We recently connected with Tina Garrett and have shared our conversation below.
Tina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
In the decades of my adult life before I became full-time oil painter and eventual master artist, I was a graphic designer, and illustrator married to a firefighter who would become an ER nurse and a home health nurse as well. From early in life, I wanted to be an artist, but the pressure of family and finances pushed me to go to school where I was taught how to use computers to create illustrations and graphic design. The lessons I learned there were lucrative and I was able to make more than my husband‘s fire department salary for over a decade.
But the skills that I learned as a graphic designer, and illustrator became obsolete when the children’s publishing freelance work that had been my mainstay, disappeared in the window of time between when kids played with crayons, glue and scissors, and began to play with interactive DVDs and apps instead.
What I knew about illustration was antiquated and old-fashioned and the publishing house I worked for, went bankrupt.
My husband, the love of my life since the age of 17, was quick to pick up a second job as an ER nurse. He had occasionally picked up a shift to pay for an expensive hobby, but it really became a second job when in 2011 I earned zero… I underestimated how important being an artist was to me emotionally, I had set my identity for better or worse, on it. To help spur me into action, my husband suggested that I go back to school to become a dental hygienist so then in our retired years, we could do travel nursing and travel dentistry. It took a single afternoon at the dentistry college and what I now know was my first panic attack to realize that if I took one more step in that direction, I would no longer be able to call myself an artist.
After an evening of counseling with a longtime friend I realized that as an artist, I need to be true to myself, even if it cost me or my family financially, or otherwise, so I decided to pursue a fine art career, a desire I had kept deep within myself for decades. I began with a search for days on the Internet for any place near the Kansas City area, where I could take actual painting lessons. I quickly discovered that most of the schools that are teaching painting are long time commitments, including living abroad or on one of the coasts. With children age 10 and 11 the simply wasn’t an option.
Finally I discovered the Art Renewal Center website and the beautiful map that they have marking the ARC approved ateliers. After an extensive search, I finally found one that offered a weeklong intensive course with a master painter and a scholarship. This one moment changed my life forever as I was able to see with my own eyes what a master artist can do, turning a painting into a practically living and breathing work of art. I came home from Scottsdale and the incredible Scottsdale Artists’ School and remarkable week with Artist Romel de La Torre with a fire under my belly and I began to study Alla Prima, written by Romel’s teacher, artist and author Richard Schmid, as if my life depended on it.
Quickly, I began to make paintings and they were selling in the $50 to $200 range. It was one afternoon, not too many weeks from my return from my first class in oil painting, that my husband came to me and said “I can see how much you love this. I want you to take every penny you can make with your artwork and put it towards your business, put it towards buying the materials you need, put it towards going to the places where your people are and to taking lessons. You don’t have to contribute to the family income at all. I’ll work as hard as I can to take care of our family’s financial needs and if I get tired, I’ll let you know.”
This one statement was the beginning of the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me in the entirety of my 50 years of life. With almost no evidence that I could succeed, my husband sacrificed five years of working 2 to 3 jobs where he puts his life on the line helping other people, so that I could learn how to become who I actually am.
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?
In 2012 I took my first oil painting class at the Scottsdale Artists’ School via a scholarship to learn painting from the great Romel de La Torre, a student of master artist and author Richard Schmid. By 2013 I was regularly publishing on Facebook my trials and tribulations learning how to paint and a group of rural Missouri artists contacted me to see if they could come to my studio just outside of Kansas City, Missouri and learn from me, since it would be unlikely that they would be able to travel to Arizona. My husband, who was working three jobs at that time said that he would ring my neck if I did that for free, which would’ve been my inclination. So I invested a few thousand dollars that I didn’t have into what is now my teaching space, including lighting, easels, model stands, costumes and props.
In 2013 I taught my first workshop and recognized my second love, teaching. In the interim, my works have been recognized nearly 100 times including, the International Artist Magazines Peoples and Figures Grand Prize, 4 ARC Salon Purchase Awards, Oil Painters’ of America First Prize, and Women Artist of the West Best In Show. I am an Art Renewal Center ARC Living Master and National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) Master Artist, and recently earned Signature Membership with the Portrait Society of America, where I am a long-time mentor for their Cecilia Beaux Mentoring Program. My works have shown at the Museum of Modern art (MEAM) in Barcelona, the Salmagundi Club in New York City and various galleries and exhibitions around the world with some of todays most accomplished artists including Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik. I have works in the ARC permanent collection as well as the Museum of Western Art, Kerrville, collection. I’m one of the few modern day masters whose works have been auctioned at Sotheby’s alongside the great works of William Bouguereau. I’m so proud to be sponsored by Royal Talens Rembrandt Oil Paints, Rosemary & Co. Brushes and RayMar Art Panels as well as FASO/BoldBrush!
I attribute a great deal of the success that I’ve had as an artist to the years that I spent as a graphic designer and Illustrator working for myself in a freelance capacity. I learned how to stay organized and motivated and I also learned how to know what I don’t know and employ people to help me in the areas where I fall short. I understand that investing in myself is part of the cost of doing business so I’m always taking continuing education, not just creatively, but also in the areas of business and marketing. I have the pleasure of mentoring hundreds of artists and absolutely love working with those who are wanting to themselves become professional. What sets me apart as a teacher is that I hold nothing back from my students and revel in their success as they surpass me in their skill and achievements. Several of my mentees have gone on to win prizes and recognitions from some of the great art organizations of our day.
One of the biggest joys in my life is teaching second only to creating a painting that I know will be love and become a part of the collector’s life.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I was once scolded by a fellow painter that I didn’t have a cause to dedicate my art to. It was really one of the most embarrassing moments in my early learning as this was a very well known painter and the scolding happened publicly. In the decade that followed I began to understand how skewed the pressure to create based on a ‘greater calling’ can be and how that kind of thinking can lead to being out of touch with oneself. This alone is the death of creativity. There’s nothing more personal than being a creative person and creating from within, by the guidance of ones own compass is the path to learning, growing and living an authentic life. Here in lies my goal — to create bravely, honestly and unapologetically.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social media is nothing but public relations. In my naivety I learned how to communicate with my audience with honest enthusiasm and it turns out, that is what builds an organic following. I had never had a social media account before I started to learn how to paint and my first posts were of my trip to Scottsdale Arizona to learn how to paint. It was so fun to document my journey, meeting the dog at my airBB and using the trolly to get around Old Town Scottsdale for free. Sharing images of my daughter helping me make my first color charts and paintings as soon as I got home was just an honest portrait of where I was at and what I was actually going through to learn how to be what I dreamt of being an artist. I recommend any artist start there in their social media pursuits. Overly staged and polished images of you in a your underwear wearing a crop top and painting while seated on the floor are painfully obvious. They attract lonely men and unserious collectors. Being unafraid to be yourself and express the truth of your experience and like bees to honey you will create an ecosystem that loves you and your content.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tinagarrett.com
- Instagram: @artisttinagarrett
- Facebook: @artisttinagarrett
- Youtube: @artisttinagarrett
