Life update

Umm, wow. My last post was September 4th. Whoops! A quick little life update might be in order. And then I promise a few new kids art lessons are coming very soon, too!

Sooo how to summarize that last 3 months. Since getting back from Madagascar, Ive basically been job-searching, and here's why. While it would be my ultimate ideal to have 50% of my job be teaching kids art, and 50% of my job be painting murals for clients, at this point in my life, I've decided to pursue other paths to meet the same ultimate end-goal: being a full-time creative who gets paid to do creative things. I always hear that you should never, ever "give up on your dreams" and that you should "follow your bliss" and all of that. And in art school, you tend to hear a lot of "don't EVER sell out....man." I would say that one year ago, I was working really, really, hard at making that 50/50 Teacher/Muralist goal work out. And I still want it to happen, maybe someday. So what's changed and why am I job-searching?  I don't know how to put it any other way, other than my biological clock is ticking louder than ever. Ha! I know that at 28, I've still got plenty of time to make that happen. But, I guess I'm just realizing that I CAN still be paid to use my brain and creative energy, and also provide for a kiddo someday.... and have health insurance! As liberating as freelancing is, it wears on you. A stable, reliable paycheck would not be so bad. As fun as it is to work in a lot of different schools for a short amount of time (love the variety and changes of scenery), that wears on me, too. I'm ready for co-workers and a "work-family" that I can get to know, without having to leave them a few weeks later every time. The direction I decided to really pursue, is graphic design. Since learning Photoshop in my high school newspaper class, I've enjoyed the "techie" side of art. I like playing around with fonts and color palettes and arranging content so that it's visually pleasing. I've always made my own business cards and brochures and designed my own websites. That stuff is really fun for me. I didn't really think about bringing it to the forefront until pretty recently. I've done a little freelance work making logos, and the rush I felt, knowing my logo would be all over their printed materials and scrubs and street sign, was awesome.  This is a viable option for me, I realized. I think this will make me happy, too.  What it really boils down to, is that I am an artist who just likes the process of making art, in many different forms. I actually find I am MORE creative when given a set of constraints from a client, rather than creating something out of thin air for myself that can be anything I want it to be in the whole world.  I actually like being a commercial artist. Rarely have my mural projects been 100% concepts that I would choose myself for my own home..... but that's the whole point! My job is to get inside my clients' head and find out exactly what they might not even know they want. And then I make it for them, and it makes them happy. Whether I'm making that thing they want with paint or with a computer mouse, I think it would still be similarly satisfying for me. While that doesn't work for every artist, it works for me.  I'll never, ever stop loving the feeling of pushing paint around a canvas or wall, and if I get a full-time graphic design job, that doesn't mean I'll stop painting. But I won't have the added pressure of having that painting be something that has to make me money. That thought is incredibly liberating. So while it may seem that by working for an employer I will be giving up my freedom, it's actually gaining me a bunch of it, too.  So that's where I am right now... in the midst of job-searching madness, but still teaching and being a design intern at a local company in the meantime. Hoping to have something nailed down soon, but for now, staying busy, having fun, making stuff.

Stay tuned... next post will be more colorful, I promise ;)

- Corie

Murals Soon To Be

Well, happy to report that I'm getting pretty freaking crazy busy with work for the near future!  I'll be teaching on the weekdays, mural-ing in the afternoon and weekends, and trying to squeeze in some other life stuff in between.  This is the life of an artist trying to make it their full-time job: trying to perfect the art of "The Hustle".   It's piecing together things to make up a steady job.... for me that means teaching contracts, mural and illustration commissions, and random odd jobs make a living. Making your dreams come true is hard work! 

Anyway, just thought I would share with you a bit of the design process I go through for mural commissions.  It starts with a discussion with the client.... me picking their brains for anything that will translate into images. It's like a game trying to piece together what's in someone else's brain and come up with an image for it.  For the beach house mural below, the clients had a hard time nailing down a style or direction they might want, for fear of "disrupting my creative process" with too many requirements.  I did know they wanted it "beach-y", and they liked pelicans and blue herons. So I did this:

Design #1 was waaaaay "out there". I kinda figured it would be too much, but you never know what people will respond to. 

This one was less crazy, but still bright and somewhat whimsical, not super realistic.

And this one was the most realistic.  This is what the clients chose.  The cool part of this one though, is that it will include bits of actual shells and rocks and things, glued onto the painted "beach" on the wall.  It will have a nice 3-d effect that I'm pretty excited about. 

They wanted the pelican more "stout" looking, so this was the final design they settled on.

I like to super-impose my sketches (or sometimes just photoshop collages) onto pictures of the clients' actual wall spaces. This way they can see what it will look like. The next mural I'm planning, is a big 40' banner for a client's fenced in porch.  I knew they liked Zinnias, and that they wanted it bright and celebratory.  Here's the progression of their designs:

The final design: add nasturtiums, pond background, keep the hummingbird. 

I'm SOOOO excited to paint this one.  This is right up my alley, and is something that I would paint for myself... if I had a 40' porch railing that needed a banner mural ;)

I'll keep you updated!

Corie

Dreams and Plans

I mentioned in my last post that I was recently interviewed by a UO Journalism student.  I thought I would share that interview here.  Click here to read the short article.   The pictures below are pictures that were taken of me to accompany the article. 

I've recently been contacting other mural artists that I've found online - those whose work I admire and who seemed successful in their fields.  I've had this list of questions for them, mostly about marketing and pricing, but also some about their career trajectories.  It's been really interesting to learn about these different artist's lives and how they got to where they are today.  No one had a straightforward path to follow.  It's been difficult trying to figure out the best way to make my dream job(s) happen in my own life.  It's not like my sister's career choice (physical therapy) where there is a more clear path set out for you. You go to school, you do your clinicals, you get a stable job.  Not that that path is any easier, because it's just as much if not more work than mine.  But from what I can tell, I've chosen a path that's shrouded in fog, not lit up by street lamps the whole way.  I've been reaching out to others, and doing tons of research on the internet about mural-ing for home and business and even the public art world.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get there, but what I want is this: 

To make a decent enough living to support myself and children someday by having a career that is half made up of teaching art residencies in K-12 schools, and half made up of making murals for clients.  

That is what I want.  I know without a doubt that both of those parts do in fact make me extremely happy.  I know everyone says that they don't care about being rich, they just want to be happy.  That's true for me, too.  I would rather do something that makes me extremely happy for 8 hours a day and come home to a modest home and modest "things", than do something that makes me feel like a numb zombie for 8 hours and come home to a ton of nice crap in a big, dreamy house.  It just makes more logical sense to me, to spend your work life happy, rather than working hard and hating it so you can be happy in your down time.  That's the goal and I'm working hard to achieve it.  If I fail, at least I'll know that I gave it a shot, and then will have to look for something else that might make me moderately happy instead. ;) 

This post is turning super "journal entry", so I'm going to end it here.  But I will say that I believe there is something to be gained by writing down and telling others about your dreams and plans.  Do it.  Tell someone your dreams.

working away on a painting in my studio

my "studio"

Admiring the kid's work at Walterville Elementary

Newest work out of the studio