Interview
Nicoletta Maranos
Fall 2007 – Internship
Teacher: Lloyd Schuh
Interview with Artist Merri Pattinian
History:
Merri Pattinian is a graphic designer as well as a commercial artist.
Her business, as well as her life long passion, is making and selling
her art. What makes her pieces so unique is that she is constantly exploring
new ways of assembling her art as she recycles individual creations. She
puts her energy toward developing a piece of artwork by combining new
textures and exploring spatial relationships and movement and feeling.
How I found this artist was by luck. I opened the yellow pages up and
did an “art” search and was lucky enough to seen that she
works up the street from me. She has 3 studios in the Houston area and
one of them is located in Sharpstown on Bissonnet. This was not the only
business she ever operated. She has a 2-year degree in commercial art
that she used to do advertising work in Manhattan with about 40 years
ago (considered to be a graphic design degree today. She has traveled
around the U.S. and been in galleries from Boston, New York, California
and Florida. Right now she is planning to move back to Florida, but is
still going to continue her passion, art. She told me how she used to
do logos, brochures, cards, banners and posters all by hand in the days
before computers did everything for you. They had write in “greeken”
which is to cut and paste letters and words all done by hand to make sure
they fit together before going to be printed. If the size or spacing was
wrong, she had to do it all over again. Since there where not many graphic
artists 40 years ago, she received good pay because every project was
so time consuming. She did this for 20 years and then worked for Avon
in New York. She worked for Avon for quite some time and considers it
one her favorite early jobs. After working with them for a while, she
moved to San Diego to see what the art scene down there had to offer.
She still did graphics during the day and was an artist at night. In the
end, she decided to move to Houston to become a full time artist here.
Questions:
What or who inspired you to take up art as a pastime?
“It comes within,” she told me. She did not like the idea
of having a desk job or becoming a secretary once finished with high school.
There where not much else a woman could choose as a profession 40 years
ago. All of her friends chose the typing class route (which she regrets
since she can’t type fast), but she did not think it was for her.
In turn, since she loves design and art, she went ahead and took a risk
by doing something she truly loved as a career. She said that she always
knew when she was young that she was going to do design, but it was her
passion to do it that drove her and that only comes from within.
At what point did it turn from a hobby to something that you wanted to
do for a living?
When she went to San Diego, she was a graphic designer during the day
and artist at night. It was a bit hard to juggle two different kinds of
job. At this point she was steering in the direction of the art shows
more than graphic design and she decided to take on her passion head on.
When did you start this business off of Bissonnet?
1985 is when she started to work in the Houston area. She Has 3 Studios
in Houston but she is moving out to Florida.
Tell me about you some of your favorite pieces?
“They are all my favorite,” she told me. She has her favorites
around her house and she still has her sketch book that dates back to
high school. Like many artists, she still has her collection of books,
artwork, and business related ads all around her studio. Books that are
40 years old still lying around have some of her sketches of people sitting
on the train, Manhattan buildings, and everyday thing she observed as
a young college grad on the streets of New York. “They are like
my Diaries. I look in them and it takes me back to where I was that day,
what the weather was like, who I was with, everything.” Even though
Merri has all her old work in her studio, her favorite is always her latest
artwork. “I love them all, they are my children but I love my very
last artwork until I make a new one.”
Is there a particular time of the year that people tend to buy more art?
No, she says. Art is year round and she goes to 30-35 art shows a year.
She does not work much toward the end of the year, but when the new year
starts, it is back to work. Sometimes she will have a show each week for
several months strait. “It really depends on where you go to sell
your art. If you go to Florida and sell winter paintings, it won’t
go too well since Florida is a summer place and most people in Florida
want summer themed paintings,” she said. Merri will have a 20 year
old artwork piece that did not sell at a show, but will change the color
or the design and then it will sell at the next art show. She is a true
“green” artist she explains with a laugh, she recycles almost
everything. What you sell or how much you see depends on the artwork and
where you are.
Do you have consistent customers that buy your pieces regularly?
She has several collectors that buy her artwork on a regularly basis.
Some of them have 20 pieces of her artwork in their house. She has collectors
that buy her work when her pieces are in the art gallery. She has sold
thousands of her works over the years and she sells both big and small
pieces. Each major piece will sell around $1000 each.
What’s your favorite material to use on canvas?
Everything, but now she is mainly using metal and paper. “I have
tools and paints that that are not on the shelves anymore. Some of these
paints are no longer produced. I have stuff that dates back to college,”
Merri said. She has huge pieces of metal to small ones and also paper
and paints around the studio. Mainly she recycles old things and makes
new creations from it.
Did you ever win any contests while in school?
Yes, she won awards in college and school and even in art shows. It is
getting hard harder to win since entering in shows is expensive and paying
for the prints is not cheap. There is new art coming up and people are
more into the new art instead of the traditional art.
I know you’re probably familiar with all the art galleries in Houston,
any favorites?
“No, I’ve seen enough art in my life,” she told us.
She’s been to many art galleries and the only favorites are the
ones that have her art in them. She is only interested in the art galleries
when they want to feature her art in them, since she is now into the business
aspect of her art.
Any favorite artists that have inspired you over the years?
M.C Usher is one of her favorites and she has even made a metal 1000
piece jigsaw puzzle that is has an M.C Usher drawing on it. What really
inspired her when she was young were abstract expressionist painters like
Robert Rosenberg. There is a movie and book about abstract expressionists
and how they all committed suicide. She not a big on Picasso or Monet
artworks, but likes Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
How long does it take to finish up a piece?
“I still have pieces that I am working on 20 years later. It might
take years to finish one thing,” she told us. “Some time I
will work on a piece and stop working on it until it pops up at me again.”
She and I are much alike when it comes to art, since we will have one
artwork and leave it behind until we are ready to pick it up again and
finish it. She has little scraps and items around and she will go back
to and place them together. “What ever comes to my mind,”
she said “but the minimum amount of time is a week.”
What’s the hardest part of running your own business because most
artists aren’t able or are too scared to do it for a living?
She has met people that have wonderful art that just started selling
in their retirement. “I hated the idea to working in an office and
not doing what I like. To me, that is what I think hell is,” she
said as she hated the idea of working for 40 years at a job that she dreaded
waking up to every morning. “I ask these people why they did not
pursue anything with their art and waited for so long,” she said.
“I rather get paid little and do what I like then get paid a lot
and do something I hate.” She doesn’t really have too many
hardships at this stage in her career because she’s been doing it
for so long.
What do you think of Digital Art?
Since I am a digital artist myself, I wanted to see if she likes digital
art or not. In truth she can’t say since, she’s never done
this field of art before. She did try it out, but never got the hang of
it. She has some friends in this art field appreciates the amount of work
and technology used for digital art. “Digital art is starting to
become huge and I’ve seen some great artworks at the shows,”
she said. Digital art has its own category and following/
Merri Pattinian is a great artist and very kind person. She is going
to move out sometime during the month of December and continue her art
career. Graphic design has come a long way since in the 60’s and
it looks extremely hard to do what was done back then like cut and paste
each piece into place on paper. Everything is done by computers now and
it was interesting to receive a history lesson on how we do things now
then how things were done back them. I am glade we have computers to help
us and it was nice too see that someone did go for her dream in art and
makes a living out of it. She does not think of herself as a famous person
and she says that she’s only famous to the people that know her.
I hope things go well for her in Florida.
Business name: Pattinian Art and Design
Owner: Merri Pattinian
Job: Graphic Design and Artiest
Number: 713-785-8537
Website:
Click here
|
