We recently connected with ROYCE SOBLE and have shared our conversation below.

ROYCE, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

One of the biggest risk I took was a professional one. While I was getting my BFA degree in Photography, I had worked in the restaurant industry. I stayed in the industry for 20 years while I built up my career as an artist. The last “real job” that I had was working for an amazing restaurant called La Tavola Trattoria. I worked there for 14 years and I loved my job. I started off as a server the first few years and then became a full time bartender the last decade. I had an amazing clientele who were loving and loyal customers. It was a neighborhood favorite, so people would come at least once or twice a week. These folks were like family and they also supported me as an artist.

Jump to 2014, I was gearing up for a solo show. The day before I was to hang the works at the space, I had an accident at work. I pulled my back out while lifting a case of wine. I had never had pain like that before and I could barely walk to get home. Needless to say, I could not bartend. The next day, my dear friends, Kris and Jenn, helped hang my show for me. All I did was point and direct, as I was doped up on pain killers and sitting in a chair. The Show Must Go On and my friends helped make that happen. Opening night was a few days later and I was in pain, walking with a cane, but I had my art opening with a successful first viewing.

While my back was healing, I was unable to work at the restaurant. However, I was able to sit in the gallery space all day and market myself for people to come and visit the space and look at the art. I was able to utilize the time to actually sell my art. The show was up for a month and I was able to sell more than half of the show. This made me realize something. Although I was incapable of physically working my other job, I was able to sit and sell my work by having the time to be present and using social media to let folks know where they could find me and network. I was making money selling my work and it felt really good.

This experience, although painful, gave me the opportunity to know that I can be a working artist and sell my work if I prioritized my time around that. This should be my full time job. That being said, after 14 years working at my beloved La Tavola, I took a leap of faith and left the service industry to focus of being a full time artist and photo documentarian. It is amazing to see what happens when you take big risks. With those risks come huge rewards. Doors opened that I would not have even imagined would come my way.
I am not saying that being a full time artist is easy. It is a career of resilience and of major hustle.
It is a rollercoaster of feast or famine. After 8 years of beings a full time artist, I still never know what to expect.
My advice on risk taking is this. Believe in yourself and follow the path that moves you.
If you don’t try, you will never know what you are truly capable of. It was the BEST thing I ever did for myself.

Trust your instincts.

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

I have been an independent photo documentarian and artist for nearly 30 years. I have always loved taking photographs and had been ever since I was a kid with a Kodak Disc camera. That love of capturing friends, family, and events carried on through my young adult life. My passion for photography grew deeper in college and I decided to get my BFA. While taking my photo classes, I also took various fine art classes towards my degree. This is when I fell in love with mixed media collage and painting.

I have always been a social person, so I was always documenting life around me. I came out as gay when I was 17 and met my first group of gay friends in the early 1990’s. There was always a fun house party, art opening, drag show, pride parade, or fun club we would be at. I photographed it all. I was shooting with film and would put all of the photos in albums to share with friends. Every image was annotated with names, dates, and places.

In 2014, I had the honor of having these albums permanently archived at The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Books Library of Emory University. These albums indicate a time of turn of the century Atlanta. The collection has ephemera of the era 1992-2000. It has become a source of information used by students and scholars to show a place in time in the LGBTQ+ community in the early 1990’s Atlanta. A marker in time to compare life then and now.
I still continue to contribute digital works to the collection over the last 5 years.

As a fine artist, I have been independent and have sold my works through my home/studio space which I call House of Sobolovitz. I pay homage to my family which is what Soble originated from. I have collectors from all over the country and continue to utilize social media to update works available to buy in real time.

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

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is to be authentically YOU. When you work for yourself at your craft, it is just THAT.
Your focus is purely on your talent and how you present it to the world.
To be able to create something from nothing, a blank canvas, and to produce something beautiful is rewarding.
It is a bonus to then have someone love it so much that they buy it from you and have it in their space.

As a photographer, to capture a single moment in time, is one of the most rewarding emotions for me.
The feeling of joy when I look back at images that strike up a particular memory is precious to me.

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

I know that I am of the older generation. I am a GEN X old skool film photographer.
I honestly just DO NOT GET IT ALL.
I get mad, honestly, to think that some pixilated non tangible item sells for so much.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.houseofsobolovitz.com
• Instagram: roycesobolovitz
• Facebook: royce soble
• Linkedin: royce soble
• Twitter: roycetakepics

Image Credits
© ROYCE SOBLE