We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Haro Istamboulian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Haro below.
Haro, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
There is no fear in the presence of faith. And there is no faith in the presence of fear. Both can’t coexist. If you believe in what you do, there’s only one single thing you need to do in order to succeed. That is to never give up and never stop. The only reason things don’t reach their success is because they dissolved eventually. Usually, that giving up happens because the person behind the idea is too much of a realist. Maybe they’d look at the statistics and probabilities of what they’re doing and compare it to others before. Or maybe they had families or other personal endeavors that they took more seriously. Whatever the case, it’s always because they gave up. Just keep doing what you’re doing and believe in it and you’ll succeed. You won’t know when, but you will.
Haro, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’ve done art since I was a child. But I didn’t work in oil painting until I was a teenager. I took it even a step further and began working on things I absolutely despised – such as portraits – until I began loving it. I remember the very moment I started to love it. I hadn’t realized that faces were like blueprints. Just like a construction site, there are zones, and areas, and measurements which make up the project being built – the face. As soon as I harnessed this concept, I got better at it and now I paint hyper realistic portraits. Hyper realism is a style of art where the painting can be mistaken for the real thing. Every crevice and wrinkle in the face is taken into account. Every shadow, surface of light and hair makes a difference. After a year of this, I was hooked, I’m not saying I’m amazing at it, but I aim to be better each year than the one before. Otherwise I’m in trouble.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
I’d like to share a specific instance that illustrates the power and resilience of marketing and never giving up. It was about three years ago when I started focusing more on my marketing techniques. It had nothing to do with social media and had nothing to do with my website or internet. It had to do with sheer grit. Get up in the morning, go out and mail post cards. I designed them myself, had them printed and got them mailed. I also went to certain areas of Los Angeles, and put those same postcards on cars and stores near the art district. I had addresses from my mailing list and put postcard stamps on over 200 copies and mailed them out to those addresses. Lo and behold, two months later, I sold one of my most prized paintings (which I still miss to this day). Marketing works and you don’t need social media for it. You can do it the old fashioned way. The tough part in all this is that social media has made my field very saturated. To say that the odds are stacked against you is an understatement. What makes you different? Why would someone come to you and not someone else? You have to figure that out and stand out.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
There are two niches that my business is involved in. One, as mentioned before, is the oil painting field. The second is resin work. This all began when I was experimenting one day and disliked the way varnish made my paintings look. I wanted something bolder in color and more glossy than what varnish does. So I researched for a long time and found resin. I began pouring resin over my paintings long ago. I’m noticing that a lot of artists are doing it now. I didn’t know what I was doing or if it was even frowned upon. For instance, I’ve poured resin over my canvas paintings a few times. That’s a big no-no in art. Never do that. I learned it by doing it and understood that, ok, it doesn’t work. But how else was I going to learn? Fast forward through a decade and I’m also in the resin business. I’ve made coffee tables made of bullet casings for a veteran or an end table with a percussion cymbal encased within it for a drummer. Now furniture has entered my world as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.whoisharo.com
- Instagram: @whoisharo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100071802061162
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haro-istamboulian/
Image Credits
Haro Istamboulian