We recently connected with George Evan Davis and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, George Evan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

I fell in love with art – and discovered I had a knack for it – in high school. I was part of a program called Distributive Education, where students attended school part of the day and worked the other part. My first placement was in a Walgreens Drug Store, and I hated it. Fortunately. the counselors recognized my interest in art and found me a job in a custom framing and art supply store called A Touch of Talent.

I loved making the frames – a skill that comes in handy today – and seeing all the art that passed through the shop. There were two studio spaces that held art classes and I became friends with one of the art teachers. I sat in on one of her classes and, being the broke high school student that I was, she offered to teach me for free. She even helped convince the owner that it would be to his benefit to let me work in the evenings in trade for supplies, which he agreed to.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that art was my true calling.

My mom felt that she had the right to claim every painting I made –in fact, my first painting hangs in her house to this day. She was SO disappointed when I completed my first big piece (horses galloping across a plain in France) because I painted it with the intention of seeing if anyone would buy it.

To her chagrin, I hung it in the window of A Touch of Talent with an ambitious price tag of $150. It was near Christmas, and to my surprise my father came into the shop and bought it to give to my mom. That Christmas morning we planned an elaborate series of clues that led her all around the house. When she finally made it back to the living room, the string she was following led right to the painting hanging of the wall.

She stood there staring at it then broke into tears. While I lost my mom last year, that painting still hangs on her wall and, out of all my work, is still her favorite.

My father and I were never really close, but the memory of him paying full price for my first painting is one that I’ll never forget.

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?

I started college in East Texas as a science for pre-med major – not my first choice . My first choice was art, but I succumbed to parental pressure and chose a path that my father insisted would be a well paying and respected career in psychiatry.

While I loved psychology and biology, chemistry and math were my downfalls.

Fortunately, I had an advisor in the psychology department who understood my frustration and helped me see that my career path was exactly that – mine. It didn’t matter what anyone else wanted; I had to follow my own path.

So, I traded science for art with the intention of pursuing a career as an art therapist. However, after graduating and being accepted into an art therapy graduate program, I realized I wasn’t really prepared to help anyone with their life because all I’d ever been was a student. At 21 years old I’d never really lived in the real world myself.

I decided to take a year off, move to Dallas, and see if I could make a go of it as an artist. This was long before the internet, and back then the only real way to make it in art was to either move to New York (and starve until you were discovered) or have someone support you while you pounded the pavement.

With no one to support me and not being too keen on the idea of New York, it didn’t take long for me to decide I needed a job. While “commercial art” might be a dirty word to a fine artist, I didn’t really have any other marketable skills, so I eventually found myself at a fledging advertising agency.

Working in the corporate world taught me one important lesson: I was unemployable. Not knowing any better, I quit and started freelancing.

Things were actually going quite well, despite the fact that I knew nothing about running a business (in fact, I didn’t really see it as running a business; I just saw it as making money to pay my bills). A few years in, I had the chance to move to Hawai‘i where I’ve lived now for almost 40 years.

Moving from a big city where I was a small fish to a smaller city where my work was new and innovative proved to be a great career move. However, this was the late 1980’s, and technology was beginning to take hold in a major way. More and more people thought they could use this technology to create their own brochures, logos and other design work. It was website design, in particular, was becoming the hot trend.

Not really a techie type, I took advantage of a serendipitous opportunity and left commercial art for massage therapy and healing work.

I had a real calling for the work, and my training for triathlon, marathons and open ocean swimming gave me access to plenty of clients. I spent the next 23 years building a profitable and successful practice, which I have recently sold.

Now retired, and no longer starving, I’ve been blessed to be in a position where I can return to my first passion – art.

I suppose if I were to define my “mission,” it would be to encourage people to follow their own path. To understand that it’s far more important to know how to ask the right questions than to have all the answers. And to not let anything prevent you from doing things your own way.

After all, if an unemployable, artsy guy with no real-world experience can survive for 45 years on his own, have three successful businesses, and live in the place of his dreams…then you can, too.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One phrase I always think of when I’m in a rut or looking at a situation –whether it’s a painting or a phase of life – where I can’t quite figure out where to go is the Monty Python quote: “And now for something completely different.”

When I was 28, one of my best friends, Jay, visited Donn, a childhood friend of his who had moved to Hawaii several years prior. Months after his return he called and asked for my credit card. I gave it to him, then asked “why?” He said “If I’ve ever met anyone who needed to go to Hawaii, it’s you, and I just booked our tickets.”

So off we went. From the moment I stepped off the plane in Hawaii until the second we left the #1 thought in my head was “Wow… this feels like home.”

I grew up in Texas and never expected to leave, but somehow Jay knew I needed to go to Hawaii. After we returned to Texas, all I could think about was Hawaii. About 11 months later Donn mentioned he was looking for a roommate. Here was my chance!

I’d been feeling stuck in my life for a while, and the idea of moving was simultaneously exciting and terrifying. My family and friends all lived in Texas. I had a growing business. My nieces, nephews and godson were all children – leaving would mean not being a presence in their lives.

I didn’t know what to do, so I asked for help, for a “sign” that would tell me what to do. But in hindsight, I learned that if you don’t put in the effort, “signs’ never show up. With Donn’s help I found someone who would give me freelance work. From a friend, I found affordable airfare. My brother offered to take my car and sell it for me.

Whenever I started to freak out and thought about what it would be like to live in paradise, I felt calmer and more sure that it was the right move.

Eventually, I decided to pivot. To take a chance. To try something completely different – if it didn’t work out I could always come back.

So, almost a year to the date of that first visit, I left Texas for the beautiful beach, mountains, weather, and pace of Hawaii. That was almost 40 years ago.

I became an enigma to my niece, nephew and godson (and now their kids) – the cool uncle who breezes into town at Christmas and lives in Hawaii, surfing, swimming, painting, and who always has a tan.

I’ve though about pivoting again and moving back to the mainland – it’s more affordable, closer to may family, and might be better for my art career. But just thinking about that raises all sorts of conflicting feelings.

So once again I’m looking for a “sign.” But this time I’m putting in the effort to make that sign say “chill out, brah….stay where you stay.”

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media straddles a fine line between amazing tool and a total drain on your energy.

It’s so incredibly easy to get sucked in – TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatever. It takes real focus to get on your chosen platform and hop off without being pulled into what I like to call “the pipeline to the devil.”

But for a disciplined mind, social media can be the most effective way to reach a broad audience quickly and relatively cheaply, even for free.

In 2022 I found an online course that really helped me understand how to build and use a funnel, and how to promote it on social media to build both a following and an email list. It worked great, I was seeing results and my following was growing.

But in October of that year, my social media was hacked and I lost all data and access to both my Facebook and Instagram accounts. I was devastated and incredibly angry – how could anyone be so cruel, criminal and uncivilized? Didn’t they realize how much this cost me?

There was no help from social media, either. Unless you’re spending big bucks on advertising, they really don’t give a damn about you or what you’re going through. They don’t answer complaints and there’s no way to get ahold of a person.

It’s a rude awakening to the reality of social media, which is that it’s a money driven tool for it’s founders and advertisers to get rich.

However…once I’d had a chance to calm down and gained a more realistic perspective, I began to see social media as a numbers game. It’s a tool where you have to befriend the algorithm, learn to use it to your advantage, and have constant vigilance against the dark side of cyberspace.

So I started from scratch – total zero friends, followers, or likes. I had to create new accounts and profiles since the hackers had locked me out of my old ones.

While the experience was harrowing, frustrating and cuss-worthy, I did learn a few things.

One important lesson: never….and I mean NEVER…open an email from ANY social media platform. They will never send you an email. But if one does show up in your inbox, 99.9% of the time it will be from a scammer. Opening it and clicking on any lick (regardless of how “urgent” it may appear) opens the door for the sender to access your accounts and information.

Change your password often. Goggle’s free Password Generator takes a lot of the thinking out of the equation and is a handy tool for creating complicated passwords quickly.

Take some time to really learn how to use the incredible tools available, not only within platforms like Instagram, but third-party providers. There are apps, both free and paid for, that can help you produce great videos, memes, and images for posts.

Videos are by far the most effective tools on all social media platforms. Using them in posts, reels and stories will all get more attention then photos. CapCut is a great third-party app because, unlike making reels directly in Instagram, you can save these videos within the app and use them in many other ways.

You should always be looking to expand your friends and followers. Start by friending people you know (that’s for your personal page) then asking them to like your business page. If you’re serious about using paid advertising to build your brand or sell your products, you’ll need a business page in order to do that.

I regularly go through the suggested friends to build my following. It’s important to scrutinize those suggestions to figure out if they’re real or not. Scammers are ALWAYS on the prowl, but after a while you’ll learn some of their keywords and phrases that set off a red flag that warns you to stay away. “Your name keeps showing up in my friend suggestions but I can’t friend you, will you send me a friend request?” is a common red flag. Do not do it, delete them immediately.

It didn’t take that long for me to build my followers and now I have thousands. I post regularly – at first it was every day but now it’s 3-4 times a week, across all the platforms. I’m always looking to send friend requests and invitations to like my business page.

I usually spend an hour or so at a time, creating a video in CapCut then posting (you also have to write a caption). Choosing your clips, music, and copy is very important, so be sure they are all on brand, short, and riveting.

And, most importantly, don’t get sucked in. Social media is a tool. It’s not for you to compare yourself with other people and it is NOT a reliable source for news.

I wish I’d had social media when I was first starting out in my art career. Used wisely it can be a tool worth it’s weight in gold.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.georgeevanart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgeevanart.prints
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553030458890; George Evan Davis and George Evan Davis, Artist
• Youtube: @georgeevanart

Image Credits

Brett Pruitt Photography