We were lucky to catch up with Cera Marie recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Cera, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
In high school I enjoyed art and made it a regular part of my life and the classes part of my schedule, but I was fully intending to pursue a career in the sciences. On a whim, I decided to visit a college portfolio review during senior year and loved walking down the academy halls covered with art and design projects. I stopped every application I had started and focused all on one application to Fine Arts at the University of Cincinnati, DAAP. There I graduated with a dual concentration in two and three-dimensional art, and have pursued freelance painting ever since.
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?
Hello! I’m Cera, owner of Studio Cera Marie in Columbus, OH. I am a portrait artist, painter, and muralist and strive to be a one-stop shop for custom paintings. I’ve been painting for clients for two decades, and am thrilled to bring your vision to life.
For the client that is interested in portraits, mine are cozy, warm artworks that celebrate human relationships and the subjects themselves. I want the paintings to evoke a smile, to feel loving and bright, something you want to curl up into, and something you will treasure for years to come.
For the client that wants to transform a space, I love creating murals, large-scale art, and public art. I thrive on making spaces beautiful, colorful, active, and enjoy making a piece that interacts well with the surrounding architecture and livens up the space.
In my studio art, I examine my own life – drawing inspiration from travels, from our city and life growing up in the country, from friendships and family life. I have a collection of prints available on our website, and we are seeking to branch into the three-dimensional space soon.
At the studio we go above and beyond for clients. We want you to absolutely love your final artwork, and we want that artwork to last centuries. We take the time to understand your style and desires, and use only archival quality materials for creation. We enjoy creating on new materials and seek out industry professionals to find the best paint products for each new surface.
We are most proud of making the process as seamless and easy to navigate as possible, so you love every moment with us.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I wish I embraced earlier that living as a freelance creative in part meant working to build business acumen. This seems to be an education aspect that many fellow working artists agree is sorely lacking in art school- you graduate wholly unprepared for the practical survival in the arts. But there are many thriving artists who have paved their career paths, and broken them into practical books, programs, and seminars. Courses on licensing, branding, pricing, web design, taxes, navigating the gallery world – there are so many classes to choose from when you dig around.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
So many rewarding aspects: The ability to chase whims. The pleasure of a project that turns out exactly as anticipated. An ecstatic client. But mostly, the joy of the actual creative process.
Contact Info:
- Website: Studioceramarie.com
- Instagram: @studioceramarie
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/studioceramarie
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cera-marie-2218438/
- Twitter: @studioceramarie
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@studioceramarie8336