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Wake Forest
Theresa Brown’s first career was as a dog trainer running a
100-pen kennel in Raleigh. Steve Filarsky was a sign painter from
Philadelphia, specializing in gold-leaf hand-lettering on fire trucks
and antique boats.
Now, the couple is married, earning a living as
traveling portrait artists for the past 15 years, crisscrossing the
country to sell their work at art shows and returning to home base in
Franklinton in between. Making it work as a self-employed household has
taken flexibility and business savvy, but both say it’s worth it.
“As
times change, you have to adapt what you do,” Brown said. “The biggest
thing is, yeah, you can do it, but it’s hard work.”
Theresa Brown and her husband, Steve Filarsky, are the featured
artists at Wake Forest Art and Frame Shop for Art After Hours on Friday.
- CKELLNER@NEWSOBSERVER.COM
Filarsky and Brown are the featured artists at Wake Forest Art and
Frame Shop for downtown Wake Forest’s Art After Hours event Friday.
Shop owner Beth Massey recently commissioned a portrait from Brown of
her own children, marveling over Brown’s ability to capture the essence
of each child’s personality.
“You can make something look like a picture, but to capture how people in that family see that person is amazing,” Massey said.
The
idea that you can’t make a living as an artist is relatively new –
artists have been tradesmen working on commission for millennia, Brown
said.
“Even the greatest of artists had to go, gee, I’ve got to finish this – I have bills due,” Brown said.
A life in art
Art
show season is cyclical, so Brown and Filarsky have developed a
lifestyle that follows the weather like migrating birds: drive the
camper down to Florida for a month at a time for winter art shows
starting in November, then head to the northern shows in spring and
summer. It helps that they work well together; last Wednesday, Brown was
scheduling art classes in Wake Forest while Filarsky set up their booth
at the state fairgrounds in Raleigh.
The road to self-employed success was a winding one for both artists.
For
Brown, the catalyst was a divorce that left her a single mom of four
kids between the ages of 3 and 13. She needed money, fast.
Her
three years of art school at East Carolina University had left her with
the mindset that painting portraits on commission was somehow lesser,
not truly “art.” She shoved those feelings aside and set up a booth at
the N.C. Flea Market, “where most artists wouldn’t be caught dead.” The
first weekend, she came up empty. Her second weekend, she netted $90.
The two following weekends brought in $250 apiece, and she knew she’d
found a viable career.
In the two decades since, she has
illustrated books for New York publishing houses and other projects, but
her focus is portrait-painting with a special niche capturing people
and their horses or dogs. She first holds a photo session with a client
to get natural, relaxed photos in the setting of their choice. She then
creates a pastel portrait, with special care to capturing the spirit of
her subjects.
Filarsky started out with an architecture degree
from Penn State University, then moved to North Carolina to start a sign
business in Wake Forest, where he met Brown while investigating the
local art scene. He specializes in watercolor portraits, in addition to
hand-lettering gigs from across the country.
Having a
business-owner’s mindset is crucial to succeeding in a notoriously
difficult field, Brown said. There’s no waiting for inspiration to
strike – the work has to be done according to client specifications on
deadline.
The couple is able to live comfortably; their house and
cars loans are mostly paid off, and they used to maintain a beach
getaway spot. Brown’s kids are grown, but the couple has two ponies,
five dogs and a goat.
“When it comes to ‘making a living,’ you
determine what you want,” Brown said. “Aim for what you want, and you
can do it by hitting the right market. Luck doesn’t enter into it.”
http://www.northraleighnews.com/2012/05/08/13189/on-the-road-franklinton-painting.html
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| Portrait of Massey children |
