Today we’d like to introduce you to Thomas Heald.
Thomas, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was raised in a working class household with older parents. Growing up, I was interested in skateboarding, playing music, and making artwork. I was generally quiet and shy. My father was in the air force, which gave me an intense disdain for authority and a healthy sense of critical skepticism. My mother is a nurse which gave me a deep sense of empathy and made me a pacifist, sometimes to a fault. I began taking lessons in soft pastel painting at about 8 years old. This is drawing with dry pigment sticks on archival cardstock that has been coated with ground up cork bark. These lessons were a response both to my misbehavior in school and also to my incompetence and disinterest with sports, Boy Scouts, church activities, etc. I also took well to playing music and creative writing, but my weekly painting lessons continued and didn’t end until I entered college at 18. During high school, I was introduced to printmaking by my art teachers Craig Burkhalter and Ellen Banas and introduced to photography by Dannah Minton.
To save money, I went to college while still living at home, until I had earned my Associate’s degree in studio fine art from Middle Georgia State University in Macon, where Craig Burkhalter continued to teach me printmaking methods, and I was also taught drawing, painting, and sculpture techniques by Skip Ward, Eric O’Dell, and Shannon Riddle. All of these individuals are artists within the Middle Georgia area. It was during this time that my peers and I founded a student art league. We executed group exhibits both on campus and off. Our exhibits included class assignments that we felt doubled as high quality works that were representative of us as respective artists. We also showed and sold works of art that we had made that weren’t good enough to satisfy our rubrics. We kept our prices affordable, pooled the money, and did well. A new teacher (who we weren’t fond of) got greedy about it, so we made sure the money disappeared and we founded the Ocmulgee Artist Guild as an entirely independent organization. As of December 2019, we have celebrated five years of the “OAG”‘s existence.
When I had finished my Associate’s Degree, my mother and I were recovering from some traumatic personal issues in our family and I was helping to start a community of artists that were working and growing in Macon, so I decided to stay close to home for my bachelor’s degree as well. I went to Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, where I continued to study printmaking with Bill Fisher and was introduced to 3D installation work by Teayoun Kim-Kassor. During this time I developed my conceptual and technical abilities intensely. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Fine Art in 2017.
Throughout college, and after it as well, I worked as a freelance driver and personal chauffeur, basically, along with doing delivery driving, waiting tables, working for civic engagement non-profits, being a line cook and prep worker, and taking on any creative project that I could.
In 2017, I began designing beer can label designs by hand painting pastel paintings and digitally manipulating the resulting works into cylindrical labels to print, for an old friend who started a brewery called Macon Beer Company. I made labels for about 1 year and helped grow the company in my own very small way. They have now opened a taproom/restaurant in addition to their production space. Personally, it paid for me to pursue my partner, called Chastity, and her daughter. As of December 2019, the three of us live together, building a life here in Macon. Most recently, I have been doing everything I can to avoid working in food service. This includes teaching small little “event based” classes in Macon galleries, such as the 567 center for Renewal, selling my artworks and completing commissions. I participate in live painting at festivals and other events, building and installing “graffiti walls” to the exteriors of buildings in the downtown area, working as an assistant to local artist Joe Adams, by building his canvases, and transporting and installing his artworks in galleries and businesses. I enjoy designing packaging for bands and posters for drama productions and putting on huge pop-up art exhibit events with the Ocmulgee Artist Guild, which has grown immensely. I’m not quite fully able to support myself with my creative work alone, but I feel like I am on the right track.
Has it been a smooth road?
It is difficult to answer what struggles are worth listing. On a personal level, you will hear artists talk about their “inner censor” or “imposter syndrome” These are great struggles and there isn’t a good solution to it other than to try everything, not be afraid to quit one hustle for a new one or for one that is more enjoyable or that makes more money. The artist’s self-esteem is also tied into hearing things from people such as “What a cool hobby!” and “How do you afford to live, though?” Just yesterday, I was at my girlfriend’s friend’s grandparents’ house, doing Christmas stuff with them and a football was thrown close to our vehicle, and Chastity’s friend’s father shouted “Be careful! He’s an artist and doesn’t have good insurance!” This type of stuff can hurt, but you have to brush it off and accept that not everyone will understand how or why you would dedicate your life to a field related to evolving your culture or working in the arts.
Recently, I was waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant, and I told them two weeks in advance that I would need a Friday night off for an art exhibit with the Ocmulgee Artist Guild. They informed me that it would be impossible and that-that Thursday would be my last day if I couldn’t come in the next evening. I said that was fine. They miraculously found someone to cover for me, but even if they hadn’t, I wasn’t required to care, because I had saved my funds to support myself and my little family, despite these kinds of issues. I also made sure that my labor wasn’t only waiting tables. It was during my time at this restaurant that I had started assisting a local artist, Joe Adams, so I was making extra money there, along with doing commission works, graffiti walls, and corks and canvas classes, as well, during my time off. I was eventually, unceremoniously fired from serving, and was able to keep earning money and living, without hesitation.
As of writing this, I have been somewhat supporting myself with art (admittedly during the “easy-to-sell” holiday season) for about three months. I am currently weighing whether I should attempt to start a full time business with the Ocmulgee Artist Guild, or jump back into working with civic engagement non-profits for the 2020 election cycle. I could do both, or either, but I don’t stress it, because I know that as long as I do/make/post/write/work on/submit/expand/etc. -something/anything, related to my artistic practice, every single day, I will make a living somehow. I just make sure that at least some of my labor is creative. I save my money. I hate money and it makes me nervous. I don’t look at it except to make sure I have enough to live. I just let it build, and I try not to worry about walking out of a day job that gets in the way of my creativity. Most importantly, I have grown a thick skin for being around non-artists but learned to take criticism from my artist peers seriously.
Treating your thing, whatever it is, as a full time job, even from home, is how to begin to succeed. By no means whatsoever is an artist’s success related exclusively to talent or education. Work ethic and passion are what make it possible to begin making a living in the arts.
We’d love to hear more about your art.
I am most proud of my work with the Ocmulgee Artist Guild. We have grown to be so fluid in our roles as an organization and separately as artists. We can participate in gallery shows, execute pop-ups in empty spaces, rent studio space and make incredible things, participate as a group at festivals, work in tandem with other organizations and companies, or do anything, as a collective effort. We are all just a phone call away, and we all rally and do our parts. Some members find talent, some clean and decorate, some find spaces to work or have events in, some just come to our shows and help sell us and make connections for those of us who aren’t “people people”, but we ALL create artwork of some kind and at least show it, if not sell it. Over the last five years, the OAG has expanded into the realm of our exclusive events offering a leg up to local companies and organizations such as skate brands and tattoo shops, musicians, rappers, bands and DJ’s, drama, dance, and musical performers, and more.
Additionally, we like including the opportunity for patrons to take part in interactive artworks such as graffiti walls in spaces with DJ’s and electronic music to dance to, live skateboarding demonstrations outside our exhibits, games, face painting, bar crawls, and the opportunity for local workers such as bartenders, henna artists, performers and more, to come to our shows and work for tips and usually a flat rate from our collective. It is a good feeling to be a part of all of these things, but it has solidified my understanding that being an artist is largely working for yourself and carving out your niche in your community while also relying on and supporting others, to create beautiful, unique, and authentic experiences for consumers, while conveying to them that you are working with them as patrons and building something great, from the ground up. This is a model that has worked for us, considering the first Ocmulgee artist guild show was just a few college students, selling $3-$20 artworks to our friends during the holiday season, and asking for donations with nothing else to draw a crowd other than a few cases of beer and bottles of wine and some donated pizza from our parents.
I am also proud of my work making interesting and unique can labels with narratives and little hidden messages in them for Macon Beer Company. It has put my handmade artwork, with my name on it, in the reproduced form on aluminum cans in bars, convenience stores, and the hands of consumers all over the southeastern U.S.
I specialize in making artworks in all forms, from private to commercial sales and commissions. I also have an interest in what I call “art facilitation” which is my blanket term for making art accessible to all people, through my methods, pricing, and sales, and also by creating avenues for people to make art and enjoy their processes. This includes making and installing graffiti walls to enjoy legal graffiti and public art, without vandalism’s baggage and damage, building large-format canvases to allow for people to paint in large format without shelling out hundreds just to have a blank large format stretched canvas surface shipped to them, teaching corks and canvas classes, and donating my insight and ability to profound special needs classrooms to make fun little holiday crafts and things. This list of things falling under “art facilitation” goes on and on and I’m always thinking of new things to try.
My artworks are introspective and autobiographical in concept and relate to memory and nostalgia, which means that it sometimes comes across as fragmented and destroyed images that have been recombined using multiple methods. For instance, I created a pinhole camera for one body of work that I created, used it to digitally capture images, utilizing long duration exposures, converted the result into lithograph format, printed it, and then hand painted the prints for full color. In another instance I took infrared digital photos, created etching plates, printed the plates on paper, converted the resulting etchings to screen printing screens and printed them, Rauschenberg-style onto large canvases with hand painting and collage work integrated into it as well, the result of which to ultimately be stretched onto a canvas frame. This play, between ancient art forms and modern techniques, is important to me.
My three dimensional expressions are usually characterized by filling entire spaces with geometric and tense designs, made out of thread, anchored to the edges of the space itself, to illustrate feelings and emotions.
As far as my artwork, I am all over the place but also focused, in that I enjoy making observational, representational, non-objective, or abstracted paintings and drawings in the classical sense, in addition to my pseudo technical conceptual vomit, caused by my aversion to being pigeonholed as this kind of artist or that.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Atlanta is lovely. I love the incredible diversity of culture in Atlanta and I have many friends there. My favorite thing about Atlanta is the availability and variety of options for finding source materials and materials and supplies for any project. Additionally, Atlanta is a utopia for inspiration. There is constantly something interesting to look at or take part in, everywhere that you look. Due to the efficiency of commerce emanating from Atlanta, my work has made it there in the form of my beer can designs. I have shown work in group shows in Atlanta, thanks to friends of mine who grew up making art, there. For these opportunities, I am grateful. As we must do to succeed in any city, I may attempt to invest my work in Atlanta in the not-so-distant future, as I am likely to do in other cities, in other states, as well, to eventually find a new home to live and make my work within.
What I dislike about Atlanta is the difficulty of being appreciated for your work, in the ocean of artists who bought into the idea that Atlanta is the only place for creatives to live and succeed in Georgia. This is not the case, for me at least. To artists elsewhere, not exclusive to Georgia, it comes across as insincere, temporary, and weak to try to ride the coattails of Atlanta’s growth, while ignoring the opportunity to hone your practice at home and build up your scene. I have been more successful and happy, here in Macon, than I would have been if I had relocated to Atlanta directly from college.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://taheald.wixsite.com/thomasheald
- Phone: 4789602297
- Email: Taheald0203@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t.heald_paints/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TAHealdWorks
- Other: openupmybrain.tumblr.com
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