We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gail Owen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Gail, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I became a full time fine art printmaker ten (10) years ago after my corporate job went away. I’d only dabbled with artwork on the weekends so when I realized I could take a little time off before starting a new corporate job (which never happened), I thought I might delve full time into one medium and printmaking made the most sense as a serious production artist. What I learned in corporate, that I didn’t learn in art school, is that a successful businesses sells either by high volume low price or high value low volume. Academia in the arts does NOT prepare an artist to become a business person. I chose printmaking because of the power of reproduction that hand made prints had over every other medium. I could make volumes of hand pulled small batch original prints to sell for a nominal price and design repeat patterns that I could sew together to make a higher priced fine art object. These repeat patterns are now available as commercially available wallpaper produced by Manolo Walls in Portland Oregon. I’ve also made wooden string pull toys with original prints adhered in the spirit of folk art toys and even produced a deck of cards.
I knew, when I lost my job, that the fastest way to become a master is to focus on one medium full time. I didn’t have a “style” but figured that with 100% dedication, a style would emerge as opposed to my forcing a style. By dedicating 100% of my time to one medium, I became a master of the medium in short order.
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?
My day job and career was in product support and logistics for a large manufacturing corporation until 2014. When that career paused, I took some time off to make “things” that pleased me and pledged to stick with one medium (Lino Print medium) and focus on creating a body of work. I decided to do a deep dive exploration of printmaking and I realized that I could apply everything I had learned about manufacturing a widget, to printmaking.
Creating large works on a small press became an interesting engineering problem; the solution was to create repeating patterns and then sew them together into a single large format piece. My goal is to create work that can be reproduced as wallpaper or fabrics, bringing beauty to objects that people use and enjoy everyday.
I am an artist that thinks about what I might want to buy if I were to buy art. The “who is my customer” is also very important to me. I’ve moved around a lot in my life and as I live in Portland Oregon, I want my art to also reflect the WHERE. When I started this print journey, I had no idea where to start but with the flowers and fauna of the Pacific NW. This was the beginning of my floral repeat patterns based on the plants and trees that I’d see on my daily walks.
I quickly built a body of floral artwork that I started selling on the streets starting with farmers markets which led to coffee shops, outdoor festivals. With this street credibility and growing body of work, I quickly started showing in galleries, universities and outdoor festivals around Oregon which led me license my work to be reproduced as wallpaper by entrepreneur Nelli Pavlenko of Manolo Walls.
I have deviated from repeat patterns on paper with printing on leather, making original toys from my prints, creating a deck of cards and an entire suite of printwork dedicated to Day of the Dead. The central focus of my work is linoleum printmaking and what I could do to stretch the medium. My next mission is to teach a few workshops to share my knowledge.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I lost my career ten (10) years ago, I was devastated. I had planned to retire early from my beloved company in 10-15 years (like about now). However, as we are seeing currently, manufacturing has been hollowed out in the United States and this used to keep me up at night. Back then, I’d think about how I could help bring small batch manufacturing back to the US and what would that product be?
When I was released from employment, my husband encouraged me to take a little time off before I sought another corporate job as I’d been working non-stop since I was a teenager. I did a survey of my crafting tools and settled on filling my days with a press, paper and ink until I found my next job. It was while I was rolling my press that I realized that THIS PRESS could be my small batch manufacturing utility. From there, I dreamed about what I could produce that people would want to buy.
Being an entrepreneur is scary and you have to be the jack of all trades. From budgeting to scheduling shows to marketing, I do it ALL. There have been many times that I felt like giving up, that it’s easier to be a corporate drone pulling a great pay check and dreaming about doing exactly what I’m doing now, but its too easy to give up. I love a challenge and printmaking gives me every challenge I can dream.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
NFT’s are as insulting to me as buyers trying to bypass my galleries to get a private “deal”. What am I going to do with NFT’s? It’s as bad as the scammers that DM me with a fantastic “I’m buying my wife an anniversary gift. She LOVES your work and we are moving soon. Can I write you a check?”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gailowen.us
- Instagram: @gailowenprints
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/gail.owen.503092
Image Credits
All photos are mine