Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mike Laiuppa. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Mike, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents fed two sides of my personality. My Mother was always very supportive of anything I wanted to dive into whether it be music, martial arts, cooking, or visual arts. No matter how bad my art was at the time, she kept encouraging me to keep trying and even saved almost everything I created. Watching her immerse herself into her Tai Chi practice over 20 plus years taught me how to seek out and utilize the knowledge I needed for my own interests. My Father was (and still is) the hardest working guy I’ve ever met. Even now, he’s still climbing onto rooftops fixing something, out in the shop doing metal work, or out renovating a kitchen or deck. How many almost 75-year-olds can do that?! So his work ethic is deeply rooted in my being. I always remember the pride he had, and still has, in doing every project to the best of his ability and being completely open and honest with his clients. While I have a degree in Music Education and own a personal training business (NuMi Fitness), over the last several years I’ve put all my parents taught me into my journey as an artist.

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?

While I’ve been drawing all my life, I never really felt the desire to take art to a professional level until the last several years. In my youth, I painted along with some TV programs on PBS. After college, I did logo and website design, and even some 3D graphic work, but didn’t get back into painting until about mid-2020. Even though I am an artist first and foremost, I specialize in human and pet portraiture. I find it fascinating to search for the feeling of an individual and put it down in paint. While I paint mostly from photos at the moment, I do prefer painting from life. When I can paint from life, I like to first get to know my subject (if I don’t know them already) so I can better understand “who” I’m trying to capture. The “what” is the easy part, but finding out who they are helps to get their likeness. From there, the sequence is a hybrid of painting from life and photos. I’ll start the painting from life after I’ve taken photos of my subject. Then, I’ll do a bulk of the painting in my studio from the photos, and then finish it from life to make sure the color values I found in the first sitting are still correct.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are two aspects of being creative that keep driving me. One is connection. When I pour myself into a painting, and just one of the billions of people on earth tell me that they want that piece of art on their wall forever because it reminds them of a parent or even something from their childhood, I feel I’ve created a connection with or in that person. Whether they look at it in times of need to reset their spirit or it reminds them of their childhood, I know it was worth the effort.

The other aspect is purpose. I’ve been a teacher of many things for most of my life and being able to share my knowledge with people who are on a similar journey gives me such purpose. Making connection through art is a purpose, but helping others to learn to create their own connections is a stronger one.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had worked off and on in the sign industry for about 18 years. During the last several years of this time, I had been deep into learning Martial Arts and was getting fit and healthy due to my instructors and my peers pushing and teaching me to be better. One day, I had an epiphany as I threw away another strip of material that couldn’t be recycled. It all just seemed so wrong to be creating things that ultimately added to the destruction of the planet. This wasn’t what I needed to be doing. I needed to return what was given to me. So I started studying to learn to train others to improve themselves through exercise and proper nutrition. In just over a year, I had started a personal training business that’s still going strong as of this interview.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mlaiuppafineart.com
• Instagram: mike_laiuppa
• Facebook: Mike Laiuppa
• Other: https://numifitness.com