We were lucky to catch up with Louis Chapheau recently and have shared our conversation below.

Louis, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

My ability as an artist to earn a full-time living from my work so quickly came from a combination of good timing and the invaluable skillsets I learned as an entrepreneur.

During the first COVID lockdown I needed to continually find new ways to pass the time (as so many of us did). I have always loved art, design, and fashion, and every year for over a decade my father would repeat the refrain “Louis, you really should try painting. Louis, you should really try painting:”. During that first lockdown I finally ran out of excuses to why I should put off trying to paint for another year.

So, I went to the dollar store, grabbed some paint and a canvas and made my first painting. I happened to share it to my instagram story and surprisingly, someone offered to purchase it within a few hours of it being up. So I made another one, same result. Then another, and another, and another. I then started to get commission requests and it kind of snowballed from there.

I think this was partly the result of people being locked up in their homes, still earning money, and desperately needing to bring something new into their homes to help break the visual monotony.

This fortunate timing was supported by the skillsets I picked up launching and running my own business for 5 years. It helped me approach my career as an artist like I would a new business venture. I had no reservations about promoting myself, establishing a brand image, creating a sales funnel, following-up with people who showed interest in my work (follow-ups proved to be one of the biggest contributing factors in generating revenue), and forecasting what I wanted to generate the following month and putting in place a plan to achieve that.

Within about 5 months of picking up a paint brush for the first time in my life since high school art class I was able to earn a full-time living from my work and a month later I was signed by my first agent and a year after that my first solo art show at the well-known Broken Cage Gallery in Toronto, Ontario.

Louis, 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’m a Canadian-born modern artist, I grew up on the West Coast of British Columbia. I create my work under my studio brand YourTurnDontFall.

My work is neo-expressionist, post-graffiti in style. I firmly believe an artist’s work should say something. It should elevate a message that you can’t escape from experiencing when you engage with it. At times it should make you uncomfortable. But always it should create dialogue. Art is one of the last untouched arenas of subversive counter-culture, protest and rebellion. Once something is created and put out into the world, its message is almost untouchable. This gives artists a unique position in life to call into question and challenge existing power structures, prejudices and oppression. I try to achieve this with everything I create.

I was around art my whole life. Growing up, my parents would always take us to beautiful art galleries when we would visit my father’s parents in France where he’s originally from. My father himself was an artist as well but it was for pleasure, he was an entrepreneur and restauranteur by trade. To be honest I never thought I would end up as a professional, full-time artist. Design, fashion, art, politics, history, these were all things I always enjoyed as casual interests, but I never thought I had the skillset to be an artist.

Looking back at the very start of all of this, two moments stand out. The first took place a week before I made my first painting. I was walking home from the grocery store and I happened to have the random thought “I hope one day I discover I have some natural talent in some field”. Within a week I would be selling my first paintings.

The second instance was how I came up with my studio name YourTurnDontFall. It was the very first phrase I painted on my very first painting that ended up being sold within an hour of me posting it online. At first I didn’t think anything of the meaning to it. Looking back, it feels like this was a message from my subconscious telling me, “you wanted an opportunity, here it is, don’t f*ck it up”.

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

Promote, engage, and purchase their work as much as possible. I don’t think people realise what it means to an artist when you simply share, comment, or talk about their work. Creating art is a very vulnerable thing to do. We put a piece of ourselves onto that canvas, paper, photograph, or sculpture. It is us. Sharing what we do and what we create is really you sharing a piece of us with the world. This simple act can be an invaluable source of support for emerging artists that helps keep them going. Do it as much as possible.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

A medium with huge potential that has been ruthlessly exploited and tarnished by those who value the extraction of wealth over the advancement of human ingenuity and creativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yourturtndontfall.com
• Instagram: @Yourturndontfall
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/yourturndontfall
• Linkedin: Louis Chapheau – www.linkedin.com/in/louis-chapheau-06a7496b
• Twitter: @YTDFDesign
• Other: Tiktok: @Yourturndontfall