We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Thomas Patsis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Thomas below.

Hi Thomas, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

well I will try and keep this short cause it’s a long detailed story I will keep it tight and simple

my Mom was a painting artist I went to collage to working in racing I got a amazing job on a top tier nhra drag racing team . Then I slowly started building things after hours like cars and random stuff then I got enough business I had to make a choice I was working 8to7 then 7to 2am for like 7 years so I finally had to quit my awesome dream job. and on Oct 15 2015 I quit my job. I picked that day cause my birthday was oct 8th I wanted to squeeze in one more free birthday lunch. but since then I have been paying for my family’s life with only my metal art business to this day now im still all by my self building high end trophies for a lot of professional racing series and company’s. honestly I have way to many mile stones and highlights to talk about. all I can say i love the slightly slow speed I got into this cause any faster I would either have had severe burnout or nor appreciated it

Thomas, 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?

well im a former welder fabricator turn metal artist with a little bit of creative art background from my mother. I used to build 330mph race cars . now my business is I build custom racing trophies and awards. using the same process as the top fuel dragster racing cars. I tig weld 95% of all my customers design trophies mig welding when needed . everything is steel or aluminum and hand made. there are a lot of trophies shop in the US but most pre-made plastic awards. so what set me apart is I focus on custom specificly build hand made items as designed

Have you ever had to pivot?

well when I first started my small art business I was focusing on build scaled replicas of people’s vehicles but at some point my business pivoted to building custom trophies because as a business plan it was more profitable cause if I do a good job it’s annual work . becoming more predictable and increasing in newer jobs as I went on in my career

How did you build your audience on social media?

well I can say social media when I started in 2008 was much slower then it is now. it seemed weekly and now it’s speeded up to hourly. but all I can say it understand how to get the best out of each post isn’t a waste of time enough if you just want to share your are as you go. it used to be location was the most important but a proper organized social media can be just as important of attention as your art or product quality

Contact Info:

• Website: coldhardart.com
• Instagram: coldhardart
• Facebook: facebok.com/cold.hard.art
• Linkedin: thomas patsis
• Twitter: cold_hard_art
• Youtube: coldhardart