We recently connected with Denniz Polk and have shared our conversation below.

Denniz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

I stay really busy doing art for bands and designs clients so I try and use the time inbetween to either make personal art thats been an idea in my head for a while or I will try and release something I’ve been working on in that down time. Dead lines and clients are always first so at any given time I have about ten unfinished projects, Three or four years ago I was working slowly on putting together a retrospective type book of the art and design I had done for bands the prior five or so years before. What was taking so long for me was I wanted the printing to be very high quality and was looking to find a person or place that could achieve the results I was looking for, Well, as soon as I get about 90% finished with the book my friend sends me a short video of her hands flipping through a large book of my art. I was highly confused and extremely disappointed as I myself had been spending every free hour that year on getting my book together. I’m a pretty passive person for the most part and really appreciated the fact that someone thought enough of what I’ve done to get a entire book made but also was pretty annoyed that this bootleg book is floating around without my knowledge and right before I planned on releasing a very similar book (the fan made one had about twice as many pages) so I ultimately put my book on the back burner until I could figure out some details which would help me decide to move foward with the book idea or not. A few weeks later I get a text from another friend that is pictures of dozens of concert posters that I’ve designed. They are all on high quality card stock posters with impressive print jobs. At this point I’m fed up. I now had began talking with some artists I’m friends with about maybe printing some of my old more popular work and wasn’t going to let it slide this time. I ask her where she is seeing these posters at and she tells me there is a booth at the Houston art market that is selling them on Montrose, I was only a few minutes away so me and a few friends jump in a truck and head there, The entire way there I am working myself up and getting angry about someone having the nerve to steal my designs and print them and just sell them publicly like that. My friends are telling me we should just scoop up the stack right off of the booth and walk away, I am trying to stay level headed about it as we pull in but inside I was pretty aggravated that this could be another project sidelined by a con artist just trying to make a few dollars off my hard work, We wander around looking for the booth and can’t figure out where it is so eventually I call my friend that had seen it earlier and she gives me directions directly to the booth, I storm up to the booth with my mind racing. Unsure of what I was about to do but dead set on making sure my prints would not be sold anymore without my knowledge. When I get to the booth I see a woman who is maybe in her early 50’s or late 40’s sitting behind my prints on a stool. Confused I ask her ” are you the one running this booth?” She shakes her head yes so I ask her where did she get these prints from and she answers with ”nice.” I start trying to explain that I am the artist behind the prints and she says a few words in english but mostly in spanish. I then try and explain I know a little spanish but probably not enough to resolve the issue. She explains back to me that she knows a little bit of english but mostly speaks spanish. I then tell her I have a friend with me that speaks spanish and I turn to get him and see that all my friends had gotten bored or distracted and walked away. She spends a little more time trying to undertsand what I am talking about and then starts to look around for her partner who I am assuming may be able to undertsand a little easier but can’t find him either. When she comes back she just starts showing me each print one at a time and letting me know that they are promo prints for concerts of rock bands, I start to just find the entire situation hilarious and her descriptions of the bands are what I would consider completely adorable. We both end up laughing alot at neither of us knowing what was going on and she starts just throwing out prices and deals to me. I end up feeling bad about being angry and now wasting so much of her time that I actually bought somewhere between eight to ten of my own prints at a discounted price and have still not solved the mystery of who bootlegged a book of my work or who she was or why she had such high quality prints of my designs.

Denniz, 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?

I create visuals for bands and companies.I also create alot of art using a wide variety of mediums. I got into doing art through music. I’ve played in bands since I was 14 years old but have been making art my entire life. What turned my hobby into a way to make money was just by circumstance. The bands I played in would need art and I would hire someone to make whatever it was we needed at the time. I was always the creative push behind the ideas and concepts but just couldn’t execute it myself at the time mostly due to a lack of knowledge when it came to computers, I always liked the relationship between musical artist and visual artist but could never seem to get the artist as close to my ideal look as I would have liked so I just started learning some programs and doing alot of it myself, Other bands and companies and such would see the stuff I made and ask me to do something for them. Over time I started adding a logo or watermark into the corner of everything I made just as a way really to let whoever sees it and enjoyed it to know I did it incase they needed something made. In a lot of peoples eyes this was a company brand or name but at the time this was not the intention. Over the years I’ve branched out into other areas of art as well such as video, photography, poetry etc. and feel it’s all relative and that I definitely have a equal love of and respect for all of it, What I think I enjoy most about the work I do is the feeling of showing a band or client in general what my idea is for visual representation of what they are doing and seeing that they genuinely see it as a good match. If anything sets me apart as a visual artist or designer from the rest I would say it’s my obsessive need to get a product out that will match as closely to the clients vision as possible without changing what I naturally am doing at the moment, I try and just do what I do but with the clients personal stamp in mind, I have done art for so many varied things and enjoy all of the differences between style divisons but will and have always given it my all. I also still handle business on a pretty personal level and tend to turn clients into friends, I feel like that is probably the most important element in what I do when its in the context of business because my repeat clients know they can throw something at me late notice or without much explanation and I will put life on hold and keep working at it until they are happy with the outcome. I try and keep a tight circle of who I’m working with and a low profile when it comes to promotion because of time restraints and the want to keep things personal.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for growing clientele for me at least has been staying consistant with your out put and getting out into the worlds where a need for what you do exisits. I spend alot of time around the things that I enjoy being a part of. If you show up to the same events in the same places you are bound to meet like minded people over time, and those people are more likely to like the same things you like visually and otherwise. A decent amount of those people are looking for someone who sees things the same way you do, If you put out quality work and its steady then people can’t really help but take notice.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me personally I think the most rewarding aspect is having people come up to me and tell me about a piece I made that touched them in any way, It doesn’t matter to me if the appeal was that it scared them, made them uncomfortable or that they just really loved the idea behind what I created. It all just re-enforces the idea for me that I was able to get something off my mind and onto something else that someone now is enjoying looking at for years to come, I think anyone who starts out doing what they do on public signs, buildinings,desks etc, is at least a little obsessed with just leaving a mark behind period,

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imbalancearts/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DennizPolkIMBALANCEARTS