We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aaron Reichert a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aaron, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

You know you are in the right profession when you can work at the same thing for hours and not completely lose your mind. When you can come back to it the next day and feel an excitement at meeting the challenge fresh. Inspiration i have found to be fleeting, The joy that comes with solving problems within the craft has proven to be my greatest and most consistent reward. Honing and using talent (talent being a kind of little super-power that lives in all of us) is a joyous experience.

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 create super-sized portraits in black and white, typically acrylic on canvas. Most of my work is commercial and very much about making money. In fact, I have narrowed my subjects over the years to concentrate on the figures that have proven to be “sure things” – selling in the tourist market in new orleans and elsewhere. Half of my income is from commissions. (There are some people I won’t paint because I don’t like them.) All that being said, I do also create work that is deeply personal. Currently I am developing a series of New Orleans portraits for a museum show.

My earliest interest was in creating portraits. In my old bedroom at the old house, there are a stack of portraits going back to fifth grade. Really, a life journey. Things changed when I found the ambition to make a living at it – which didn’t come til my early 30’s. Since then, this has been as much a business endeavor as an artistic one.

Initially, before working as an artist, I was employed in a series of short term jobs. My most employable skill was construction and out of college I was hired to build scenery for plays. this transitioned into building scenery for film/TV. with this sort of work, comes a lot of down time between gigs. during the lulls, I began painting more seriously. I visited the local art scene with DVD’s of my work (back when people did that). Right off the bat I had two offers to show – and tons of refusals. I began showing at a gallery in New Orleans and right away was able to supplement my finances to the point where I only had to work a day job part time. In the coming years I moved through a series galleries, pushing my prices and finding that the work still sold. As the prices increased I eventually found that I could live exclusively from art sales.

I should mention that I live a pretty spare life. I have been driving the same car for over 12 years, For around 20 years I rented apartments with roommates to cut the expense. I am extremely careful with my budget, keep all my receipts and a spreadsheet of yearly sales/income. And even though I have lived for several years off my art income, this has never felt like a sure thing. There are always months where nothing sells. Presidential election years I have found to be consistently slow. And of course, during Covid things dried up. This year, 2023, in fact has been particularly difficult.

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

In college I had a professor spend a day “getting real” about a life in the arts. Mostly her talk tended toward letting us know that as artists, having a family and kids was nearly impossible. Immediately I decided that I would rather have an art career than a family. And, indeed, I cannot imagine having the added responsibilities of a family in the midst of the financial uncertainties I experience year after year. The solution would be to acquire a steady job, perhaps in Accademia, as many artists do. But with only myself to provide for, I have been better able to stay afloat on the art income alone.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After spending an afternoon with a gallerist, having toted nearly 20 paintings to his courtyard, he looked around nodding enthusiastically at each one, then turned to me and said, “Wow, these are amazing! I can’t sell any of them!” He went on to state decisively “Nobody buys portraits. Come into the gallery and I will show you all the beautiful portraits I have that no one will buy…” I loaded my paintings up and drove home. I continued to paint the portraits. within a few weeks, I’d found another gallery that agreed to show them and the work almost immediately gained momentum.

A Significant Professional Turning Point:

Landing serious gallery representation was life-changing. Even with the high percentage galleries take, there is no question that they bring in far more sales than what I would be gathering on my own. This is because I simply do not have the personality to aggressively sell my own work. I find dealing with the public to be exhausting, sometimes shattering. Having this professional buffer of representation is a great luxury. I also appreciate knowing that I have a team of people working with me and supporting the work I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aaronreichert.com
• Instagram: aaronreichertstudio arbonanza

Image Credits
Paintings photographed by Mike Smith of New Orleans (except for the Lincoln, photographed by myself). Painted by Aaron Reichert