We were lucky to catch up with Abraham Gutierrez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Abraham thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.
I think a lot of people who try and start a brand get frustrated with it because it’s not giving them the capital they thought it would at first and there’s way more to it than just throwing anything on tee shirts, and I get It but it takes a lot of love to be okay with a slow process! The first time I try anything I’m clunky at it as are most people, trying to make sales while still keeping a creative edge is definitely something you learn over time. One of my biggest mistakes was not being connected to the fashion part of what I was doing (selling my art on clothes) that hindered me greatly. So I slowly learned what I liked and painfully learned what I didn’t like to wear. Now that I’m more comfortable putting my outfits together I feel more secure in modeling the items when I have to. Although it may seem small looking confident in your product only helps the whole project feel more real. Yes anyone who sets out to sell wants to sell the most that they can but at what cost to your art? For example; I can easily order the cheapest blank tees to print on and keep most of my profit but that’s such a huge disservice to the product! People can feel bad material. But more than that I think using the cheapest materials you can find is so disrespectful to your craft and your customer in my opinion. I have respect for my work so I try and make the best product I can.
The way people market their art is also something I’ve noticed stays relatively the same; tees are modeled by the same people (at least where I’m at) and shot the same way by the same group of people, I don’t think that’s a bad thing because for the most part it comes out dope! But I want to do more narrative photo shoots that tell a part of a story. Not telling an overall story but rather a small different one for each release. Ranging from horror to fantasy and even romance and comedy; make up and props and all that. And it’s not even because I want to stand out I just think studio shoots and posed positions are boring. No one wants to smile anymore, I want the human qualities to shine with my work and the people I choose to work with.
Abraham, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Abraham but everyone calls me Abe, as of right now all I want to do is live a healthy life full of the things I love to do, I’m 27 and although that’s not old at all I’m over a lot of things and people from my past. I look forward to the new people I will meet and I love music. My parents came to Van Nuys California from Mexico, I collect stuffed animals, Legos, and CD’s.
My first craft was drawing and that picked up when I was like 7! Don’t remember what I would draw but I do remember I loved the feeling of getting lost in it; like entering a flow state! I didn’t know it back then but it was a meditative practice.
I then moved onto painting when I was 12 and my first medium was enamel paints! Just because they were cheap, I think I just had some brushes laying around or something because I don’t remember setting out to buy painting equipment I think I just had all the things I needed. (Probably had one of those starter kits for kids or something) it was like getting lost in a trance and I really did love it. It’s like I was alone anywhere I went and in the good way. When life gets too stressful I still love to grab my paint brushes and go away for a while.
After that is when I got into screen printing and I was 14 which is what put me where I’m at today making my tees and printing my work on them. That’s what I make money with on the side from my 9-5 job which is also screen printing. Even when I get to work for myself completely I would still want my own manual machine and my own clients to print for; although it would be for more for practice I like the idea that I’ll always be able to print. There’s an artistic bent to screen printing if you let it be that way and that’s where I like to work in.
The next medium I chose to play with was writing when I was 18! Looking back at it I think I liked making pictures with words instead of painting them but slowly I grew to really love the power of storytelling, I love the idea of getting all your thoughts out on a page and it letting others get into that space as well. I like how honest you can be in witting, I let the world around me move forward while I sit down and write how I feel. I can be anyone and do anything in a story and if it’s a good story others can relate to it too, when I had a broken heart the pages in my notebook made you feel it; almost like a time capsule but for emotions. Although life has considerably changed for the best I’m thankful I still have a place in the pages of my notebook for hard days.
My main product is tee shirts. Like I mentioned before I create painting or collages and print them on fabrics. It’s really the best way to keep my love for screen printing alive and well. Today I have been toying around in that field of craft for about nine to ten years and since I like it so much there’s things I’ve picked up to help me in my business like which fabric is best, what ink lays on what fabric best, what brands NOT to print on as well as brands that are always a home run. I’ve gotten a good sense of image placement and what location is most practical.
For example there’s a location called the “yolk” and it’s right under the collar seam on your back (about three inches down) I had some samples come back to me with this location printed and I was pretty stoked on it, I wear the hell out of the samples to see what edits I have to do and in this case my back was stretching out the print I had on the yoke (the back print). With that in mind I then changed that location the the right sleeve.
I also have done artwork for people’s album or EP covers and I’ll accept money for that type of work but I have to really be about it or I won’t want to do it; admittedly there’s been times where I judged too soon or prematurely & it turned out to be dope! So these days I want to give all of the inquiries that come my way about it a fair shake.
I wanna be on the other side of that too! There’s so many cool things I know I can do with certain people around me & I want to reach out and offer my service but I want to have a stronger portfolio; the work I’ve been presenting over the last ten years (in terms of my photo shoots for the tee shirts I sell) haven’t been my best work. It’s only been till now that I know how I want the rollout to be. It’s a mix of everything I love and I finally feel like it’s complete. I expect some turbulence in the beginning but I’m too excited to let that get in the way. I haven’t felt so inspired in so long, so I know what kind of work I can do and out of respect for my art and the art of anyone I work with I want to show what I got first.
The way I sell my tees right now are just via DM’s on Instagram and I want to make it as smooth as possible, so far everything has worked out great that way but once I start to see more and more orders coming in I’ll have to move to a website.
I want anyone who buys my art to feel good about it so I treat it as professional as possible. I take both cash app and venmo through direct messages and I’ll update everyone who buys what stage the order is in and I’ll post it in my story, I try to be as crystal clear as I can so they trust me and I can do my work. The best way to avoid any confusion is to lay it all out first and I can say I’m pretty good at that.
I’ll always try and do good work on the things that I love. Since I have such a deep relationship with art and it’s been with me for so long I really do respect is as if it were a person. The older I get the more grateful I am for it because it’s a way of living now! My life is full of wonder and excitement because of it. I’m always thinking of stories and I spend the day watching movies in my head layered over music I love and I get to live a life where I can really make those things real! I may not be the best sculptor but if that’s what It took to bring my ideas to life then I’d try my best to start.
My art is 100% me and because of that it’s distinct from other brands, the way I build packages is also something I like to do as a thank you for every order. I put the tee, a sketch, and a poem if the design printed on the tee has one. This drop I’m actually going to add in cute charm bracelets! It means a lot that people would pay for my work so I over deliver.
I also want to over deliver on the way I roll out my product, being that I love stories so much I want to write and direct a type of “short film”. It would have to fit within ten slides and be just a slice of a story like one sided dialogue or a scene caught in action. I want it to feel like the story been going on and people are just getting a random piece of it, like a friend is telling you a story and someone takes them from you and you’re left wondering what happened.
Characters would be wearing the new product and we would highlight the prints tastefully within the shots and those shots tell the story. This way anything is possible! We can shoot a whole story in one room but the writing has to pull its weight. I’m adding dialogue to the pictures and releasing a movie poster with everyone involved one week in advance so it feels like a short film. At the end I’ll post the product styled in the theme of the story.
I want to share my art and my love for it with everyone.
I’m most proud of me and the hard work I put into myself and the things I love every day. I practice my craft every day in one way or another and it’s all I have; my way of living as become an art to me.
I don’t want to live a life of stress anymore and I want to share my love of art with anyone willing to buy it. When you get a piece of my art you get a piece of me and I think that’s special.
I look forward to sharing the drop we made and look forward to all the cool people I’ll get to meet shooting the next one.
This short story will be called “$40 Spot” and I hope people will like it as much as I liked making it.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
When customers place an order I’m super one on one with them because every tee is made to order at once, I’ll have a sixteen day window where they can direct message me on Instagram and place an order and that’s when I receive payment, after those sixteen days I print all of them at once and then when I get them back two weeks later I build packages for each client and ship it out. The whole thing takes about three weeks and in those three weeks I post the status of the batch on my story and I tell everyone who paid separately.
I want to make it a good experience for everyone who busy so I do the most when I put these packages together, I want to feel trustworthy so we can trade comfortably.
I also want to do what I love with these tees, I want my joy for these works to shine in the pictures we take to advertise them. I think that the best way to capture someone’s attention is to be honest in your work, I want my writing to feel authentic and I can only do that if I love what I’m doing and I’m having a lot of fun so far. I hope it’s infectious and I get to attract talented people to work with!
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
It’s all really just word of mouth for right now, I do want to advertise the drop but I want to see how the first one comes out before I make a decision. It’s actually the people I’ve never met who buy my work and although it is a surprise I’ll take it, there’s way more people that I don’t t know than do so the odds are in my favor. This area is one I struggle in, I like the way I have it now but since I do want to grow these projects I realize I have to market it more. I always have a lot of fun with the people who support me on social media, I like the personal feeling of placing an order with someone and shipping it out to them.
In the future when orders grow and I can’t build every detail of the packages myself (like the sketches or the cute bracelets) I want to buy them from local artists. There’s awesome talent around here and I would love to support an artist, I love seeing two people of separate crafts come together.
My hope is that the work speaks for itself in the end and that people can come across my page and stay for a bit to look through my short stories.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: deadhouselive
- Other: [email protected] for my personal email
Image Credits
Nate Ferguson Kevin Gomez