We were lucky to catch up with Tamara Brown recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Tamara, thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
I think being truly successful is having a passion and drive towards something that keeps you pushing through the ups and downs that will be part of the path towards the goal. Passion helps lead to the perseverance. One has to create a vision and keep focus on the endgame. Know that there will be setbacks and challenges. That is a given and part of life / business to know that but pressing through the setbacks and finding solutions is what makes great companies different from the rest….having a “how are we going to find a solution to this problem” instead of a giving up when times get hard mindset.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
It is been a journey of trying different things over the years that eventually evolved into becoming a fine artist. I’ve always had a creative lean but didn’t consider having a creative career and majored in Communications and it felt like more of a safe route at the time. After selling building materials to lumber yards for several years after college, my husband encouraged me to take a leap of faith and start a greeting card company that I had talked about for years. After exhibiting at the National Stationery Show in NYC, I ended up being discovered by American Greetings and became an exclusive artist for Recycled Paper Greetings, licensing my card designs. This was also a big part of growing in my faith as I watched dreams and prayers become a reality. Once our two daughters were in elementary school, my time opened up much more and I began to explore more of the painting side of things. It was an invigorating change from digital design and I began to teach myself how to paint. I wrestled through a lot of self doubt and frustration trying to express myself through painting but hadn’t figured out my authentic voice or style. After about a year and half of showing up and making so many trashed paintings no one ever saw, I finally started to feel like I was figuring out my voice and kept leaning into that. I started selling my work through my website and Instagram and showed my work in some stores and an online art gallery called Dress the Room Charleston. My style is loose yet defined. I like to use splatters, wide and raw brush strokes and while often keeping an ethereal watercolor effect on parts of the subject. My most popular subject is marshes and I grew up in Charleston and the low-country most definitely inspired the artist I am today. I would say I am most proud of sticking with a passion and persevering as it taught me so much first hand about trusting Jesus with a dream and passion and being more open handed with what we define as “success” because waking up each day and having the opportunity to create is such a gift in itself.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
I think showing up and being consistent is key. Know that anything worth going after isn’t easy because if it was easy everyone would do it. When you follow after your passions, people can feel the energy and authenticity when you are truly excited about what you do. The passion shows up in your work. Thinking about your brand and what you want to represent. As an artist, you are the brand. Think through specific words that you want to describe your style / vibe and letting the words, images and website reflect the feel of those words. This will help you find your authenticity and make you, YOU.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I felt a pivot in my art journey when I stopped thinking so much about what may be most “marketable” or staying in a safe lane and shifted my mindset to allowing myself to explore for the sake of myself. For example, I was reading through “The Artist Way” some years back and the writing prompts helped me “break through” to discovering more of who I was becoming as a fine artist. I was finding myself trying to stick only to what I thought at the time was more marketable subject matter like landscapes and florals when I first was starting out but I kept having this deep nudge to paint female figures but didn’t really let myself because in my mind they weren’t as marketable at the time. When I finally stopped with all that overthinking and allowed myself the opportunity to paint whatever I felt was calling me to paint, even if no one ever saw it…there was something there for me to discover. So I started painting figures and it actually became a big part of self discovery as lo and behold these beautiful monochromatic figures started filling up my studio. I then took it a step further and started sewing in white cloth creating real 3D ruffles into the canvas on parts of their dresses. It became an adored collection by many and felt like it was some of my most unique and personal work to date.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.TamaraBrownArt.com
- Instagram: @TamaraBrownArt
- Facebook: Tamara Brown Art
- Linkedin: Tamara Brown Art
