We recently connected with Anna Parker and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Anna, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?
When I began painting murals my focus was on providing a service in which I could give my client a mural that was exactly what they were looking for. This means that I don’t have a style and I don’t come to a project with a vision for my client. My business model is and has always been as a hired paintbrush and not a creative. Obviously those lines blur often times as I am ultimately creating a design, but that artwork always comes from a prompt provided by the client. Color and design choices are most often left up to the client, regardless of how I may feel about the decision. However when I tell people I’m a muralist they instantly assume that I spray paint on the sides of exterior buildings; that I’m bursting at the seems with artistic creativity, painting imagery that I would consider “mine”. I feel like that characterization couldn’t be further from the truth. I ultimately feel that I am more of a decorative painting business than an artist when it comes to my mural work. This reality is better for me in the long run as a business model even if there are times when clients approach me simply with the words “I want a mural, how much will it be?” Since I don’t paint in a particular style that number can vary WILDLY, and since I have no style as a jumping off point, asking for more info from a client without a vision can get frustrating at times (I can’t begin to tell you how many photographs I’ve received as style reference). This is the biggest stumbling block in my work and I think it’s unique problem that to be honest I’m still trying to figure how to handle with grace!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started my mural career as a plan B after dropping out of college. I was a Chemistry major and was hired at a lab, and very quickly had my romanticized notions of what being a scientist meant, dashed. My partner at the time who was a little older and himself self employed, implored me to find a job where I could be my own boss. He suggested painting murals, got me my first project, and kept pushing me through the slow trudge of getting my business off the ground. It took about 5 years of marketing and troubleshooting before I finally got a foothold and was able to paint murals full-time. I had always been interested in art and loved to draw, but as a child of immigrants who escaped the iron curtain, art was something you did as a hobby and not something you would shame your family with by pursuing full time. There was a steep learning curve as I tried to teach myself how to paint on a large scale AND interact with clients with all the uncertainty in execution and just the nebulous nature of art. Early on, before I had honed my photoshop skills, and before iPads and procreate I would submit hand drawn and colored proposals which created a few headaches with clients who took those drawings too literally. Expressing what I had in mind onto paper was definitely one of the most difficult aspects of the job, thankfully technology has opened up so many possibilities in the mural making process, many of which I am happy to employ. Projectors, vinyl cutters, tracing apps, even AI image generators, not to mention the ease of communicating with clients visually have all been game changers since I started painting over 20 years ago.
My business nowadays consists of a nice mix of residential and commercial clients. Most clients find me on the internet, which is a great opportunity to show the variety in my past work, and educate prospective clients on the process of getting a mural. I created the website myself and put a lot of care into having enough information in the right areas so that I didn’t have to spend a lot of my time fielding phone calls asking the obvious questions. I designed the website with a client in mind who is cruising the internet at 2am looking for the right person to bring their vision to life. It’s not perfect but it definitely gets the job done! And being in control of all the content and SEO lets me steer things in whichever direction I choose.
My goals for the future are to slowly shift my focus to fine art as painting murals is physically demanding work and I’m not getting any younger! Early in my career a very successful entrepreneur told me it takes 10 years for a business endeavor to mature so I’m thinking a decade ahead. Though I can’t imagine that I could ever fully give mural painting up. The best thing about being a muralist is people’s reactions to seeing their vision slowly come to life. Obviously nurseries are the most special; creating a space for a new person to grow up in, but even commercial projects come with their own external rewards. Beautifying a space is always appreciated and there’s nothing better than being thanked and praised simply for doing your job.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
One of the best things that society can do to support creatives is to pay them. I know many of us out there have been asked to do a project for free, or for the “exposure”. Very early on I had an artist tell me “if you work for free you’re telling the world that you’re worthless.” And even though that’s a bit harsh it really stuck with me. As a person who was new to the scene just trying to get my work out there to prove myself and have something to show prospective clients, I hated turning down opportunities to paint. However after all the work I’ve created in public places that’s been out there for decades, I’ve learned that that’s not the way to get clients. Especially for the work I do, the chances the right client is going to see your work, think to look up who painted it, and then remember you when they’re ready for a mural are slim to none. In the same vein I see a lot of requests for proposals for public murals that ask for artists to submit a design. There’s no reason an organization should be asking creatives to work for free. Creating a design takes time and energy, and most artists who are professional and experienced have better things to do, especially when there are better ways of going about finding a muralist for a public project.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
One of the things that I struggle with as a creative business that I hope people understand is that sometimes the creativity well is dry and there is nothing you can do about it. I’ve had a few projects when a client asked me to create a design with a vague prompt and I’ve sat on it and sat on it. Every day that passed without inspiration deepened the anxiety and I felt like a failure knowing that I had nothing to show for my mental toiling. How long can you put a client off until they just assume you’re a total flake? And my early experiences of presenting clients with not quite right renderings definitely didn’t help ease my worries about sending over something that wasn’t “perfect”. Although it happens less and less, there are still times when simply creating seems so out of the realm of possibility, Artist’s block is a real thing.
Contact Info:
- Website: sweetteamurals.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweet_tea_murals
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SweetTeaMurals/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbKOCBUAfipS82FTbIgDFbg
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sweet-tea-murals-cumming-6?osq=muralist
Image Credits
Anna Parker