We recently connected with Alisha Anglin and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Alisha, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
Working as a full-time artist has never been easy. I started creating art at a very young age, usually when staying at my grandparents home on the weekends. At the beginning of my art career it was very difficult to juggle everything and it was a chaotic time in my life. With little to no money I began to teach myself to do things I never thought I would be able to do on my own. I started to build my own website, design my own business cards, manage my own social media accounts, apply to many exhibitions and art calls, take care of my family, and find time to paint in between to keep my passion alive. Sometimes I would say to myself, “What did I get myself into?”. Things started to get extremely overwhelming, but I kept moving forward, stayed organized and stuck to my business plan. In the beginning I started to exhibit in smaller group shows, which was a great way for me back then to get involved with my local community here in Phoenix and meet new people while also making connections with collectors that loved my work. I continued to do so over the years until September of 2019 came. I got an email from WAYFAIR (who I have followed for years on Instagram and tagged from time to time in my posts) stating they would like to set up a call to speak with me about my work and a possible partnership. I honestly thought it was a spam email like the thousands of other emails I receive daily and didn’t respond right away. Long story short, it wasn’t a spam email. It was, in fact, a real message from Wayfair’s corporate offices. I was invited as one of the first independent female abstract artists to produce my own art on a home décor line for them while still being able to keep all copyrights to my work. Since then I have increased my profits from that alone by 400%. I started getting invoices paying me every week for all my sales. Sometimes things got slow, but I kept creating and producing new designs and ideas to keep the momentum fresh. Then in 2021, I was asked to exhibit at the Madison Center For The Arts 14 pieces of my work for 6 months. We even had an invite-only Black Tie Gala for the opening reception and I walked down the red carpet for the first time in my life with my family and friends. Fast forward to March 2021 I decided to dive deep into NFTS on the OpenSea Marketplace. NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. That is recorded on a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. You probably have so many questions if you are unaware of what NFTs and blockchains are, but we will leave that for another interview. During the summer alone of 2021, I sold over $28k worth of NFTs, not including my traditional physical works, Wayfair partnership sales, and commissions. The only thing I wish I would have known or somehow processed what I know now even better is learning more about crypto and NFTs sooner.
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?
Born and raised on Long Island, Alisha Anglin currently lives and works as a Professional Abstract Artist in Phoenix, Arizona. She is self-taught and started painting at the young age of 10. For her, art is a way of living and a means through which she makes sense of the chaotic events in life. Anglin’s bold abstract compositions are created in abstract expressionist, cubist, and gestural styles. She paints intuitively using acrylics on canvas and has an extensive portfolio of artwork in various styles. The beauty of imperfection is explored through applying geometric and wild patterns to deliberately distorted forms, challenging the inherent perfectionist Alisha is at heart. You can tell by her prismatic and electrifying colors, every piece of artwork she has painted has been one of a kind. The evocative effects of her paintings will vary depending on the interests and experiences as a collaboration Is established between the viewer and Artist as the viewer enters the Abstract world of each painting.
Alisha has been in numerous Exhibitions and is an American Artist with Singulart which is based in Paris, France. In November 2019, she was invited to partner with Wayfair as one of the first female Artists to produce her art on home décor for sale on Wayfair.com. In 2019, Alisha taught an ornament painting class at Moya Elementary School for 4th graders in Phoenix. Upon completion of the class, she donated 30 art kits with canvases for the holidays to students who come from low-income homes. She is a big advocate for the Art and local community in Phoenix and has been published in Voyage Phoenix Magazine, North Central News, and Shoutout Arizona as an Entrepreneur owning Motley Eye LLC. Her business was named after her first professional painting Motley Eye.
In 2021 Alisha taught a MasterClass for the Madison School District of 6000 students, to bring creativity and to help the students express themselves during a very crucial time with virtual/hybrid learning due to Covid. She is a Board Member for the The Madison Education Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to enriching the quality of education of every child who attends Madison Public Schools by providing innovative, hands-on programs in music and the arts.
Alisha’s new found passion as of March 2021 is creating, minting and selling her work to collectors worldwide digitally on Opensea, KnownOrigin, rarible and Exchange.Art. You can also find her work streaming live on Loupe Art App on Apple TV the #1 lifestyle app in over 70+ countries.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
I live and breath NFTs now! Since March 2021 I have been heavily involved in the crypto/NFT community on Twitter. NFTs are the future and any artist that is coming from the traditional art world looking to get into NFTs should do their own research but definitely get involved. I believe more galleries will be adopting NFTs and accepting crypto as payments for art as well. It’s amazing how many artists like myself are entering the space and telling me their stories. I host an Abstract Artists & NFTs twitter space weekly on Fridays at 12 PM EST and all are welcome to join in. NFTs are the future!
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Living out my passion, witnessing my own growth, and having collectors connect with me and my art. My passion is my art and my life. Watching myself grow my own business with new art and new goals that are met is extremely rewarding. I am never concerned with someone buying one of my pieces but for a friend, family member, or future collector to connect with my art means more to me than any money can buy. I always look forward to dropping a new piece on Instagram/twitter and hearing what people see in it or their comments. It is very important for artists to get recognition for their work as it inspires them to also keep creating as well.
“I only wish to bring more art and happiness into this chaotic world” -Alisha Anglin
Contact Info:
- Website: https://motleyeye.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alishaanglinart/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisha-anglin-169495229/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlishaAnglinart
- Other: Loupe Art App Apple TV https://info.loupeart.com/alisha-anglin-artist/