We recently connected with Marshall Harris and have shared our conversation below.
Marshall, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I’ve always made things. Drawn stuff. Built contraptions. I can’t remember when I didn’t look at our world differently and ask “What if…?” After graduating from college and for most of my adult life I hid this because “you can’t be successful as an artists” I would tell myself. You can be creative but you have to have a gig and an income. So I did everything creative but be a true self guided artist. And I learned a lot of lessons. I chose professions that allowed creativity but not for the pure enjoyment of it. The job was always making things, exhibitions, marketing strategies and advertisements for other people. I got fired from most of these jobs because eventually my creative concepts pushed the corporate boundaries, or my assigned mission too much. Oddly enough, most of my old employers are now close friends or acquaintances. weird!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have been a lot of things in my professional life. College grad. NFL defensive end in the 80’s. (Browns, New England Patriots and USFL New Jersey Generals) Masters degree in Sculpture. (UARTS) Advertising creative. Entrepreneur with a boutique design business that specializes in Trade show and museum exhibitions strategy and design. Dad (not a very good one) and finally Soul Mate Road Warrior to my better half #3. We live in a modest home in Fort Worth with our smooshy Yellow Lab named Cash and our persnickety black cat named Inky. I’m now a full-time studio artists an adjunct instructor in the art and design department at TCU. I like to garden and watch things grow. I despise drahma and am a high functioning introvert.
My current process and art practice is doing hyper realistic Western Saddle portraits for private collectors. The works are executed in Graphite (pencil) on Mylar (A synthetic paper) and require hundreds of hours of board time to complete. I know, Niche market right? but I was told once if you are going to be successful in being an artists you have to make something extraordinary unique, very difficult to come by and requires a significant investment for you to make the work and for someone to collect it. So far so good. I’m not rich but I’m enriched beyond measure.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I wasn’t full formed until way late in my life. I’m still evolving. It took a ton of experiments in adulting before I landed on a purpose that I would like to do until I cant anymore. When I was 56 years old I finally fully embraced the title of “Artist”, meaning that I didn’t preface my answer to the question “What do you do?” with a prequalifying answer of “Oh well I used to be in advertising” or “ Formerly I was a marketing executive and exhibitions developer but now I’m an artist.” It took a long time to finally be comfortable with the ARTIST title and confounding as that is to most people. They just don’t know how to respond to that most times. Sometimes they will then reply, well you certainly are tall for an artist.
Being, existing as an artist, you get up everyday wondering why you have decided to do this. The odds are against you. You do something that sometimes you are the only one who knows why and to try and explain that to a normal person you see their eyes roll back in their head and they say, “Oh, how exciting that must be. I’ve always wanted to be an artists!” No you haven’t. If you knew what was involved no one would want to be an artist. Self doubt everyday even when you know you’ve crushed a recent work. Universal criticism and judgment by those who who pick out art like sofa cushions and a world literally filled with creatives that are as good or better than you. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I make my life. I choose my path and as long as I get out my own way, the universe seems to hold me in it’s graces. You gotta have reliance to do that.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect is that I’m swimming in the world now. What I mean by that as an artist I’ve gotten off the floaty raft that used to be me and am now swimming freely in the world completely. Sharks and all. So I have this image I hold in my mind of all of us normal human beings floating around on floaty rafts in the big swimming pool called life. Sometimes we dip our toes into the waters but being unsure of what is beneath the safety of our floating safety net we are mostly happy staying on our rafts. Sometimes you will slip a leg into the water or maybe even climb off and submerge but always clinging to your raft for safety. Our rafts are the personas that we either create for ourselves or the world creates for us. I”‘m an accountant” raft or “I’m a mom with kids” raft or a Doctors raft or whatever. No disrespect intended towards any of those rafts. The raft is both our identity and definition of who we have accepted to be. But sometimes, if you are extremely courageous and fortunate you let go of your raft. Sometimes you are thrown from it as I was. My raft was former professional football player, advertising guy and father. But when I let go of the raft or the raft let me go and I began to tread water in this amazing place called life, all the time knowing that there are certainly dangers in the water… well… it was the most exhilarating feeling I have every experienced. It didn’t mean that the experiences that were me and my raft were unimportant but I no longer could rely on my raft to define me. I eventually transformed from threading water to dog paddling and then energetically swimming. I am actually swimming in my life as opposed to floating around on a safety raft that was me but is no longer me. I sincerely hope that others can be inspired to look at the raft that life may be defining them by and the pool and take the plunge if they are moved to. Never experiencing the feeling of weightlessness of really being in the world and the master of your own destiny is a travesty and waste of this life. Even if I drown, I will never voluntarily get back on that raft.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marshallkharris.com
- Instagram: Thenewmarshallkharrisart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenewmarshall.harris.902/
