“Take your work seriously so that your client does as well.”
Matteo Miles, from Greenville, South Carolina is a self-employed and full-time traveling artist and painter. Specializing in painting murals, he travels around the region creating artwork.
About
Matteo Miles has always had a special relationship with creating art. “I loved it, I was always drawing since the second grade, and I was always just finding a reason to not do other homework and just focused on whatever required any kind of art,” said Miles. Throughout his grade school and high school years, Miles continued to hone his love of art and grow his skills by ensuring he took any advanced art learning classes he could.
During his time in school, he attended Greenville’s Fine Arts Center and later did a few years at Greenville Technical School. “That really helped me get a better gauge on the community. My mentors and professors were trying to engage their own work into real life and into career aspects. So that helped me take their work seriously,” said Miles.
After finishing school, Miles’s career path in the art world began by chance. While working as a bartender in a hotel, Miles volunteered to complete an unfinished mural in the bar. At the time, Miles had transitioned from doing canvas artwork to murals and was already creating art for Starbucks.
Miles’s typical workday includes starting his day by answering emails or phone calls from clients interested in having a mural, scheduling proposals, and trying to complete at least two to three murals a month. “Most of the time, its answering questions, especially for people who haven’t had any mural work done,” said Miles. In addition to his responsibilities, Miles has also faced some challenges in his career. “It took a while to learn how much things cost and underestimating what actually was required to get a project done,” said Miles. “But at the end, it was a learning experience.”
From Miles’s experience in creating murals and running a business, he offers his advice to upcoming creatives interested in the mural career path. “Special skills for like drawing and painting would be getting good exercise with large scale. Also you use your whole body, so exercise your whole body: stretch, make sure you’re able to have endurance whether its inside or outside,” said Miles.
