My Michael Jackson drawing above is hanging on the wall there right now, in the "Creatures of Fortune" exhibit, one of 17 pieces chosen from all the talented artists in this area. If you're a young artist, or a "creative" of any kind, you're probably wondering how a homeless guy who draws in an obscure medium made that happen. The truth is, I didn't make it happen. I got around the people who make stuff happen in the local art scene, and my first piece to hang in Delurk happened without me even knowing it.
How did I get to this point, having a drawing in the hippest gallery (to young people) around? First of all, I put in the work to learn to make cool looking drawings. I tried to draw a mural on big sheets of paper in my room with markers waaaaaay back in 2002. It sucked. I kept goofing around with markers, switched to Sharpie markers, and stumbled on my "scribble style" technique in 2005. I started drawing on a pretty regular basis, using my unique style of shading to do different types of drawings, most of which weren't very good.
In late 2015, unemployed and living with my mom at age 49, I couldn't find ANY "real job" in this area. I made a little money now and then drawing kids' names in their favorite colors, and selling the drawings for $20. I decided that I could either keep trying to get a lame ass minimum wage job, or I could focus 100% on turning my art (and writing) into a small business. It wasn't much of a decision. Obviously, I went all in on art.
I sat down one night and spent over two hours looking at all kinds of artwork online, asking myself, "What would I want to put on MY wall?" It's a simple, but powerful, question. I love the colors in graffiti art, the wide array of street art, and I kept coming back to stencil art. I found a very simple stencil art picture of Bruce Lee's face. So I printed it out, blew it up on a photo copier, and transferred the outline to my paper, then I drew it and colored it in using my Sharpie scribble style. It wasn't amazing, but I liked it, and I did actually put it up on my wall. I realized I was on the right track, and I started drawing picturse of people,working from photos, mostly athletes at first, that had deep shadows and stencil-like looks.
In the time since then, I've drawn around 80 to100 drawings, most of which took 18 to 25 hours each, some as much as 40 hours each. I stepped up my game. I kept improving, and still am improving. I learn little things on every drawing. I promoted my work online, and sold a lot of drawings super cheap, $1 to $2 an hour for the time I spent drawing them. Over the last two years, I got better.
I finally got to the place where my drawings, all by themselves attract attention. Then I came over to Winston-Salem, broke as fuck, and left a toxic living situation where I never could have made a living with my art. That was necessary, but it meant going back to homelessness. I kept drawing every day, struggling to survive day by day at the same time. It was tough. Really tough. But I knew it was the right thing for me to be doing right now, and I loved doing the actual work.
A couple of guys saw me drawing at McDonald's, and said I should show my work to the music shop across the street. That shop was Earshot Music (3254 Silas Creek here in W-S), and the manager, owner, and the art director liked my stuff. They put a couple of drawings up on the wall, then asked me to do a full show with 8 drawings. I knew that was a launching pad for me.
To be clear, I don't actively "network." I figure out who the people are who make stuff happen in the scene I'm interested in. In this case, it was the Winston-Salem art scene, centered mostly around Trade Street downtown. Earshot Music is not there, but it's vibrant part of the local art and music scene. I went there, talked to Phred the owner, and we hit it off. I don't try to push myself on people I don't really like. I don't go around talking fast, using Neuro-linguistic programming, and hand my business card to everyone. I hate that shit. I go out and meet the people in the scene, show them what I do, and some people and me click, and some don't. I don't worry about the ones that don't. I learned that years ago in the BMX freestyle world. Just meet the people in the scene, and you'll click with some. Start working with those people. Forget the rest.
Right when the Earshot show was about to open, I finally made it to the First Friday Gallery Hop on Trade Street. I showed my drawings to several people, and a woman named Luba really liked my stuff. She led me around meeting other local people. She introduced me to Rachel White of Designs, Vines, and Wines, at Studios at 625 on Trade Street. I talked to Rachel for a while. A month later, at the next Gallery Hop, I talked to her some more. She made me a featured artist in her space in February. She liked my Michael Jackson drawing that I did for someone. That person never got back to me when I sent them a picture of the drawing online. So I gave it to Rachel to hang up, along with some others. Then I had drawings hanging at two places in Winston-Salem.
I wasn't even there the day a person from Delurk Gallery came around, scouting work to have artists apply for the "Creatures" show. Rachel took the initiative and entered two of my drawings. Normally I don't like people doing stuff without asking me concerning my work, but it was near the deadline to enter, and I'm stoked he just did it. As I mentioned, the Michael Jackson drawing made it into the show. So now, while still homeless (hopefully for not much longer), I have drawings of mine hanging up at Earshot Music, Studios at 625, and at Delurk Gallery. And to be honest, I didn't work hard to make those happen... recently. But I put in the time to figure out how to draw with Sharpies, which I was attracted to for some reason. I think that reason was mostly because I didn't want to learn how to paint. I wasn't out to create a unique style. That failed mural attempt just really pissed me off, and I was determined to find a cool way to shade with Sharpies.
The recent part, working into the local art scene here, is based on something I learned in the BMX freestyle world in the 1980's. In Idaho, I got into BMX racing, then freestyle, and went to a show by the only freestyle team around. I met the guys, Jay Bickel and Wayne Moore, and started riding with them two or three times a week. In a couple of months, I was part of the team and doing shows with them.
When I moved to San Jose, California with my family a year later, I started a zine as an excuse to meet the riders in the San Francisco Bay Area, which included a few pro riders. I didn't think I was a good enough rider to actually just hang out with them. Within a couple of months, I met them all, interviewed them and shot photos for my zine, and I was part of the scene, which happened to be the most cohesive BMX freestyle scene anywhere then.
Intuitively, I sent copies of my zine to the guys at the BMX magazines. A few months later, at a big contest, I went up and introduced myself to Andy Jenkins and Lew from FREESTYLIN' magazine. Much to my surprise, they said they really liked my zine. That led to writing an article for the magazine, which was a huge deal in those pre-internet days. Soon they offered me a job, and I "stumbled" into the BMX freestyle industry, and later the skateboard, video, and TV industries. Along the way I realized that the two main things I was doing were: 1) Working hard to make a cool zine, (and later other cool stuff, like videos), and 2) I was finding and meeting the handful of people who actually made stuff happen in the BMX freestyle world.
In any scene (art, music, BMX, skating, whatever), or business, or industry, there are a relatively small number of people who make most of the stuff happen. Do something cool, and then send it to those people. Or meet those people at an event, and give them a small gift of your work. That's a totally different mindset than say, stalking Kim Kardashian and trying to get her to give a shout out to your handmade jewelry or something. Tons of people try to do that these days to get hype from "influencers." Don't.
Work on whatever creative thing it is that you do. Get to where it's pretty good... maybe even great. Then give it to the people you admire in that world. Lots of people ask those people for their influence or hype. But not all that many people will just give the people they admire a small gift with no expectation of them helping you. It's not hard to do, and the people who make stuff happen don't get that many personal gifts like that. You will be amazed how many people will respond. Many will remember your gift much later on. But don't just do it as a quid pro quo. Give a gift... a TRUE gift, without expecting anything. Then just go on with life. Some of those gifts will help you connect with the people who make stuff happen. When you get around those people, opportunities will just start coming your way. Yes, HARD WORK is a definite part of the equation. But if you're doing something creative that you enjoy doing, it doesn't really feel like work.
How crazy can this get? At one point in the '90's, I made a little zine of my poetry, handmade, typed on a typewriter, and photocopied. They were cheesy, but some of my poems were halfway decent. I sent those zines out to several of my favorite writers. Like real writers who published real books. And then I just forgot about it and went on with daily life. I got four or five thank you notes and letters back from my favorite writers, all very positive. In fact, I got a form letter back from best selling novelist Dean Koontz, who gets thousands and thousands of fan letters. He hand wrote two lines at the bottom. That blew my freakin' mind. Guess what, I read several more of his novels in the next few months. If you happen to be a Koontz fan, write him an old-fashioned snail mail letter. He has a newsletter he sends out to fans that write to him. It's awesome. That's his way of giving a little gift to his readers, the opposite form or what I'm talking about here.
This is one small part of getting to the point where you can make a living from your creative work, which is what I'm working to do myself. And it IS work. But in today's high tech, info age, hyper-connected world, there's a lot of work out there for creative people. So take the time to develop your craft, work hard, and get around the people in your world who make stuff happen. You'll be amazed what that can lead to.
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