We were lucky to catch up with Nick Stern recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nick, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

It’s not so much a boss or mentor, but for me one person and memory of something they said has stuck with me forever and today I constantly replay his comments. It comes from my early 20s. I initially entered the world of engineering, with a keen interest in electronics I was working in a factory producing cookies. I was responsible for maintaining the control equipment in the factory. Things like computer controllers, motors and the like.

As a hobby I was restoring an old Triumph sports car. I had taken some parts into the factory with me to clean them up during my lunch break in the workshop.

As I began cleaning one of the old door hinges I notice that the metal had a crack across it. Fortunately for me one of the mechanical engineers, a guy in his 70s called Len was chatting to me as I was working. I said ” Oh no, this hinge has a crack across it, I’ll have to buy a new one”. To which Len said ” What do you mean ‘buy’ one. ‘Make’ one”. I looked at him like he was crazy and said “I can’t make that”, to which he replied ” Someone else made it, so can you”.
So with his guidance we set about making a new door hinge for my Triumph. That hinge was on the car, working perfectly for years until I sold it. But more importantly Len’s words have remained with even longer.
“If someone else can make it so can you”. Such an inspiring few words.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m an artist with a foundation in street and public art. Most of my work is a commentary on society, News, politics and culture and intentionally often controversial. I worked for over 20 years and a photojournalist and this gave me a great understanding of visual messaging, often on controversial subjects and the power of one single image in conveying a message. Like many street artists I look at work of the artist Banksy and his genius ability to say so much, Often with a simple stencil piece.
For me, art can be many things, but it’s my vehicle to try to get people to think about an issue, their position, and consider how society molds our opinions, often led by the media.

Since I became an artist – 10 years ago I’ve come to realize that whilst people may love a piece of street art or a controversial stencil piece they wont necessarily want to hang the piece on their wall. So it’s often important to ‘tone down’ the controversy if you want people to buy your works.

So I make controversial, often pieces with shock value for the streets, but more ‘palatable’ ;pieces of art to sell.

Many of the readers may have seen my art on CNN, The BBC, Newsweek Fox News or hundreds of other media outlets. This is because I have the unique advantage of having worked in media for two decade that I know who to ‘shape’ a piece to engage with the media. And I can literally pick up the phone and speak to dozens of journalists to get them interested in my art.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The start of Covid what a difficult time for so many businesses, no one knew if their business would survive the downturn or even if they’d be alive a year down the line.

Fortunately for me, I’d introduced a small clothing collection early in 2019, T shirts, Sweat pants, Hoodies, and hats. I’d also included some Plastic Jesus face masks, only because when ever I was photographed I wore a mask to protect my identity.

One evening, whilst sitting at home I saw the news that the World Health Organisation an US government health dept. were recommending that everyone wear a mask. I only had a sample batch of 100 masks made, some had sold, but I knew I still have 30-40 in the studio. So I made a social media post, dropped the price by $5, (because I felt it was the right thing to do). Well, as soon as I published the post the orders started dropping into my inbox. And I sold 50 masks in about 20 minutes.

I did some more social media and email marketing over the next few days, explaining to people it would take about 4 weeks to get the masks to them as we had to get them made. Over the next 4 weeks I sold around $60,000 of masks!
My studio was looking more like a sweat shop, with 2 people on sewing machines and myself and another friend printing, packing and shipping orders.

Whilst obviously this was a great pivot financially during a very uncertain time, for me the fact that I was able to employ 3 additional people, during a time when they would have probably been out of work, was the highlight.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I’d flip this question a little. As a creative, like so many others I kind of ignore minor stuff like how much money I was making. I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best each month and certainly at tax time.
I’ve always been like that. However in the past 2 years I’ve turned that around. I now have a company who do my book keeping and every month I get a a P & L ( Profit and Loss) report which show me exactly how much i’ve made ( or lost) and where my money is going. It sounds incredible boring but believe me, if you have mid to long term business plans you have to know this stuff, where every penny is coming from and where every penny is going. Hoping for the best each month just doesn’t cut it.
I now look back on my years, and it’s with some regret that I didn’t have any idea where my money was going.

In keeping with this you often hear people say ” Just do what you love” There’s a great recording of philosopher Alan Watts discussing this, basically saying ‘ just do what makes you happy, forget about the money that will come’ This is great advice but in my opinion slightly flawed. I’ve worked on news stories, that have cost me thousands, because I felt strongly about the issue, like people trafficking in Eastern Europe, however it’s one story that never sold. I’ve be guilty of doing the same as an artist. Created pieces of art that cost hundreds or even thousands to make and they haven’t sold. So what I’m trying to say is ‘sure follow your passion, but keep one eye on your P&L.     

Contact Info:

• Website: www.plasticjesus.net
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