We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joe Hiltabidel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joe below.

Joe, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

As someone who travels to sell photography in art festivals around the country, some form of risk is constant. Every art festival we take part in includes the risk of rain, high winds, poor sales, traffic accidents, injury during setup or breakdown, high expenses. The first risk I took in selling my photography was a financial one, in 2015.

I had attended night school for 7 years before taking a chance on a photography class at Furman University in 2014. I quickly fell in love with the ability to express myself creatively through photography and started sharing what I captured, with my wife Shelly, who used them as her computer wallpaper at work. Shortly thereafter we visited the Spartanburg Kite Festival and I ran into a friend selling her jewelry at the event. Setup beside my friend was a photographer trying to sell his work. I was inspired by the whole encounter and with Shelly’s encouragement took another chance by deciding to apply to a local art festival, Art on the Trail. With gratitude I was accepted and then took a major financial risk by investing about $5,000 in startup costs (an exhibition tent, tables, bins, display walls, prints, mats, sleeves, etc). At that first event I only wanted to sell one thing. It wasn’t about making money for me, it was about validating the investment in myself and the risk of putting myself out there, vulnerably, for the public to judge. If I couldn’t sell one thing at that first event, I would be crushed and not likely take that chance again. Fortunately, the risk paid off. We sold much more than expected and I was over the moon. Since then I have sold my photography at more than 120 other events from my home in South Carolina to Florida, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina. Always bet on yourself.

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?

When I first started taking pictures, I was drawn to traditional landscapes like familiar rivers, waterfalls and colorful mountains. I captured those subjects for several years as I was learning more about art and art festivals in my area of South Carolina. Not only did I come to be bored with landscape photography but I came to see that photography subject as completely oversaturated. Every art festival I go to, there is at least one person selling typical landscapes and sometimes it is hard to distinguish one such body of work from another, even if some photographers do it better than others. For good reason, many of the same locations have been photographed over and over again and because this type of wall decor is still attractive to many buyers, a photographer can do well for him or herself. But it was my growing repulsion of that subject that inspired me to go in a very different direction, even if it meant losing customers or social media followers.

Art, to me, is following your creative passion wherever it takes you – it isn’t driven by the need to sell it as much as the need to make it. If you can make a living selling your artwork and you enjoy doing it as a means of income, great, but not being dependent on that income is freeing for me. It allows me to create on my own timeline and start / stop whenever I like. Currently I offer two kinds of photography styles, long exposure and whimsical, each with a focus on minimalism and negative space. If you visit me at an art festival you are likely to see an abstract looking set of offset pylons in flat looking Oregon water; two heart-shaped Cheerios in a hand-crafted, miniature bed, with rose petals on the floor (one of many tributes to my lovely wife, Shelly); messy Alphabet ABC’s spelling “Love is Weird” on a clean white plate or a photograph of Han Solo frozen in an ice cube. I have heard from art show juries and judges that my work is very different, with one juror commenting “We always see trees and mountains but we never see this and different is good, this stands out to juries.” Shortly after I started presenting this new style of work, I won an award at “Chain of Parks”, an event named a top event in the country by Sunshine Artist Magazine and then another at Artisphere’s Artists of the Upstate exhibition in Greenville, SC.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Although I sell my photography online, my primary vehicle for sales is at in-person art festivals. There is so much more work in selling at art festivals, than almost every customer knows. The best support the community can offer is to show up at the event. It won’t hurt you to take a look. Instead of buying something from Amazon, a box store or something made by a machine in another country, consider the value of owning something made by the hands of someone following their passion, vulnerably sharing their mind and soul with you. Every artist at an art show starts the day with a negative balance. They have paid to be in the art show, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of dollars. They may have traveled hundreds of miles and have the added expenses of hotel, food and gas just to offer you something unique and creative. Get plugged in to your community’s art and craft events, even if you don’t consider yourself an art lover yet. Visiting some of these events may change your life, just like they changed mine.

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

There is no doubt, my work isn’t for everyone. Some of what I create will really test your sense of humor. There is no better feeling than watching someone get a big smile 20 ft outside my booth at an art festival and then running over, gushing “I love it!” The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is connecting with like-minded people when artwork touches a part of them unexpectedly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hiltabidel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joehiltabidel
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joehiltabidel
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/joehiltabidel

Image Credits
Photo Credit: Joe Hiltabidel Photography