We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ross Von Rosenberg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ross, thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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?

Well, this is kind funny in that there’s the 2 dueling paths. There’s my work as a creative in the advertising and marketing world, and then there’s my work as an artist. So I think it makes sense to separate those 2 things, because it’s really 2 first dollars in a way. And the first dollar in the advertising marketing world; it’s not that exciting at all, in fact, it’s very typical. I got a job as an in-house graphic designer at a company, and then after my first 2 weeks there was my first pay check. While no doubt satisfying, it was just typical job stuff; nothing romantic about it.

My first dollar as an artist though was kind of interesting. The second show I ever showed in was this group show at a long gone gallery that used to be in Continental Gin building in Deep Ellum. The first show I was ever in in Dallas, was at the MAC (McKinney Ave Contemporary) back when it was still in Uptown. And it was their annual membership show, where if you joined as a member for a small fee, you got to show in their membership show. Which was a very cool event. This second show in Deep Ellum though, was actually an instance of meeting people that introduced me to the people that ran this gallery and those people liked wanted to show my work. So this more organic feeling process of getting in this show felt very exciting. The opening night of the show went really well, and the response to my work was really great, but still, no sales on the opening night. The show was up for a month though, so I was pretty, almost maybe naively, optimistic.

So I think it was, maybe the last or second to last week of the show, and I was actually out of town in NYC with a friend visiting another friend. And I remember we were all in a bar somewhere in the East Village, and the gallery owner called me and asked me what I was doing at the moment. I told him I was out of town, and that’s when told me he had a collector/friend of his that was in Dallas from out of town and wanted to buy one of my pieces at the show. I was of course over the moon, and I’m almost certain some celebratory drinks were had by all right after. And I think it was a week later, after got back that the gallerist cut me a check after the show came down.

It was a moment that was not only memorable, but also became very informative in a lot of ways. That was the first piece of art I ever sold to anyone, and not only was it a total stranger, I never got to meet the person, don’t know their name, since I was out of town when it happened; initially there was a slight anti-climactic sense to it. But that was all then overwhelmed by the gratification of knowing that I created this piece of art, an idea out of my own head that was mine, that I’d put that time into making, and that I got to put it out into the world and total stranger that never met me, and was never going to meet me, had no biases about me one way or another, had liked this work I created enough to buy and put it in their home. I mean, the money was great, but the validation of your creative vision by a total stranger is kind of indescribable. Nowadays, I always try to meet my collectors, but sometimes, that doesn’t always work out.

I think the other thing was, since I’d never sold any of my work before that, when you’re first starting out, your early works where you’re learning and discovering how to get what’s in your head onto that surface; there’s preciousness with which you can end up holding those pieces close to you in a way that it’s hard to let go. But the whole point is to put the work out into the world, otherwise what’s the point right? But it doesn’t make the idea of, “that’s the first time I spent painting this type of thing, and I worked on it really hard because, I wasn’t that good at that yet, and that’s the first time I nailed it. And I’m so proud of it, but now someone is going to buy it, and I’ll never see it again!” any easier. Well, the fact that was out of town when the entire transaction took place; it just ripped down that wall of preciousness really quick, because I didn’t even have time to miss it. Because like I said, I have no idea where that piece of art is. It could be anywhere, but the important thing is that it’s somewhere on someone’s wall making them happy.

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

I’m an artist and graphic designer. As far as the graphic design side of things I do work for an agency fulltime, and I also do freelance work. I do everything from simple art direction (designing a layout or ad) to full on brand creation, development and management (brand identity, guidelines, campaigns). I have experience working in a variety of spaces such as print, online, and retail environments. Design Communication is what I got my degree in at Texas Tech University. I got into graphic design as kind of a middle way career path where I could have a job where I could continue to develop and use my creative skills to earn a living while I continue to also pursue my work as an artist. As it so happens, my design work and art work do cross pollenate; which, as a designer, gives my work a lot more out of the box artistic flair. It also gives me the ability to be kind of a one man shop when I need be to meet basically any need or creative challenge. So not only can I concept, and create any design you need, if it needs an illustration or painted aspect, I can do that too, if needs photography, I can shoot it.

As to my art, I’ve been making art my entire life. Even as a little kid I was making drawings of my favorite cartoons or comics. My mother tells a funny store of when, I was a little boy and she wanted to get me some art supplies from the store, and after the crayons (of course), she asked me what I wanted and I just responded “Big paper!” So now, it’s more like “Big canvas” or “Big wood panel”, but not much different really. My primary medium is painting, but I’ve done lots of multimedia, and illustration as well. As an artist, I’m usually juggling a lot of ideas and often different series of work or projects at the same time. This means my work ranges a lot of different styles and subjects from more figurative representational, surrealism, graphic or several different styles abstract work. I am always making work that I’m passionate about getting out into any venue I can, but I also am always open to commission projects of all kinds. It could be for a small business, office buildings, hotels, personal portraiture or maybe you just have the coolest idea in your head of a painting that you’ve always wanted on your wall. And often, one of the great things about commissions is, sometimes they force you to solve creative problems that you’ve never confronted before or gets you out of your comfort zone creatively.

I guess if there’s something that I want people to know about my work is that, I’m never going to stop exploring new things; I’m going to constantly change it up. While I love and am very proud of the work I’m making right now, and I’m proud of the work I made in the past, I hope I’m making completely different work that maybe I can’t even imagine yet in the future. Because, while like most artists, I’m proud of the creative voice I’ve developed and continued to develop over the years; I’m especially proud of it’s variance and versatility. I like to continue to learn, not just how to make the art I’m making now better, but be able to learn, explore, create, and make styles of art I never have before. So if you’re someone who’s interested in my work, I always promise to keep pushing, changing, exploring; I will never be stagnant or boring.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I think the goal, if there is a capital “G” goal, for me is pretty simple. And that’s I’d love to get to the point of being able to have enough of a sustainable income as an artist broadly getting to do the work I want to do at a level that it helps support my wife and I the way that a corporate job in marketing/advertising does. I mean, that’s the big dream anyway, and being able to reach that place would mean that people out in the world would be out there seeing my work, enjoying, be engaged with it. Of course the goal sounds simple, but getting there is not that simple; it never is.

But that’s why the journey is important, and sometimes I think, almost more of the point. It may sound like a cliché, but just because something is a cliché doesn’t mean it can’t be true. Because a creative process is a journey in and of itself. If it was a film, it would be a series of smaller arcs within larger arcs. There’s the larger arc of being an artist, improving, growing and perfecting you craft. And how the things you’re interested in creating changes over time, and there’s no way to predict where that will go. Just for myself, sometimes I see something out in the world that just pops an idea in my head, sometimes I think about and consider things for a long time, or sometimes art can even come from the purely technical place of “I want to try my hand at painting a landscape.” So that’s the large arc in the journey. Then there’s the process of creating every single piece of work that you will create over your lifetime as an artist. Each one of those pieces is it’s own arc; a smaller process and journey within the larger journey. And each one of those has the potential to be predictable or completely unpredictable. And some are painstaking, and some just flow. There’s patterns of experience that form for sure, but there always uniqueness in all those little journeys.

I remember a friend and fellow artist making a post on social media years ago saying something along the lines of “he was sorry” or “that he felt that that his work still wasn’t quite living up to the ideas of how he saw it in his head” and “that he hoped that one day, and was going to keeping working, until it did.” Which, he’s such an incredibly talented painter, and that just goes to demonstrate the level to which we as artists are constantly scrutinizing our own work, how almost unreasonably hard we can often on ourselves. But, I commented back to his post that, I understand the feeling, but how great is it that we have this drive, yearning and ability to create, that it’s something that we have the rest of our lives to travel this artistic journey. No matter the age, if I have working eyes, and 2 working hands, I’m gonna be making something, and we’ll all get there, to which he happily agreed that was so true. Not everyone has something like that. So, while we all have goals, in a way, the gift is having the chance to take such a journey, and share it with those that want to take part and hopefully enjoy the work it produces.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

That’s a complex question. There’s the larger society or broad ecosystem, but then there’s societies and ecosystems within societies and ecosystems. And so on, all the way until you get down to the individual, and all individuals are unique, and produce unique things or consume or are interested in unique things. So it’s such a difficult question of such a web of connections that, part of me wonders why I decided to even answer this question, lol. But I’ll try.

I think that one thing that is extremely important to create this type of thriving is finding different, expansive, new and personable points of exposure. It’s hard for communities large and small, near and far to engage with art, or different types of art if there isn’t exposure. Because what that exposure does is, it creates potential opportunites for artists, which in turn creates more opportunities for people to engage with and appreciate and purchase art. Think of it kind of like getting up to bat in baseball. Each time you step up to the plate is an opportunity for a hit. And the more at bats you get, the more chance at hits. And hits tend to beget hits, and the success starts to build on itself; and that’s how you get a hot streak. So I think, especially locally, just having communities continue to be creative about finding ways to give opportunities to allow creatives to be creative, and allow more and more people to become interested in and enthusiastic about owning or even commissioning art.

And to the local point, I mean, support local has been a thing for a long time, but there’s reason for that and there’s truth in it. There’s always the broader bigtime creatives that are known and loved everywhere, and that’s great and there’s always going to be a space for that, because there’s always things that transcend into more of a universalistic place of appreciation. But those people all started somewhere, and likely, it was in their neighborhood, town, city, etc. Inside all of those localities there are likely amazingly talented people you may never have heard or are just trying to get started and are just looking for an opportunity. So, if you’re an organization, a municipality, a small or large business; sure you can hire that creative firm from the other side of the country to decorate your offices, or go to the big box store and load up on the printed canvases, but maybe first, before you do that, take a look and see what is out there in your own backyard. And while maybe it won’t be as smooth as a process as some of those ready made choices, or maybe you have to look a little harder, it will be unique to your place. In a world where sometimes things can start to on a mass scale can be kind of cast with an interchangeable haze of sameness, I think it’s a good time to bring a sense of uniqueness back where ever we can.

For example, here in Dallas, the Omni Convention Center Hotel; it’s all art that was done by local artists. The Factory 603 Office building in the Dallas West End; it’s all art that was done by local artists. The Art Canvas Hotel in the Dallas Southside Lamar area lobby, restaurant, and other common spaces walls are adorned with local art. And there are other local businesses that allowing me put up my work like Vector Brewery. I’m very proud to be associated with those places and projects, and they are great examples of what I’m talking about. Those places are made more unique and more part of the Dallas community by partnering, showcasing and nurturing the people that make art here. And while, in the Omni, I’m sure, in fact, I know, there are talented artists all over the world, that could’ve been hired, done research on Dallas, and probably created some pretty cool work that did it’s best to reflect Dallas-ness that hotel wanted to reflect. But those people still aren’t going to know all the things that those of us who live here know. Just like, to turn that around, if that type of project is happening in Miami, or LA, where ever, I don’t live or ever have lived in those places, so I’m not going to know about or reflect a lot the character of those cities as well as the artists that live there as well either. There’s talent in your backyard, you just gotta find it.

Lastly, I would say opportunities to receive mentorship. Now, I don’t pretend to know or even be able to articulate the architectural scaffolding for how a particular organization should be built or run. But I do know, that meeting, knowing, and receiving knowledge of people who’ve already tread the ground before you or are maybe swimming in metaphorical waters of that moment; can and are worth more than gold for an artist. If creating art isn’t an exact science, and it’s not, then getting your work out into the world is even less of an exact science. Now, one way an artist can be proactive about this, is just go to shows, try to meet people, be present, be open, participate. But still, that can be a very fraught process for some, and kind of like driving across country without a map. I’ve been very lucky, in that I’ve met some amazing wonderful people that I still work with and look to for guidance to this day, and that I’m a pretty social person. But I think more situations where there could be more points of out reach to artists that are looking for some kind of a road map to receive the wisdom they may be looking for would be a good thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rossvon7design.com
• Instagram: @rossvon7
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ross.vonrosenberg
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/ross-von-rosenberg-76a44210

Image Credits
Frankie Garcia Lauren von Rosenberg