"One of Those Days"
"A Look Only You Would Understand"
"Precocious Little Monster" (appeared in Lucky magazine)
"Where the Earth Meets the Sky"
Work before starting to work with partner, Ashley.
How did you break into the field?
Like most people these days, I wiggled my way into design with a series of little web gigs, posters, flyers, and illustrations (in varying degrees of competence). For a while, I was on retainer to design the identity, web site, and print ads for a team of real estate agents; I designed postcards, programs, and whatnot for the theater groups I acted in; I beefed up my techy skills working at an Apple retailer. All little bits of experience that built up an okay freelancer's résumé.
Please tell us a little about your design work history.
First, an explanation of how Ashley and I work: she draws the line art in black ink and pencil; I scan, tidy, and wave Photoshop at it; and we collaborate on the final colors.
I was working as a production designer at an agency in St. Louis (menu, coupon, crop lines, repeat) when Ashley and I listed our first print on Etsy in March 2006. A few months later, we started to get some attention from craft and design blogs, along with offers for shows from a few galleries. Ashley quit her bartending job that July, and I was able to quit my day job in early 2007.
Since then, the Etsy shop has grown to 10 pages of prints, buttons, postcards, porcelain pieces, and originals, and we've licensed illustrations to Urban Outfitters, Madison Park Greetings, American Greetings, My Favorite Mirror, and several other companies and bands. We've had work in shows around the world.
These days, we're doing a lot of custom portraits, so I spend less time with the printers, and more time zoomed in at 100%, cleaning up hairlines.
What is your teaching philosophy?
Art classes are unique -- we can all share in the process, and recalibrate and experiment long before the work's done, unlike, say, math, where most of that happens quickly in your own head. An art project can be all inside-out, and we can massage its guts while it grows. If the class is engaged in the work, it's easy to get everyone to a very high level.
