We recently connected with Christopher Taulbee and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Christopher thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
In 2017, upon graduating UC’s DAAP program, I founded my company, Taul Arts Studio, that provides a variety of Fine Art services including portraiture/painting, murals, custom ceramics, logos, fine art consultation and education. After seeing how many different types of commissions I had coming in, I realized that I needed some type of branding that described the whole umbrella of services I was providing. I came up with the name “Taul Arts Studio” as a play on my last name and the type of work I like to make. My last name is, “Taulbee”, pronounced, “tall”-“bee”. Tall is also a reference to the muralism, and the type of studio painting that I do, which are five to six feet tall oil paintings of flowers. A leggy bee is also a very funny notion. “Arts” being plural and “studio” being singular was a very intentional decision. Many times you’ll see larger companies brand themselves as studios becuase they consist of many artsists in a single studio or many studios with many artists. The naming of my company refers to the fact that my medium is varied but my studio is singular.
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.
My name is Christopher Taulbee, I am a studio fine artist who specializes in large scale oil painting, muralism and ceramics. One of my first memories is picking up a no. 2 pencil and with it, trying to draw another pencil that was lying on the table. When I was finished I had a wobbly pencil that I drew, a pencil I used to draw with, a pencil I had observed, and a pair of very impressed grandparents who couldn’t understand where their five year old grandson learned such a behavior. I think about those pencils often. Something about the rigid lines that ran down the pencil, and the way it made a line on the table compelled me, for some reason, to try and recreate/record it on paper with my own pencil. Ever since then I had always been kind of obsessed with drawing. In second grade I got in trouble in school for selling my drawings to my classmates for extra candy money. In third grade, every available inch of my room’s walls were plastered with drawings of Looney Toon and Dragonball-z characters. In english class, I was copying the drawings in the text books instead of paying attention. I had always been determined to become an artist from such a young age. I remember being upset at eight and nine when I realized there was no apprentice option for me like there was for Michaelangelo. At twelve and thirteen I sulked at not being able carve my first masterpiece like my afore-mentioned hero. In high-school I convinced my dad to enroll me in a mail correspondence course that taught drawing, painting, and design skills. I went on to community college, first to study liberal arts, then to UC’s DAAP program for fine arts.
Today my company provides a variety of fine art services including large-scale oil paintings of flowers, murals, signage, logos, custom ceramics, portraiture, fine art consultation, and education.
I am proud of the fact that despite all of the failures, doubts and struggles I have seen in my career, I have successfully become the enigma of a working fine artist, whose sole income is based on the making and selling of fine art. That six year old proclaiming his destiny as an artist wasn’t told that he could be anything he wanted to be when he grew up. With grave and concerned faces, he was told that if being an artist was truly what he wanted, he would have to work much harder than everyone else around him. So that little seven year old got to work!
I want my work to exist in the world because it connects deeply with it’s viewers. Whether I am making a logo, a mural or a portrait, I am aiming at conversing with some common thread of human experience that is guttural. You don’t have to know the person portrayed to feel their personality. Each logo has to convey instantly the company’s mission statement without the person having to look up what the company does. Each mural must reflect and exemplify it’s environment and surrounding community. As a brand I deliver a high bar on quality and craftsmanship, thoroughly researched and detail-oriented subject matter, and a reputation for providing work that far exceeds the standards and expectations of the client.
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.
I think that one of the biggest struggles that artists have, comes from the general public’s idea that artistic talent is innately gifted upon certain, cosmically selected individuals at birth. This idea both puts the efforts of the artist on an unachievable pedestal and degrades all of the past failures, flopped efforts, and endless hours practicing it takes to make it “look” easy. It’s almost to say that the artist didn’t have a constant hand in becoming what they are, but that it was purely of divine coincidence. By all means, give God the credit due, but any successful artistic practice is forged out of the intense fires of time, effort, and failure! The artist’s effort is just like sisyphus, forever pushing upwards on a great boulder to no end. There is definitely a good reason why they call it art “work”! Anyone can develop these skills, it just takes an individual that’s crazy enough to get under the boulder and then stay there.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
As an artist, your community is your greatest and most valuable resource. Because most of the making in the arts comes from laboring away in some lonely studio carved out of some basement, garage, shed, or community center, it’s important for the artist to engage regularly with the community they are working in and trying to serve. That last word is key,–Serve. Fine Arts is a service industry, that means that we’re only as good as the service we provide for our communities. Let that sink in a bit –being a successful artist is not about talent– but service. Go out and meet people. Don’t just go to the art openings and art museums. Go to local business openings, local history museums, and community events. People are much more likely to buy your work if they have socialized with you. To have a story about interacting with the person that painted their now favorite piece of artwork, is often worth more to the client than the physical art itself. Especially if they get to see the work made! Let people in on your processes and into your studio! Get interested in what the businesses around you are doing; compose proposals to them knowing there is a large chance they won’t be accepted. Follow-up on past clients and proposals, I’ve stumbled onto many referral commissions this way. In one instance, a client’s friend saw a portrait of their pet, and upon the conversation it sparked, they found that mural artist they had been looking for. They just forgot to follow through with me until they saw my email!
Contact Info:
- Website: taularts.com
- Instagram: @taulartsstudio
- Facebook: @taularts