We were lucky to catch up with Ryan Stark recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ryan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, one thing many business owners consider is donating a percentage of sales or profits to an organization or cause. We’d love to hear your thoughts and the story behind how and why you chose the cause or organization you donate to.

I do a few different types of artwork. They are digital art pop culture prints, murals, and (usually commissioned) animal portraits. I really enjoy painting animals so I started painting my friends pets for them, which slowly grew into an actual business. I wanted to find a way that I could use my animal painting skills for good in the world so I tried reaching out pet shelters in the area to see if they would like for me to do some pet portraits of the animals they have a hard to finding homes for, in hopes that people may be more inclined to adopt these animals if they come with a fun free portrait of them. After hearing back from the people in charge of the shelter, I was able to tell that they were not really interested in collaborating in that way so I had to find another way I could help. The next best thing I could think of was to make prints of all of the animals I have painted in the past and sell those at my art booths that I run for Art Walk-type events. And half of all of the proceeds I make on those prints, I donate to the Beagle Freedom Project, an organization that helps beagles who have been tested on in labs, find homes. I settled on that organization because the mission seemed clear and the money seemed to actual go to the right places. The other half of the money I make selling these prints, usually just goes right back into buying more prints, or buying the materials to be able to paint more animals.

Ryan, 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?

My name is Ryan Stark and I run my one-person business called StarkhouseCreative. I specialize in digital art(pop culture prints, t shirt designs, original character designs, etc.), acrylic animal portraits, and murals(all sizes, indoor and outdoor). I have been making art for almost 20 years but I have been doing it more seriously, as my main source of income since 2018. It began when I painted a psychedelic chimpanzee wearing a jean jacket, for a friend just as a fun gift, and I realized it was actually pretty good and I enjoyed every part of making it as well. I then started doing more and more animal portraits for friends and then eventual strangers would be asking me to paint their pets or favorite animals as well.
I moved onto digital art a few years ago and that has taken over as my main type of art, mainly because of the accessibility of it. I don’t have to set up my table with paint clothes, get all my paints and paintbrushes out, change into painting clothes, etc. I still do paintings, but the time it takes me to complete those, is much longer than it would take me to finish a digital piece, so I am able to complete more digital pieces than I would be able to finish full paintings.
I have done 4 murals so far around the Phoenix valley area and it is always a lot of fun to paint on a much larger scale, but those gigs don’t come as often as my other mediums. I am very happy when a new one comes along.
I’m very excited about where my art has taken me recently as I now have a monthly art booth at the Phoenix First Friday Art Walk, my art prints are being sold in the shopping malls around the area, and I also have a large booth at Comic-Con. Every time someone buys one of my prints, I still get just as excited as the first time I sold one because i love knowing that something I made, and enjoyed making, is also making someone else happy. It seems to be a great system where it’s just an endless cycle of joy, so I’m planning on riding this art wave as long as I possibly can.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I don’t have the largest social media following, but I think all of the followers I do have, are people who are actually into what I am making. I don’t use any of the apps to help me grow followers and I don’t use any fake accounts or tricks to build my followers because I like my social media to accurately reflect how my business is growing, so I can look at it and see what I’m doing right or wrong. My advice is to post your stuff everywhere you can post it, and then if people are into it, they will find you and follow you. The type of people who aren’t really into what you are making, will never turn into real customers anyway, so I would recommend not worrying about making your number of social media followers higher, but instead just focus on getting the right followers.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

When it comes to making my prints, I started doing it in a very cheap way, and quickly learned that you get what you pay for in that instance. After buying very cheap, poor quality prints, I decided to instead do some research by watching YouTube videos of how other, more successful artists handle ordering prints. I stumbled upon a perfect video walking me through the process of a particular artist handling their print orders and I just copied that and used the same company and same type of printing paper, sizes, etc. It has worked out perfectly and I have been doing it that way ever since.

Contact Info:

• Website: Etsy.com/shop/starkhousecreative
• Instagram: Instagram.com/starkhousecreative
• Linktree: Linktr.ee/starkhouse
• Other: https://www.redbubble.com/people/Starkhouse/shop