We were lucky to catch up with Tom Owen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Tom thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?
I did not follow a traditional path to becoming a full-time artist. Like many artists, I worked outside of the art world to afford to live and to be able to make art. Along the way, I learned important lessons that I use as an artist. My path to being a full-time artist was long and varied yet always focused in the education sphere. After 10 years teaching high school students religion and psychology and serving as department chair the last three years while teaching, I transitioned to corporate education first in the pharmaceutical research industry for 4 years and then another 22 years for a Fortune 500 property casualty insurance company. The last 10 years there I led the employee education function for the enterprise and was responsible for global employee education, leadership development, and the corporate university. All the time I was working, I was also painting and exhibiting my work, gradually increasing my reach across the US. Every business trip was an opportunity to visit galleries and make connections. What I learned and taught in business, I applied to my life as an artist. The business mindset and background I developed serves me an artist: every person one meets is both a potential partner and a customer, and customers have needs. For example, I don’t think about galleries as a place that can help me, but rather I recognize galleries are businesses with whom we can have a mutually beneficial partnership, the same with publishers, and collectors too. A business person knows that all partnerships must be developed and nurtured. My job is to help my partners succeed. For me, it’s about applying sound business principles, and practices to my work as an artist. There are also some very practical disciplines I transferred to my work as an artist like developing and maintaining a budget and setting goals and executing against those goals.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
While primarily self-taught, I hold a B.S. in English literature and an M.A. in psychology, both inform my art making. I have been painting and making art all of my life. In fact, I have never not painted. Growing up, I had an endless supply of paper, pencils and paints always at the ready on a small card table in the corner of our living room. In high school, I took over a part of the family garage as my studio. My father was creative with hammer and nails and could fix anything and my mother was a talented seamstress and artist. From them I learned to keep trying and learning. To this day, my work is always evolving. Over the last five years, in particular, my painting has evolved to more intensely colored, geometric shapes and forms composed primarily of large planes of color that fill the entire space and substrate. My medium is vinyl flashe emulsion, a highly pigmented, permanent matte water-based color that I apply using squeegees (of various lengths) and a variety of other straight edges. Fundamentally, I am interested in how we see and experience color. I work with flashe emulsion because the optical characteristics of flashe allow it to absorb light and reflect it back in rich and pure ways as the color we see—distinct wavelengths of visible light. Taking my visual cues from urban environments, I pull and scrape multiple thin transparent layers onto cradled wood panels or stretched canvases. Within these forms there is a subtle interplay of color and movement, inviting the viewer to look closer. Jen Tough, Santa Fe-based curator and owner of Jen Tough Gallery has said of my work, “Tom’s paintings have a subtle and warm interplay of color that draws one in. His thoughtful selection and application of color, a characteristic of his work, makes it interesting and accessible, enabling it to stand out in its boldness and simplicity, differentiating it from the typical minimalistic genre.”
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I think about social media as another tool in my marketing tool-chest; it’s yet another way to connect, build and maintain relationships. It is easy to fall into the trap of comparing oneself to others, trying to get likes for likes; that ultimately leads nowhere, it can be deadly and all-consuming. Deciding what a successful social media presence looks like to you is essential, what does success look like to you? Is it having 500, 5000 50,000, 500,000 followers? Decide what matters to you. I try to keep in mind that social media is SOCIAL, having authentic interactions with others. I comment, lift up, ask questions, and compliment people whose work I admire and follow. From whom can I learn? Who inspires me? What can I share? I have set days and times during which I’m on social media, consistency is key and I always (or I sincerely try to) respond to or acknowledge any comments people make.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Art/Work by Heather Darcy Bhandari and Jonathan Melber
Your Inner Critic is a Big Jerk by Danielle Krysa
Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going, all by Austin Kleon
How to Make It by Erin Austin Abbot
Contact Info:
- Website: Https://www.tomowenfineart.com
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/tomowen_artist
