promoting shows back to back while dealing with the logistics of organizing so many large solo exhibitions was a real wake up call.
Managing life beyond art plus all of that has left me just plain worn out. I haven’t produced much work at all this year, which has been frustrating. I’ve learned my lesson though. From now on, the core of my energy will go towards time in the studio. As artists if we lose sight of that, we run the risk of leaving out the joy of discovering the full potential of our creative path. I’ve already started some new work. I’m really excited to ring in 2012 with momentum!
This past year has helped me figure out the direction I want to head with both my art and my business. It has included gaining the courage to turn down areas of work I no longer wish to provide, rekindling a passion for areas I thought I would no longer pursue and struggling with time management.
This January 2012 I hang my solo show at The Delaplaine in Frederick, MD. I’m excited to share my new body of work, Beautiful Silence, which features winter landscapes in and around Carroll County, Maryland. The reception is February 4th, 2012. I hope to build print sales through my online store. And just like in this previous year, I would like to hang my work in at least a handful of shows, not limited local venues.
This new year should also include some site updates for myself and to feature other artists on my site, an idea I pushed last year but that lost momentum. Over the past three years, I’ve improved my skills in business, marketing and relationship building – not to mention I’m more and more excited by my designs and I can manage my own website! And the drive to do more and get better just keeps on coming!
In 2012 I will continue making art about medicine and health, but with a stronger focus on internal and emotional issues in addition to my interest in the body. This past year I continued with my “Scarred for Life” project, in which I make body prints from people’s scars and collect their stories of trauma and healing. I shot a television pilot about this process, and how the experience serves as a cathartic expression for many of my subjects, a cap to their “story.”
I also started a new series of paintings in which I embed photos and documents from my parents and grandparents into the compositions. I recently visited my brother, who has a serious longterm illness, and got some of his creative notebooks from his youth as a folk singer. I’m starting to collage these fragments into new paintings about him, exploring the effects and his suffering of dementia and Parkinsons. It’s possible I’ll also mix human ashes (my mom’s) into these paintings. Finally, I started a business called ArtandMed.com last year, and in 2012 I’ll continue to present lectures to health providers and patient groups about art and medicine.
My hopes for 2011 were big. At the end of 2010, my boyfriend and I began subleasing a retail space that we turned into an art gallery/portrait studio. I was really excited that it would allow me to reduce the number of art fairs that I was doing, help my boyfriend build his new photography business, bring in new customers and start moving in a new direction.
Long story short, after a long winter that came with huge snow plowing bills, light rail construction in the area that kept people away, crime on the rise in the neighborhood, and not being able to keep regular hours because of my schedule, I came to the conclusion that getting into a retail space was a huge burden that came with a big lesson. I realized that I was continuing to fall back on the safe decisions of more of the same (though it took on a different form) to avoid the big scary decisions I needed to make to make significant changes to my business. I spent the year spinning my wheels instead of making much progress.
In January, I’m taking a four day mini-retreat to a family cabin to get away and focus on what I really want for my 10th year in business. For 2012 my biggest hope is that I can find a wayto travel more so I can create new artwork which will in turn expand my licensing opportunities. I’d also like to take a bigger step towards doing more corporate art. My resolutions are to ditch the toxic part-time job, stop resisting the really big changes that will take me out of my comfort zone, as well as stop putting off the little things that could make a big difference down the line.
December 25th marks my second year of selling pet portraits on Facebook. I have continued to work with watercolor and acrylic on a daily basis. When not busy with pet portraits I would paint different subjects such as flowers and carousels which are located in three small local galleries. Painting every day is not a chore for me and my love for my art and for animals brings me much support from a vast network of people. It is important to me to share my natural talent with others and to give back as often as I can. My fan page grew to over 7,000 and my sales are steady.
For 2012 my goal is to learn how to create portraits with graphite and color pencil in addition to my paintings. Many people seem to be drawn to the simple elegance of graphite. So, my first free portrait for 2012 is going to be a 8×10 graphite drawing. Fans are eager to see my work progress and they encourage me to continue.
What’s Your Story and Your Vision for the New Year?
Featured Artist Jacqui Hawk
Dec 27th
Featured Artist Jacqui Hawk creates mixed-media works, including found objects. She is passionate about art and building her career.
When I was a little girl I’d take a red ball of wool and disappear into the forest on my Grandfather’s farm, tying the wool from tree to tree, disappearing into a childhood world of magic and fantasy.
I would look at a tree and see a castle, never settled at what was, rather what could be, my mind crowded with beautiful colorful visions which I now recollect as an adult and which have found their way into my paintings.
I love to paint, everyday, it allows me to process and connect my heart, mind and soul and wrap them all up harmoniously in a way that helps make them understood and validated. I want my art to connect with the viewer in the same way and help unravel within them some of the forgotten memories of the past. I communicate this through the use of mixed media, oil and acrylic paints, glass, textured gesso, found objects from the beach. I am passionate about texture, almost wanting the viewer to imagine him/herself sitting in one of my paintings to understand its vision and message.
“Childhood Illusions” was one of my earlier collections. As a child I would look up at the sun and then close my eyes tightly; these paintings show the beauty of pattern and color in my innocent, childlike mind and symbolize the innocence of childhood.
My work is intuitive in nature and very spontaneous and always reflects what is going on inside of me. During my life I have travelled the world, seen some amazing places, gone through loss, death, divorce, love, hope, promise and each of these chapters finds itself immortalized on canvas. I am still unraveling my red ball of wool.
As an adult now I am relishing in my new ‘space’ in life. My latest collection is called “Holding On and Letting Go” which I began during a week’s vacation on Skaket Beach, Cape Cod, this past Summer. This was my first vacation without my children in 19 years and I enjoyed reflecting on the many changes in my life.
A recent ‘empty nester’ this collection uses the power and beauty of the ocean to symbolize how we hold on to love, memories, respect, principles and boundaries and “Let Go” of outcomes and attitudes which hold us back from becoming our personal best.
My paintings show the energy and beauty of the sea… as it ebbs and flows….as it delivers, cleanses, enriches, and takes away…. and reminds me how each day of our lives are different, each with their own degree of sadness and happiness and how we must learn to give and take…. some days are peaceful… the gentle sea laps gracefully at the shoreline… some days it roars… crashing cruelly, clawing away the foundations of so many…. it is a circle… a circle we must learn to accept with grace and understanding of the values and treasures to be found in both stormy and calm waters.
I was recently told that my art makes people ‘happy’… there is no greater reward!
Featured Artist Leah Jay
