Tag: Traveling Artist

  • Matteo Miles

    Matteo Miles

    “Take your work seriously, and your client will 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.  

    Interview

    Transcript

    Matteo Miles   

    My name is Matteo Miles. I’m 28, I live in Greenville, South Carolina, and I’m a full time artist, painter, specifically in murals. So it helps you do murals and kind of travel to other areas of the region and the country as well. 

    Haley Hansen   

    Are you self-employed? 

    Matteo Miles   

    Yes, I am. 

    Haley Hansen   

    Can you say, like, what your typical workday is? 

    Matteo Miles   

    So typically, what I’ll do is kind of start off by either answering emails or DMs of, like, inquiries, and just get those out of the way. And probably just, most of the time, it’s answering questions, especially for people who haven’t had any mural work done specifically, is what the business is that I’m doing right now. So I’ll respond to those, and either get people scheduled or, you know, kind of giving the information. And then after that, I’ll go in and work on some proposals that may be required for people that have moved forward in getting a mural done, whether that be getting together a vision board full of ideas, taking measurements, or doing the designs and drawings, and kind of going back and forth. And I call that pretty much the whole like planning process of it. And then if I have anything going on that day, any projects to start, then I’ll probably go on-site to wherever I’m working on, whether that be a restaurant or a hotel, and then kind of mapping out and prepping the space, if it isn’t day one for a project. But I typically like to at least try to work on at least two or three murals a month, and sometimes they will overlap. But that can get kind of chaotic, depending on the project, and what it could require. But on a typical day, during the week, if, if I’m not actively on-site at a project, it’ll just be kind of the administration stuff with planning and drawing. Takes up a lot of that time. 

    Matteo Miles   

    How did you get started painting murals? 

    Matteo Miles   

    So I got started painting murals, pretty much a transition from doing canvas work. So I’m assuming this is just like another part of the question, another question kind of talking about how I got into it. But I always started doing murals was I worked at a hotel over here in Greenville, South Carolina, and I was bartending and they had this big chalk wall in their lobby space that someone else had initially done when the hotel opened. And that person, you know, wasn’t able to come back. So I was like, oh, well, I, you know, was already doing chalk signage for Starbucks and stuff like that. So I was like, why not give it a go. So since then, I was able to change it out and rotate the themes, and along with the seasons with the artwork. So with that in mind, it became public art. So I was able to present that, you know, pretty much for free, and then you know, I would get paid to just change it out. But through that, I was able to get other people reading my name, and then kind of looking me up and asking me to come to their space, or, you know, if they said they had chalk murals and whatnot, or a permanent mural, and that’s kind of how it got started with kind of, you know, networking and getting other opportunity for larger walls and not just on canvas. 

    Haley Hansen   

    Did you have any education in visual arts, or were you self taught? 

    Speaker 1   

    I was self taught for the majority of the time. Of course, throughout grade school or high school, I would take the art classes required, or like AP, any kind of advanced, you know, exercise that I could get with it, because I just, I loved it. I was always drawing since the second grade and, just, any reason to not do other homework. And just to, and just focus on like, whatever required any kind of art, whether that be like science class and stuff like that. And then through high school, there was a institution called the Fine Arts Center. That was for high schoolers, kind of like a magnet trade school to get people started into college as well, but this one just focused on arts and liberal and music and stuff like that. And so after that, I did a couple years at Greenville Technical School over here, and that focused on, that had an incredible art program. 

    Speaker 1   

    But I did that for a couple of years, and that really helped me get a better gauge on the community, and like my mentors, including professors, and, you know, people who are really trying to take it more seriously and engage, you know, their own work into real life and into career aspect. So, that definitely helped me take it more seriously. Of course, it got a little bit heavy with trying to regulate, you know, I was living on my own already and then I had two jobs and stuff like that. So it was a lot to carry. But it really was manageable. You know, it was just you learn a lot about discipline and, you know, what art school or whatever you’re focusing on in creative work requires. But it really did help having like my mentors and the professors there kind of guiding me. I did have to take a break for about a year just to focus on work, but I was still selling my own personal freelance canvas stuff, and I eventually returned back to finish up my studies. And then after that, went to mortuary school for a few years, worked in a funeral home, and decided that my passion took even further a backseat. And I wasn’t really making art anymore. And then after that is when I found that hotel opportunity to do public art. And I’m like, “Well, let me just jump on this and see where that goes.” And over a span of maybe about three years, where I’m at now, I was able to kind of kickstart you know, going full time and, but learning every day about everything, and then everyone else in that community. Yeah. 

    Haley Hansen   

    You said that you’ve pretty much been, like, artistic your whole life. But was there one defining moment where you realized that you could and you wanted to make a career out of that? 

    Matteo Miles   

    There was in, I’d say it started in about middle school, when I would do art, or participate in art shows, I just had more of a business mindset, like track on it. So that was all I was determined to do was to really make it into a business and say, “I want to make a living off of this, I can’t do it by you know, just appreciating my own work.” Of course, I appreciate my own work, but just to be realistic. And I tried to share that concept with other people, then, you know, our professors as well, just so people didn’t think that the super high privileged could be the only ones being able to make art today as an adult in our generation. So I think that’s something that we all work on in education at the moment just to make everyone aware about that. 

    Haley Hansen   

    What would you say the biggest adjustment or challenge you faced was when you started being self-employed, working as a mural painter? 

    Speaker 1   

    One of the biggest challenges that took me a while to learn was how much things cost, but also the like, kind of underestimating what actually was required to get a project done. And at the end of it, having that learning experience of being like, “Oh, well, this required so much more than I at first intended to,” with supplies or equipment. And at the end of it, you kind of just didn’t really gain much out of it other than having the job finished. But that was just learning scenario, that’s probably one of the things I share with other people who are trying to go into actual murals, is just make sure you have your, your estimate correct, and your numbers good for your client. Because it’s, you can’t go back and try to change the numbers just because you thought you needed a more expensive paint or needed a scissor lift that you didn’t initially put into your proposal or a number, you’re just gonna have to like eat it. 

    Matteo Miles   

    Also be just taking your work seriously so that your client does as well. And that equals your own value. Because you can do the work, you can do what I call portfolio building, which I think is really important, which is doing your mural work. But if you’re first getting started and you’re gaining that experience, you know, you kind of give some slack to your prices, just so, you know, you make it easier, you’re able to portfolio build, and I think that’s important. And later on, as soon as you’re getting more experience, you get more value, then you can kind of up those prices. But don’t feel discouraged that you’re not just doing your work for a penny, you know, on the dollar just, you know, kind of realize that these are stepping stones in every career and every type of creative work too. And they only get better. 

    Haley Hansen   

    Are there any specific skills that you would recommend to someone who’s trying to start a career in your field? 

    Matteo Miles   

    I think special skills, probably first, drawing and painting, getting good exercise. With large scale, for some reason for me, it feels easier to draw large scale, that idea seems really intimidating for people who are used to drawing within boundaries of you know, a smaller form, so just exercising with that. Also your body is super important, because you’re using your whole body. So exercise your body, stretch, make sure you’re able to have endurance, whether it’s inside or outside on ladders, scaffolding, scissor lifts, weather difficulties, whether it’s outside or inside, accessibility, not being afraid of heights, and not being afraid of strangers, not being afraid to perform in public, because that’s a big deal of it too. I had, it took me a while to kind of build up that, that shell of anxiety, like to reduce anxiety from being in public trying to draw or paint and not being able to focus because there’s people around you, people want to talk to you, people are interested in what you’re doing. 

    Matteo Miles   

    And sometimes that little like, “Oh, thank you” or “Yeah, I am drawing this” is fun, but, it’s exciting, but it’s so hard to like keep clicking back in that gear of like focusing on your drawing, because you’re not like in your studio, being able to do your own thing whenever you want. That’s, that’s one thing I’d say to definitely learn is that public, just awareness. Exercise your body, and your eye, your hand eye coordination, to think big, because when you’re up close, you spend 10 hours working on something super up close, and then you like stand back, it’ll look completely different. So sometimes you have to shift things up close on purpose, though, stand back, it looks different. So those are probably the three things that I would recommend for someone who’s wanting to go into mural paintings, and that’s just kind of the physical of it. And then business is a whole other ballgame. Yeah. 

    Haley Hansen   

    Are there any organizations or programs or events that you would recommend for people who are interested in, like locally or statewide? 

    Matteo Miles   

    There are mural festivals happening all over the country, they’re very easy to look up, there’s plenty of resources to find them. I’d say there’s about maybe well over 10 that happen every year all over the country. In my region, in South Carolina, we have our local art festivals, like Artisphere, or I think there’s one in Asheville, and then Charleston I believe, and Columbia, like Soda City. But those, they will incorporate sometimes some larger work or live performances by a mural artist or other people. So that’s for like the festival part and also going there to look at what other artists or muralists are doing. And you really learn a whole lot about that. I feel like I didn’t start doing that until maybe like last year. I was learning about Asheville’s big art, mural scene. And then also I went to Miami for the first time this year to look at Art Basel. I think Miami is a super huge mecca for murals within the United States, it’s probably one of the largest. And then there’s always, always local city of resources for RFQs, request for proposal that cities and people will post those goes for funding for grants and scholarships and opportunity for people interested in doing the mural work. 

    Matteo Miles   

    Because the most common question that I get asked from artists who want to do murals is, “how do I get started? Who do I ask?” And I’ll say, “if you haven’t done one yet, if your neighbor or family member or friend hasn’t asked you to come into their home and paint their bedroom wall or something, if it’s not a rental, then that was to me, it’d be a good place to start.” And what I got started with was a great opportunity was in a hotel space. But if you don’t have the opportunity, I’d say start with residential, that includes the bedroom, kitchen, ceilings that are pretty cool, and also baby nurseries, as well, those are a great start to do. You can do them for $1,000 to $3,000 per project. That way for people to agree with, and then you could start going into like restaurants or, you know, hotels or sides of buildings, and you know what the professional people are doing. 

    Matteo Miles   

    So I would say that that’s a good start. Because eventually, honestly, how it goes is once you do one or two of, you know, give it your best shot, mostly, most of the time that person’s going to share it, or people are going to see it and they’d be like, “Wow, I would really like something like that.” And it’s all word of mouth honestly, as well. It’s a very short one just because it’s very taxing on your body. So that’s another challenge that I faced was like, I’m 28. So I think I could probably do murals for another, hopefully 10 years is the goal. And then hopefully more after that if I’m still good at that checkpoint. But yeah, that’s another thing too is what makes it a little bit more challenging. Do you have any more questions? 

    Haley Hansen   

    Do you have any final advice for current students who are interested in pursuing a career in the creative world? 

    Matteo Miles   

    I’d say, stay in school as long as you can. Because there, most of the time there will be a section in, if you’re doing specifically Visual Arts on outdoor art, sculpture or murals. And I remember vividly, when we got to that part of the course or the curriculum, I was like, “I don’t need to learn.” I was like, “I’m never going to be doing that.” I go “that sounds too complicated.” I go “I don’t want to do that.” But, and then I didn’t really listen, and, but that’s what I would say to people or to students. It’s to just pay attention to maybe that portion, just since we’re getting a little bit more education and actual muralists out there now that are younger and kind of starting that generation. So I would say to if you’re, if they’re interested in it, it does pay off. Just pay attention in school to that part. And then yeah, and just try your best to connect to other muralists online to because I’ve met, I’ve met a lot that really do, they do like to work with each other. And I’ve met a few that rather would not work with other artists. I think, I don’t know why that works, I just think artists are just like that. But there are a lot of resources and helpful tips that people could share with each other. Yeah. 

    Haley Hansen   

    Awesome. 

    Matteo Miles   

    Good stuff. Awesome. Well, thank you Haley. 

  • Simone Liberty

    Simone Liberty

    “Design can build community and shift culture.”

    Simone Liberty is a graphic designer and art director who merges creative design with social impact. A Coastal Carolina University alum, she uses visual storytelling to highlight underrepresented voices and build more inclusive communities. 

    Interview

    Transcript

    Simone Liberty   

    I’m Simone liberty. I’m from Connecticut originally, but I’ve been down here in Charleston since 2015, in the fall.  

    Emma Plutnicki   

    So, can you please tell us what you do for work and what your official job title is? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, sure. So, I am a teaching artist would be my official job title. And so what that means is, essentially, I’m a traveling arts educator. Um, I go into, um, lots of different schools at this point, although a teaching artists doesn’t have to be just confined to schools; they are community art educators, so they could go and do workshops for adults or other communities as well. Right now, my work has me going into schools kind of all over the Charleston, Dorchester,and Berkeley counties. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Very cool. How long have you been doing that? 

    Simone Liberty   

    I’ve been full-time as a teaching artist for about two years now. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    So, how did you end up doing this? How did you know that it was a profession that you could actually pursue? How did you know that you wanted to do this? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, so. It was kind of funky. So, I have to go back to tell you about my undergraduate degree at the College of Charleston. I was an arts management major, and that’s I graduated in 2019 with my bachelor’s degree. And while I knew that I wanted to roll right into a master’s program, I also had a desire to start connecting with some of the organizations around Charleston in the arts.  

    Simone Liberty   

    So, the best thing about my arts management experience undergrad was that we had some great adjunct faculty members, and one of my professors was Catherine Brack, who at the time was the Director of Development at the Gaillard Center. So, I went in, and I was just kind of trying to pick her brain about what she does for work. And while I was there, she invited me to go and see their youth theater program in the summertime. So, it was a summer camp. And she said, You know, it’s gonna be super cute. They do these every summer. So, would you, you know, just come and check it out? And totally adorable. I fell in love with just watching the kids on stage. And, um, it reminded me of some work that I had done in the summers during my undergraduate experience.  

    Simone Liberty   

    So, I met Sterling DeVries, who is the Director of Education at the Gaillard center, and still is, um, and just told her how interested I was in, um, arts education. So we talked for a while about that. And I ended up actually writing a letter, um, in email form, to both Catherine and Sterling; I’m basically creating myself a position at the Gaillard. I ended up getting that position, but the catch was what I really wanted to do was work about part-time in the Education Department and part-time in the Fundraising and Development Department. And instead, what they could offer me because of, um,  budgetary needs, was a full-time or it was still a part-time position in development while I was in graduate school. And so I ended up raising funds for specifically the education program at the Gaillard while I was there for about two and a half years and absolutely loved the work that I was doing because I got to raise the funds that were supporting the arts education. But, I wasn’t doing it myself. I really wanted to be with the kids specifically. So, I started to talk to Sterling more about that. And she eventually ended up asking me to be one of their teaching artists for the summer camp that I went and saw originally. So, that was kind of my bridge into teaching artistry. 

    Simone Liberty   

     It started out as just teaching summer camps. And more and more as I got my name out there and started to network myself a little bit harder and got connected with some other community partners, I’m now able to say that I’m full-time as a teaching artist. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Amazing. That’s a great story. So, nowadays, how would you say the split is between working in schools and working behind a desk? What, does your typical day kind of look like?  

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, so it really depends. I used to love routine. Unfortunately, this job has no routine. So, if I’m in a school, it’s either in school after school, or maybe summer camps. 

    Simone Liberty   

     So let’s take today, for example, today, I am going to be in a school, but my school time doesn’t start until 12:45. And from 12:45, until the end of their school day, basically, I’ll be teaching different classes, and then I do an after school program. So, that meant that I had a couple of hours this morning to be on my laptop. And that’s what I have been doing and will continue to do after we get off of this Zoom call. This, I would say, looks like a pretty typical day. If there were such thing as a typical day, where you know, it’s a balance between computer work and then being face to face with students for me, but like I said, a teaching artist can also be face to face with adults in the community or anything like that, too.  

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Yeah, so do you think it’s been I mean, you said that you kind of paved your way to find this position, but has it been challenging to work within this field? What kind of challenges do you see on a day-to-day basis? And how do you kind of overcome those? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yeah, so it has been difficult to call this a full-time career path. As I mentioned before, you really have to be intentional with networking and getting yourself out in the community, so that people know who you are and what you do. And what I have found is that I’ll speak specifically to the Charleston area. Lots of people have questions or are generally confused about what a teaching artist does for their work, and I think that has to do with the broad nature of the role, you know, what, what age range do you like to work with? Or what’s the style of your workshops? Sometimes, when I’m working with different community members when I am going into schools, specifically, I’m doing arts integration. And so that’s making sure that it’s not just a dance or theater, workshop, I’m teaching dance and theater things, but it’s also teaching a core curriculum subject like math, or science or ELA. 

    Simone Liberty   

     So, all of those moving pieces they make a teaching artist change how they describe themselves. And so it’s just this really vast thing that hasn’t really been nailed down, nor do you want it to, because we’re creative individuals. So you want that breadth. So, all of that being said, it’s tricky to keep having the conversation of who are you and what do you do? And you know, what are your credentials? Because there’s not really credentials in geometry, there’s no certificate, there’s no degree in teaching artistry. But you know, that’s, that’s kind of the tricky part of it. And with that comes, where do you find your peers? You know, it can be a little bit isolating of a position if you don’t have community partners that you’re really in contact with. So, it’s just it requires lots of self initiation. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Yeah, and so as far as networking goes, how have you been able to network with people? Are there any events that you’ve gone to? Or is there anything within South Carolina programs or communities that you’ve found to kind of build those connections? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yes. So, first and foremost, I will need to tell you about Engaging Creative Minds, which is one of my community partners, and one of the organizations that I do lots of work for. They’re kind of like a booking agent for teaching artists, and they have a whole roster of artists. All of these artists go into schools as well and do very similar things to what I’m doing, but just maybe in a different discipline, or the same. So, I focus on dance and musical theater. And so lots of those teaching artists I’ve been able to connect with through engaging creative minds, even if it’s just on an email basis, some of them I’ve been able to meet in person, even, you know, get coffee with and pick their brain about how they run their workshops. But that’s been a great help. 

    Simone Liberty   

     I should also call out professional connections that aren’t teaching artists have been very helpful in just understanding the field more broadly. And so I like to stay well connected with the South Carolina Arts Commission and also the South Carolina Arts Alliance, two separate things, but, the Arts Alliance is a nonprofit that is the statewide Arts Advocacy Organization. So, that, those two organizations or the agency and that organization have been great to be connected with so that I understand more about the South Carolina Arts field at large. 

    Simone Liberty   

     And then I find a lot of my personal connections to be from a part of my graduate program. So not only did I do the masters in public administration, but the College of Charleston also offers a certificate in Arts and Cultural management. So, a lot of the individuals from my cohort and I are still quite close. So, I would say that those are the couple of events and organizations that I stay connected with. 

    Simone Liberty   

    Perfect, and so throughout your journey so far, has there been any particular project or, I don’t know, a program that you’ve worked on that has had a significant impact on you, or that you hold, like, close to your heart, anything that stands out as being like a highlight of your career so far? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Yes. And actually, it’s it’s kind of a new one. But I’ve been really happy about this past couple of months now. So, I, for the past couple of years, have struggled with the question of what is my why. And I think that’s a really important question, especially for young professionals to be asking themselves when they’re going through, trying to find what they love to do for work, what you know, makes their workday feel like it’s fun, rather than work. And so what I’ve been working on is, I really love to extend art and creativity to everyone, art for all, art for everybody. And one thing that had been kind of gnawing at me for a while is that I love tap dancing. I’m not a ballerina, but I do love tap dancing, and I can’t teach that in most of the schools that I go into because there’s a prohibitive cost to tap dancing. Those tap shoes they start at $65 dollars. So, that’s just not possible for a lot of the students that I teach. 

    Simone Liberty   

     So, what I created last fall, I’m calling them Tip Taps. It is a low-cost tap accessory, I’ll call it. It’s not a replacement to a tap shoe. But it’s simply just a piece of metal that you can strap to any shoe. And I can now go in and teach tap dance workshops. Now it’s just one tap, it’s not the heels, but I can teach tap dance workshops to kids who might not have ever had a tap shoe on their foot before. So, this has been definitely a highlight. And it’s really brought me back to that, what’s your why? Because, like I said, my why is art for all and making sure that there are accessible ways to bring art into our community, even if it’s not in a traditional way. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    As far as, skills that you possess, what do you think has helped you in this role? Clearly, you have ingenuity and creativity with projects like that. But are there any other skills that you’ve had that you think really advance your role? 

    Simone Liberty   

    That’s a good question. Yes, I want to say flexibility and not in the dancer way. But being flexible in your schedule, in your idea of what your day is going to look like in your goals, even. You know, sometimes you end up either under or overshooting in a goal that you have at, say, the beginning of the year or the beginning of a school year or semester, whatever it might be. Whether that’s a financial goal, a mindset goal, or a life, a work-life balance goal, whatever it is, there’s definitely an element of, like, entrepreneurship in craft. And it takes some flexibility. 

    Simone Liberty   

     There, there was another thing that I was thinking of well, ah, curiosity would be another one. That’s definitely been a skill that I’ve had to flex quite a lot, you know, ask lots of questions and kind of dive into who might be potential partners for you to go in and offer your teaching artistry to. So I would say, Yeah, curiosity and flexibility. Those would be the two skills. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Yeah, great. And so, just as we wrap up, do you have any advice for young professionals and college students who are trying to make a path in the creative world and looking for a job similar to yours? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Stay connected to what brought you to the arts in the first place. This has been something that I’ve been trying to get back to the last year, I would say, you know, we probably all landed in arts management or arts administration or wanting to be in the creative field because we are creatives, and we are artists, or at least we say like, oh, I used to be. It’s not gone, and it doesn’t need to be. So, my advice to young professionals is to find that adult dance class, find the you know, down here in Charleston, we’ve got like Redux that offers adult art workshops. Find those opportunities to stick with your craft and make sure that that stays in your practice. So, I think the reason that I’m saying this is because it really does help you to fill in that work-life balance, and at the same time might let you draw some connections towards your why, why you’re doing this. 

    Emma Plutnicki   

    Great. That’s such good advice. Okay. So, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything else you’d like to add about your profession, your career or anything else? 

    Simone Liberty   

    Oh, my gosh, we need more teaching artists. Please. You know, there’s there is no lack of demand. And also, I think that the field of teaching artistry is growing at just an exponential rate in South Carolina at large. I do know that there’s planning to be a Teaching Artists Forum in the fall by the South Carolina Arts Commission. And I think they’ve, they always have community partners on things like that. So yes, you know, look out for things like that if the idea of teaching artistry is interesting to you. I also would say to get connected with Tag, which is the Teaching Artists Guild. There’s other national and even international resources for teaching artists to kind of connect with so that you can explore the field more and of course, if you have anyone up your way that would like to connect with me about teaching artistry with more questions, feel free to send them my way.