The life of an Artist - Bex Moss
One thing I can tell you about Bex Moss is that she is the most hardworking woman I know. This is the reason why I chose her to conduct an interview with. She interests me with her passion for art and her perseverance for the business. She has gone through many struggles with being an artist. I'll start off with a Bex quote; she told me that once you find that thing that makes you feel alive, run with it. She has a fiery self-driven personality that is a combination of crazy determination and childlike creativeness. Her work ethic reflects her work style: doing a rotation of 10 commissions at one time sounds crazy but Bex micromanages herself and really puts in that time and energy to hustle paintings. She has a personality that always likes to put fun into everything she does. During her interview, she mentioned that her "gallery" was more like a Pee Wee Playhouse. That to me was awesome, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else if I were her.
Even though Bex Moss is mostly a self-taught painter where she focuses most of her energy, she is a well-rounded professional artist that has interest in many different areas of art. After high school, Bex furthered her education at Kent State University where she successfully achieved a bachelor's degree in computer science. She also has an associate's degree in commercial music that she received from Stark State University. At the age of 19, Bex started to do freelance art, but it wasn’t until 22 until she started her first internship at an advertising agency working with multimedia. Eight years later, Bex Is now a full time free-lance artist specializing in painting pet portraits.
Bex always knew that she was going to be a creative her whole life, when talking with her I could tell that she is so emotionally attached to art and that she could not do anything else with her life. Her mental state is directly affected by her ability to create. If she didn’t have the opportunity to create, she would not be Bex. I got to ask Bex why art is important to her, and she responded; Art is what makes her who she is. She feels confident in what she does and she has a good self-esteem due to art. The importance of art derives from her passion to connect her customer to her paintings. Painting pet portraits allow her to have an immediate emotional connection with her customers. The one thing she mostly enjoys about her job is personifying animals and giving them life through their eyes. Unfortunately, the one downside to being an artist is the money. Living in a society where art and music are seen at the bottom of the food chain, being successful is hard and artists will always have to live under their means. She says, "I would like to afford contacts and health insurance", I laughed.
On the business side, I learned that there will always be competition in the art community, you should always have a plan B ready, and you should prepare yourself for anything. Bex says when it comes to competition in the art community, you always have to put business first and you can't show all your secrets. Originality is super important to her, the whole "Fake it till you make it" doesn’t work. I learned that you are just wasting your time and everybody else's time if you are faking it. Stay true and original if you want to make it in the business. Being an artist, Bex says that you are always generally poor, so artists need to learn how to live on a low budget and always have a plan B. Also included in these secondary plans, they should be split up into goals and subgoals. When preparing to meet changing trends in the art community, one needs to have multiple backup plans. Bex anticipates that technology is strongly going to affect the value of original art due to the growing demand for digital art. The human attention span is weakening and the world is beginning to shift toward digital art. Bex plans on sticking to her niche market where she enjoys making art for fellow animal lovers that are on the same wavelength.
Part of what makes humans different from other species is the ability to be creative, which brings me to talk about Synesthesia- the ability of a visionary artist to cross two senses. Bex is a live painter where she simultaneously listens to music at concerts and paints on a canvas. She brings the live painting experience to concerts where other people get inspired by her ability to really put herself on the line and make magic happen. Somewhat like when a band goes into a jam, and you never really know where it's going to go, but somehow, they effortlessly hit a peak in the jam and create magic. This is what Bex does with paint. She has contributed to the Cleveland Art Community by choosing a lifestyle that inspires and influences other fellow Cleveland artists.
Overall, I have learned that Bex is an amazing artist and person to have around that highly motivates me to keep on pushing in my art career. A couple things that I have gotten out of this interview is that I need to stick to hanging around the Hustlers in the art world. People that are always looking to grow, always looking to further their passion, and the ones that are humble. The most important part of art is the things you get in return: gratitude and kindness. If you do your job right, you will receive all the things you need. A couple ways I need to prepare for my career as said by Bex is to not have high expectations for results, don’t sell yourself short, and brace yourself. Brace myself for the craziness that may occur on my journey as an artist. Just like Bex said, art and music is the floormat of society, without art, the world would not be able to communicate different perspectives of life. Time is much more valuable than money and that’s why being a starving artist isn't so bad in the end.
