Today we’d like to introduce you to George Davis.

Hi George, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?

I started college in East Texas as a science for pre-med major – not my first choice . My first choice was art, but I succumbed to parental pressure and chose a path that my father insisted would be a well paying and respected career in psychiatry.

While I loved psychology and biology, chemistry and math were my downfalls.

Fortunately, I had an advisor in the psychology department who understood my frustration and helped me see that my career path was exactly that – mine. It didn’t matter what anyone else wanted; I had to follow my own path.

So, I traded science for art with the intention of pursuing a career as an art therapist. However, after graduating being accepted into an art therapy graduate program, I realized I wasn’t really prepared to help anyone with their life because all I’d ever been was a student. At 21 years old I’d never really lived in the real world myself.

I decided to take a year off, move to Dallas, and see if I could make a go of it as an artist. This was long before the internet, and back then the only real way to make it in art was to either move to New York (and starve until you were discovered) or have someone support you while you pounded the pavement.

With no one to support me and not being too keen on the idea of New York, it didn’t take long for me to decide I needed a job. While “commercial art” might be a dirty word to a fine artist, I didn’t really have any other marketable skills, so I eventually found myself at a fledging advertising agency.

Working in the corporate world taught me one important lesson: I was unemployable. Not knowing any better, I quit and started freelancing.

Things were actually going quite well, despite the fact that I knew nothing about running a business (in fact, I didn’t really see it as running a business; I just saw it as making money to pay my bills). A few years in, I had the chance to move to Hawai‘i where I’ve lived now for almost 40 years.

Moving from a big city where I was a small fish to a smaller city where my work was new and innovative proved to be a great career move. However, this was the late 1980’s, and technology was beginning to take hold in a major way. More and more people thought they could use this technology to create their own brochures, logos and other design work. It was website design, in particular, was becoming the hot trend.

Not really a techie type, I took advantage of a serendipitous opportunity and left commercial art for massage therapy and healing work.

I had a real calling for the work and spent the next 23 years building a profitable and successful practice, which I have recently sold.

Now retired and no longer starving, I’ve been blessed to return to my first passion and am now working hard at my third (and final) business – art.

I suppose if I were to define my “mission,” it would be to encourage people to follow their own path. To understand that it’s far more important to know how to ask the right questions than to have all the answers. And to not let anything stand in the way of doing things your own way.

After all, if an unemployable artsy guy with no real-world experience can survive for 45 years on his own, have three successful businesses, and live in the place of his dreams…then you can, too.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

I’ve actually just started my art journey, having retired only a year ago. Like any endeavor, there are always challenges…some are inherent in the journey and some are things I cause myself.

The biggest challenge is finding collectors to buy your work, something that goes hand-in-hand with finding places and ways to show your work. With the internet, both of those issues are far more manageable than when I first started my art journey in the late 70’s.

There was no internet then, and the only way to get your work known was to physically show your work, find a gallery, move to New York City, etc. Now every artist MUST have a website, become proficient with social media, and develop a healthy email list. For those of us who are not intrinsically tech savy, learning how to navigate the technology can be a real challenge.

Having the experience gained by 45 years of managing two separate careers has probably been one of the best tools for giving me the ability to overcome these obstacles.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

I’ve always been drawn to portraits and figures. One of my very first pieces of art was a pastel portrait of my cousin. I am very influenced by the figures of Michelangelo so many of my portrait and figurative paintings have a sculptural feel to them. They are also generally fairly realistic, although lately I have been trying to “loosen up” my techniques and incorporate more abstraction into the paintings.

In an effort to expand my paradigm, I have recently been focused on abstract painting. I have also loved looking at abstract art, but have found it incredibly difficult to paint abstractly. My inclination is to need parameters…to know where I’m going and what I want the painting to look like. Abstract painting is exactly the opposite…not borders, no preconceived notion of where the painting is headed. It’s still terrifying, but I’m very much enjoying the journey and feel that, overall, the effort put into this will make my art better.

The thing that sets me apart from others is that my work is coming from me. It’s not an imitation of others, it comes from somewhere inside me. And, since I am a uniquely myself, my work is, therefore, uniquely me as well.

Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?

I’ve tried multiple times to find a “mentor,” someone to learn from and to gain a more experienced insight. But that has proven difficult. What I have found, however, are several artists teaching online. The internet is a very valuable tool in finding artists that one would normally been able to find, either because of location or through a lack of connections.

One of the most valuable ways to use social media is by following other artists and watching for learning opportunities that resonate. There are hundreds of online courses, but not all are aligned with my direction. Picking the artist and course that matched my direction or just sounds cool has been the most effective ways of finding mentors.

In addition, regularly posting your work (both finished and in progress) has proven a good way to get feedback as well as meeting collectors. However, there are SO many scammers that troll online out to set all manner or traps so beware and do your due diligence before believing anyone online.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.georgeevanart.com
• Instagram: georgeevanart.prints
• Facebook: georgeevandavis/georgeevandavis,artist
• Youtube: georgeevanart