Today we’d like to introduce you to John Tindel.
Hi John, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I was born in Opelika, Alabama, raised in Panama City Beach, Fl, schooled in Mobile, Alabama and I landed in Atlanta, Ga. in 1999. When I got to the city this place was oozing with influence but lacking any kind of art scene. I saw galleries full of painting from New York and no local galleries supporting the local artists. However, at this time there were crews of bad-ass artists lurking the streets of Atlanta in the early 2000s with the same hustle and drive to create something from this city. There were live painting competitions, art shows with 150 lbs. of fried chicken, and insane creativity that was growing inside the old warehouses and streets around town. I dove headfirst into this place. Non-stop creating art, painting live and doing whatever I could to try to make a living as an artist in a city that wasn’t set up to do that. I want to live here, and I want to make art here, so I worked to make that happen.
I think I have been painting and doing shows in Atlanta for over 20 years now. I always say that I have done everything there is to do in Atlanta at least 3 times. I have been lucky enough to have done shows in many of the best galleries in Atlanta, an amazing collaboration with Michi Meko at the Marietta Museum of Art shows in New York 😉 and a number of amazing opportunities for murals and sculpture around town. The art journey has been unique and filled with amazing people, good times, and a lot of hustle. There are so many stories that could be told. I definitely thank and appreciate all the folks that dig the art and over the years have supported and helped me make an art career a reality.
Currently, I am living in East Cobb with my family where I am mostly a dad. I seem to be painting a little less these days but have started getting into other creative endeavors. One of the recent things is a video series with Loud South Productions having artists come into my studio and we tell stories, shoot the shit, and have great conversations that aren’t artsy-fartsy in nature. It’s called Deep South Outer Space and can be found on YouTube. I am excited to see what the future holds next. Doing art in Atlanta has been fun and look forward to see where it goes from here. Please visit thecreativelife.com to see the last two decades.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There was no road to follow so the path always felt a little rocky. You had to make your own way and figure out how you could survive here as an artist, but that was the fun part. Blindly following a drive to create. The biggest struggle for the first 75% of my career was figuring out how to make money. I was married and had a new baby which made coming home empty-handed, something I didn’t like doing. In the early part of my career, I would do anything and everything if they would pay me as an artist to do it. From live paintings at strange places, to selling masterpieces for gas money, I would try to use all my creative talents to bring in income. I participated in shows every weekend and tried to cast a wide net to bring back some cash. I just wanted to see if there was a way to be a middle-class artists. The world shows us poor ass artists and then super-mega rich artist. I just want to live in the middle, have some fun, make great art and have a family. Over the last few years, it has really felt like that. I don’t hustle as much, but all the work that was put in during the early has seemed to help me stay creative, make art, and a living…
Use your youth to plant seeds and hustle. Then just be a good person, work hard and those days of non-stop painting just for the love of it will pay off in whichever way you need it to.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an artist and designer and best known for my paintings which have been popping up in Atlanta since 1999. I feel like I get to call myself a veteran of this Atlanta art scene. My work comments on Southern culture with unique imagery and wit. I tend to create large-scale works that are multilayered, multicolored, multifaceted, these paintings are an attempt at a contemporary puzzle, pulling the viewer into a world of color, thoughts, and patterns, — they are unique, and I have yet to be able to explain it. I also have smaller wood blocks that display quotes from my grandparents, contemporary southern dialect, or random thoughts that I spray-paint on wood in vivid colors. I am always mutating.
What I am most proud of besides my kids is that I am still making art and still have a steady stream of ideas coming in. I have some great people that challenge me to go further on ideas and push the art. It’s good to know that the art doesn’t run out.
Hmmm, what sets me apart from others? I think it is the elements inside my style. The ways I paint and experiment with techniques and processes.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
For those that are just starting out… hustle. Learn everything you can about your art form. Not just the style and the paint, but how to build canvases, making websites, marketing, taking photos, and any other thing that will feed into your main creative endeavor. I am also a fan of painting live. I use to go to businesses and ask if I could set a time to paint live. It gives you confidence, makes you work, and you meet all kinds of people that remember seeing an artist paint and maybe great contacts. Back in the day it was our primitive social media to be out live painting but today you can feed your work to the algorithm and push it more online. The more you learn the more you can cut your costs on materials. Then paint like crazy and master your style of art.
Contact Info:
- Website: thecreativelife.com
- Instagram: @tindel
- Facebook: @tindelart
- Twitter: @tindel
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/johntindelartwork
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0Yl5GVWet_d9OCzndwnTrQ
Image Credits
Weston Manders
