Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#324: Craig & Ally Black (Visual Artist) (pt. 2 of 2)
This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with Craig and Ally Black, the Founder and Managing Director respectively for Scottish visual artist Craig Black. Craig is renowned for his innovative “Acrylic Fusion” technique— a hand-poured paint process that creates mesmerizing art.
His art has been exhibited in London, Sydney and Dubai, and his style and versatility has led to collaborations with global brands including FIFA, Porsche, Red Bull, Jaguar, the NBA and the NFL.
Make sure you check out Craig’s website to see his stunning artwork! https://craig.black/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.
Nick Petrella:And I'm Nick Petrella. We're joined today by Craig and Ally Black, the founder and managing director, respectively, for Scottish artist Craig Black. Craig is renowned for his innovative acrylic fusion technique. It's a hand-poured paint process that creates mesmerizing art. Craig's art has been exhibited in London, sydney and Dubai, and his style and versatility has led to collaborations with global brands including FIFA, porsche, red Bull, jaguar, the NBA and the NFL. Make sure you check out Craig's website to see his amazing artwork. Thank you both for being here.
Craig Black:Thanks for having us.
Craig Black:Yep, that was a lovely lovely introduction. Thank you so much
Nick Petrella:. Thank you, I picked up most of that from your website, so so just quick uh question when you're at champions league or whatever and you have the videos on on your site and you're painting that ball, are you only painting one? Are you painting multiples, and do you sell that ball? Is that for? How does that work?
Craig Black:It depends on what the client's asking for, and budget wise as well.
Craig Black:Usually it's one or two but regardless of it's the same football, same colors. When I pour on one ball, it's totally different, and that is the beauty of what I'm doing. I'm creating this unique experience and I could do 10 and it'd all be totally different, and that is the brilliant thing of it. And then sometimes what we do is like you have people who want to buy it right there, and then, yeah, which is great.
Craig Black:A lot of the times the brands will go no, because we love it so much. We want to buy it, um, which is great for us and great for business kind of thing. But it's it's that element of being able to exclusivity as well like we do not go right, we'll do 25, because one is it's a lot of pain for me to do within usually what happens is sorry, I'm saying tangent here, but if there's an event and they've got like a two hour slot or an hour slot, there's only so much I can do in that, so we make it exclusive to that one point, and then, because of that, it creates a generous crowd as well, which is great, yeah well, and so when you're, when you're uh prospecting or going after new clients to new brands to partner with, or when they're coming to you, how do you evaluate this?
Andy Heise:is this would be a good collaboration or maybe maybe this isn't a good collaboration?
Ally Black:between ourselves of what aligns with our vision creatively, and where we want to go and what direction we want to move in. And I guess, with Craig's technique, because it is quite it's unique and no one else is doing it. We're aware that we can't work with every single brand because they're not going to want to do. How do I explain that?
Craig Black:The same thing, yeah if there was a certain whisky brand yeah and they wanted me to do a creole effusion on that.
Craig Black:Another whisky brand probably wouldn't come to me and go, ah, nah. So we we need to think, strategically thinking. Is this the whisky brand that we dream about working with? Is this the one that is financially good for us? Is that business that is financially good for us as a business? Is it feasible? All those. So there's multiple things like that going on. I think partly to that, as well as having an initial gut feeling, like we always trust in our gut. If something feels great and it feels exciting, like regardless of what it could be like, we're kind of like let's go for it, let's explore it.
Craig Black:There's been times where we've been, fortunately, being approached about certain projects and it just doesn't feel right. Or sometimes when, like, whether the brands or collectors or whoever say we want this for x amount and it's just not financially feasible, but unfortunately we can't do that. But if we should, but something what we try and do is, I think, what's great about, because it's just me and ali we try and be as flexible as possible, sure, accommodate that. So maybe what you're thinking over here is x, but maybe think about doing y over here or something a bit different and pivot, and I think that's been one of the greatest things about our business and the brands, because there's a lot of times they've gone like, for instance, fifa reached out to us and they were like, oh, can you paint? What was it? A thousand footballs, something like that, a thousand footballs in like a week or something like that. And I was like, oh no, there's no shit. Like I've not got an army of people and no one can do what I do.
Craig Black:Right, what we did is like, well, let's think of what is the brief, what we're trying to achieve here, and it ended up being it was a, it was a performance for each country and all the players of each country. So I said, well, why don't do one ball as a live art performance for each country and doing as a live art performance in front of all the players? And they were like you know what? That's a much better idea, yeah. And then, personally, it was much better idea like experience for us, because that, well, we got sure, we went to qatar at the world cup and I got to meet all the legends of the game, so that was like a total highlight for me. Um, but it's just, it's. It's when you get an opportunity and being able to see further and try and adapt and make sure they can work on both ends as well and have that flexibility.
Nick Petrella:Yeah so we usually talk about where artists get their inspiration, and I want to pivot a bit. Since you've painted a variety of different objects and, like you said, you could paint pretty much everything what's the most unique item you've painted and sold?
Craig Black:I I'm gravitating towards porsche porsche how do you pronounce it? Porsche I say porsche, that's totally wrong.
Nick Petrella:Well, I said jaguar and I know you don't say so.
Craig Black:I would say that was that's the most unique one that we've sold and worked on, because when that project came about so I mentioned before about visualisation and manifestation, so I have this kind of vision board in my house and it's all projects I would love to work on and Porsche was one of them and I always dreamed about it. I always thought about me creating this car and stuff. And then that day came and we got a phone call and it was like craig, can you paint on a take-hand, a porsche take-hand, a porsche take-hand? And I said, do you mean directly onto the car? And they're like, yeah, and I'm like I could.
Craig Black:However, as a disclaimer, paint could seep into the engine and cause damage and maybe a lot of energy. And they're like, ah, maybe that doesn't work. But then I said, oh, what we could do is more like a car wrap kind of thing, and we could wrap it in one of my textures kind of thing. And they're like, yeah, absolutely brilliant, love the idea. We're like great, we can do it. We hung up that call and I was like how are we going to do this?
Announcer:Exactly Do I do this.
Craig Black:Because I've never done it before.
Ally Black:Yeah.
Craig Black:So why not work with one of the biggest brands in the world and challenge myself like that, Put myself in a position where I'm like oh.
Craig Black:I know. So I had an idea. So what happened was I created this original artwork, which is on a 60 centimeter by 60 centimeter mdf prime wooden board. I created my acrylic fusion technique, pouring paint onto it using the brand colors.
Craig Black:Uh, for porsche got a super high-res photograph of that texture and that became the wrap and wrapped it onto this car. And then so we sent the remember, we sent the artwork files. I sent the artwork files to the signage guys who were wrapping the car and the very last minute I thought I'm going to put my name on the back of the car and hopefully no one says anything. So I put it on and it got printed and my name was on the back of the car and the person was like they loved it, they thought it was old. But the impact of that so that car that I created was initially meant to be for like one month pop up in an event in London and then it was meant to be unwrapped and that was it all done but the impact that that car had, not only in offline but online as well, from social media marketing, all those kind of things went extremely well, way beyond even our expectations and stuff.
Craig Black:And that car is now sitting in the headquarters. Isn't it Sitting in the headquarters in London? And that car is now sitting in the headquarters, isn't it Sitting in the headquarters in London. And we've collaborated now collaborated again with Porsche because they had an issue with they had this it's called the showroom in Mayfair London. It's a beautiful, high-end place in London and they basically had this 9-10 car showroom and the issue they had was all these beautiful cars but no one's coming in. The footfall was really low. How do we engage the customer to come into the shop? And one of the directors there says I think we need to create a car in here. And then so we got a phone call and they were renovating the space and they phoned Ali and says can Craig create a green version of Acrylic Fusion Taycan for the store? We're like, yeah, can he do it in three days? We're like, um, yeah, so we figured it out and we got it done. But again, this is where it really changed the dynamic, the impact it it had.
Craig Black:So that car showroom was, like I said, nine or ten cars. They took them all away and it's now three, but the main car is this green acrylic Fusion Taycan. It's so eye-catching, so mesmerizing, that people have been flocking in. The results have been crazy the football has doubled and the sales of the car has almost tripled as well because of the car has almost like tripled as well because of the take-on. So that's why I always say, like, art can have a massive impact on brands, and I always say to artists like, look at this field, look what you could potentially do. There's so much value in it. And that collaboration has opened up several doors, not only in the brand world, but also in the galleries and art collectors. Oh, I've seen your car. Can you create an artwork from my house or whatever? So it's, it's pretty incredible. So that was the one I would say is a cool, unique one for us yeah, that's a, that's a big one.
Nick Petrella:When it was funny, when you said you put your name on there, I was thinking, boy, it would have been great to put his website on there. Your website is craig black, isn't it?
Craig Black:It is Craig Black, so I'm not too far away.
Andy Heise:Easily found Well that's a huge success story there, but every business also faces some setbacks and difficulties. What's been the biggest entrepreneurial challenge that you've faced so far, and how did you navigate that?
Ally Black:Well, what would you?
Craig Black:say I would say is when we get these commissions coming in, we would say we need this for June and you have to block out time to facilitate that. So there's only me and Ali. We can't take on multiple projects at the one time. We can at a certain extent, but I mean like the big, big projects. So what you have to do is pivot and go right. We can't work with you for two or three months because we're allocated this time. But what has been very challenging is when some clients whether it's a product launch that gets pushed into the following year or even two years ahead, and you're like but we've, that's been three months of our work just gone like that, and we're like, oh, we'll pick up again next year, and you're like, yeah, but you don't realize the implications of that has made for us because we've had to knock back work to do your work. Don't be wrong, we make sure we have um deposits in place and financially rewarded, but the reality is that, compared to what it could have been it, it's totally different.
Ally Black:That is something that we've had to navigate ourselves as well, that's probably been the main challenge, for, you know, we're a business that's the two of us, but Craig is only one person and if he's hired for one event he can't be in two places at the same time.
Ally Black:So we're in a position where we quite often need to say no to work because he is booked and we can't just send someone else, another team member. So that can be quite difficult, especially, like you mentioned, when some brands come to us and we we assess what ones we want to work with. Sometimes it's brands we would love to work with but we, unfortunately, would need to say no because he's already booked and committed to something else. So, although we we do want to keep it small and that's intentional and it's just Craig that does what he does and he is the brand essentially that can then cause challenges on the other side as well, where we need to sometimes say no to opportunities we would otherwise love to do but just being on the other side of that is when we've been brave enough to say to clients we're not available at this point a vast majority of them are Often yeah, they're flexible.
Craig Black:They will wait on you. They will wait, which is great.
Ally Black:Really nice.
Craig Black:Most of them, not all of them.
Ally Black:If they've got an event set in stone, then obviously that's not mov but quite often they'll say well, if you can't do that well, we've actually got you know, a 50th anniversary event happening in six months. Perhaps we can do it before that and again, just trying to be flexible around that as much as we can and work together to work out something so because you're only one person, I mean that's, that's kind of a big deal.
Nick Petrella:Do you deal with that with delays in it? Do you have contracts with these brands that if there's a delay?
Craig Black:yeah, we have. We do have contracts in place with these brands and but everything, to be honest, is usually streamlined and I I dictate that process. So, whether I'm working with another agency or design agency, part of the brand or the brand team, internally I usually dictate this is how it's going to go, this is how it works, because I need to be as plain as I possibly can about my process and nine times out of ten it works that way. Can I say?
Ally Black:In our contract and our proposal. It will specifically state the scope of work, the date that's expected to happen. If those goalposts then change further down the line, then that's not legally bound thing because it's not. That's not written in the contract and we do try and be as flexible as we can. But if it was impossible to then accommodate moving goalposts, then we would need to step back and say I'm sorry, but we can't.
Craig Black:We can't work that out, but nine times out of ten.
Craig Black:We do no I just to add to that is like we hold ourselves at a high standard. So if someone, our brand, approaches us and they ask for our services and what would be, we do everything in our power to make that happen and whether the deadlines or I would never miss a deadline, no matter what. If sometimes you need work late or sometimes I may come in here on the weekend, unfortunately, but that's the nature of the beast, especially when you're running your own business, and it's different, because when you're running your own business and creating this lifestyle, moments like that doesn't bother me and doesn't don't get me wrong. We try, we work it in different ways, whether we take a day off the following week and spend time with Olivia, but when it's your own thing and you love it so much and you know the impact you can make and what you're creating as a lifestyle, not just as art, is a very powerful driver and I think that if you're willing to be like that, then you can do so well. For us it's never just 9 to 5.
Ally Black:I think it helps that Craig's just obsessed with art. See, if Craig didn't do this as a job, he would be spending two hours a night painting. It genuinely is. It's a hobby for him. He honestly would be in here, through his own choice, seven days a week probably 12 hours a day because he just loves it.
Ally Black:But obviously there needs to be boundaries there and you need to keep that said, which you are better at doing. But yeah, you just love it. Yeah, I do. If ever I've got plans at the weekend that I'm going out with our daughter, I'll say to craig what are you doing? He's like, well, I'll be in the studio, that's that's what he'll be here until it gets dark.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, he loves it what goes into pricing your art?
Ally Black:So I guess with pricing our art now we've got a really good formula because we've been doing it for so long and we've been able to work out what works.
Ally Black:At the start I had a mentor who used to guide someone who was kind of savvy in that world and had really good experience in that world, both with the brands and the fine art world, so he knew where we were sort of positioned at that point and then gave us a sort of starting point for pricing and then with time we've just grown in confidence of having done it a few times. We've got a bit of a blueprint. So I guess when brands come to us, for example, sometimes they want a live art performance, sometimes they want, you know, marketing campaigns and content, sometimes they want the art piece. So we've done that so many times now that we've got a good basis based on what people are asking, to be able to very confidently put in a proposal. These are the prices that we would normally charge for that. So I guess at the start it was with a bit of help and a mentor and people who had insight into that world because to be honest, we didn't know enough about it at that point.
Craig Black:In total honesty, we were totally guessing at the very beginning. We were going let's just go with this high number, let's go with this low number, let's just go with this high number.
Ally Black:Let's go with this low number.
Craig Black:Let's try and you're trying, you muddle your way through it. What?
Craig Black:we did was we looked at artists how other artists priced their work and looked at artists at that point who were on a similar stage in their career with a similar sort of aesthetic that helped create a basis that really helped for a basis, and then, as Craig said, they sort of tweaked it here and there and we're now in a position where we're quite oh, definitely, and I think over the years now that's been four years doing this the price is going up because our value is going up, the impact that we're making, the brand is going up.
Craig Black:So, always bearing that in mind as well and I just if you're talking for a brand perspective, one brand over here and totally are totally different. One could be global, one could be a small, local brand, so you can't be charging the local one the same as the big one. You need to think about all those aspects to it as well. What are they going to get out the side of it as well? What's the impact on their end Licensing deals, revenues, all those kind of things. And we've we're not afraid to reach out to others for help, to guide us, to go right. We're in this position from your business, and the funny thing is there's not very many people doing what we're doing.
Ally Black:Yeah.
Craig Black:I mean like even hard to learn it. We don't know anyone, even I don't know, even in the UK, like really definitely not like.
Craig Black:It's from a business sense to go how did you navigate this? It's more from people the design world, where I was in before, but even people in business, entrepreneurs in different areas as well, which has been hugely beneficial, which I know. Our recommendation is look at mentors out with the creative industries. How did they go about things? How did you start your business, how did you navigate these deals and stuff like that? And that's been hugely beneficial for us to think about our worth and our value. And then it that's great advice yeah.
Andy Heise:Well, I'm sure you look at the world as a world full of potential collaborations right Now. You see the world that way now.
Craig Black:Yeah, definitely, Definitely Everything I see now I'm like oh, I can do that, we should paint that.
Ally Black:Honestly it does. And see that story at the start where I went to the gym for an hour and he's come up with this whole plan in his head. It still happens we'll walk past something and he'll go. I've got an idea I should get one of those and then I should paint it and then I should pitch it to that company. I swear I've went, made the dinner, come back and he's ordered all the materials?
Craig Black:Yeah, it does. And what has been so amazing is that we built a following of people who love what we're doing and love our story and who we are as people, and we'll get honestly like random like people will do random texts of going. Oh, I've seen this brand and I thought of you. How cool would you be to pay, no fear.
Craig Black:And I was like oh oh, that's a great idea actually like something I would never think of. The golf ball, for instance, came from your dad, my dad yeah her dad was watching golf and he said can you ever paint it on a golf ball?
Ally Black:and I was like no but I will, before you go out, with 24 golf balls arriving at your door. Drivers putters a lot I'm on amazon what's the quote?
Nick Petrella:a man with a hammer only sees a world of nails.
Andy Heise:What's the quote and I'm imagining it's like hey honey, where's my hair dryer? Like where's the remote? Oh sorry, I was painting yeah.
Ally Black:Welcome to my world, yeah.
Andy Heise:So transitioning and this actually is probably relevant for both of you, allie with your nursing background and Craig with your soccer background I wrote the question specifically to ask you know that transition from football soccer to artist Are there skills, knowledge, skills, abilities that were relevant in the soccer world, that are relevant to what you're doing now and and again, ali, probably relevant for you too in in your previous career, um, things that you use there, that you apply in the in your current work?
Craig Black:I would say yeah. Yeah, I would say discipline. Discipline is probably one of the biggest things for me. Um, that I I learned from the sporting world and football world because that ties in massively into running my business. Like I mentioned before, I will never let a client down. I will never miss a deadline. I will never do that and that's probably because of the discipline that I've had from an early age and it's so important in our industry industry and I think it doesn't get thought about enough and that's the biggest one for me. Yeah, I would say kind of thing for me it's probably so.
Ally Black:I worked as a mental health nurse in a prison which, without going into too much explanation, was quite a challenging place to work that had quite a lot of its own challenges and quite a difficult environment to work in. So from that I would say that I've probably taken from it one the ability to deal with challenging situations with a bit more ease than maybe I would have otherwise, because a challenging situation for us is nothing really, and compared to the challenging situations I found myself in in my past job, they're completely different. And then with that comes the perspective of you know, yeah, this is tough, we're negotiating a contract, or there's a client who's, you know, maybe been a little bit difficult, but really, in the grand scheme of things, how does that relate to?
Ally Black:what your challenges were in the last place, which was quite often. You know anger and arguments and violence, and you know people who were really unwell and trying to make sure that you kept them safe. And you know going home every night and hoping that everyone was going to be okay and being safe and looked after it's a whole different ballgame.
Craig Black:Yeah, we always put a reality check on difficult clients or situations and go well, at least you're not in prison anymore it's a different kind of high bar.
Ally Black:I would say that's one of the biggest things for me that makes total sense so, before we get to our final three questions, uh, scott asked this.
Nick Petrella:You're both relatively young and you have a lot of brand extensions and, like you said, you could paint on anything right. Where do you see yourselves in 10 years?
Craig Black:so I I see an evolution of acrylic fusion. So we're already venturing into this space of the digital era and large-scale projections, but also working in different forms of the creative industry such as well. Basically, I'm going to New York in the next few weeks to collaborate with a choreographer to paint on human forms dancers so I'm going to do acrylic fusion on the body forms and they're going to be dancing at the same time. Listen, that's way out of my comfort zone, right, but this is where the excitement and the idea of where acrylic fusion can go, so that evolution of it could be it's taking the live performance element and adding so many layers to that, so it's just going to get bigger and bolder.
Craig Black:We're definitely on that note, like, immersive experience is a big thing. So I have this idea of the different touch points of immersive experience. Could it be touch, taste, taste, smell, all those kind of things. An idea could be large projections and then your physical live art performance. And then could you be eating a donut that opens up and there's acrylic fusion flavouring coming out of it, things like that. We're having these discussions and there's an excitement and a buzz for it and there's things in the pipeline like that, and we're having these discussions and there's an excitement and a buzz for it and there's things in the pipeline like that.
Craig Black:So because everybody always asks, oh, what's next, where can you go? And I'm like there's so much, there's so much and I think, for from an artist point of view, like for me personally, I need to constantly evolve and I could constantly challenge myself and go in places where I feel uncomfortable, because when I'm in that uncomfortable position, I always get extraordinary results, like the Porsche car and all those kind of things. Like every time we've done this, it's been, it's opened up a new door and a new place we could go and something to try it. Maybe it's not where it went to go, but you pivot, but there's such an evolution and I think there's so much more we can find in this immersive experience kind of thing which is quite exciting, yeah it's great well, craig alley, we've reached the point of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions, and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an art entrepreneur?
Craig Black:I've got. I've got an answer for this one. Um, I would say give yourself time to learn your craft. I think it's so, so important to give yourself that time to play and experiment, rather than thinking I need to know this now, I need to have this so wonderful create right here, right now, because we live in a world now with social media, instantanean gratification, that you need to have this, like when I, when I began, I took two years of practicing in the background, right, not a lot of people know that, but I was.
Craig Black:It was tough but I loved it, but I love practicing on my craft and not having the pressure of social media and all those kinds of things and other people. I would say that is the biggest thing that I give to anyone who wants to start in the world in art and entrepreneurship is to give yourself and allow yourself to experiment and play, because we don't do it enough, even sacrificing one hour a night to do it and then build that out. If you accumulate all those hours and days, you're going to get better and go for it what can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Craig Black:well, I would say I come from a working class background and I think for me it probably goes down to the educational system and making it more an awareness that you can have a career in the arts, like I was very fortunate to have an art teacher who believed in my ability, but not at any point did he say to me while I was in school you're going to go be an artist or you're going to be a designer?
Craig Black:Yeah, because I was a footballer, I'm the soccer player, so everyone knew I was going to go along, but it was. It was always seen as a hobby and what we want to do in the future is create an institution where some sort of platform where, whether it's young people, old people, whoever to know that you can build a successful life and career and lifestyle through the arts, whether you're an artist, photographer, jewelry maker, I think having an awareness of it is the biggest thing, especially here in Scotland. Yeah, but, like I said, there's no one that we know of who are doing what we're doing and we've had to figure out ourselves, but the amount of people who are following our path and going oh, if Craig can do it, a guy who's from a small town in Scotland and working with global brands, then he's flying the flag for us, so why can't I do it? And I think that's really, really important.
Andy Heise:Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've been given?
Craig Black:You won't laugh at this. Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice you've been given you?
Ally Black:want one for this. I think probably you might have a different one, but I guess for most people who are further ahead than us, advice we've been given is just enjoy the process, enjoy the journey.
Ally Black:Don't focus too far ahead into the future on what you've not got yeah but look at what you're actually doing right now and enjoy it, and sometimes we even need to remind ourselves of that. We can get carried away and get too focused on where we want to go. There's a book I was reading called the gap and the gain, and it's exactly about that. It's about look at how far you've come, look at what you've done, look at what you're currently doing. Sort of enjoy it for what it is now, rather than always thinking, oh, I'll be happy or I'll be successful when I get here. Just take it for what it is now.
Craig Black:I think we do that anyway absolutely, and I think we get so caught up with how many followers we have or how much sales we've had and it's just so debilitating, to the point where you don't create at all because you get this fear. And I think what we've done is like we've created. We put stuff into the world. We enjoy it. If you like it, join the journey, come with us, and that is the model that is working for us and I highly recommend it for people. And yeah, great answer, great advice.
Nick Petrella:That's great, well said well, craig and Ali, it's been great hearing your you, how your studio's grown organically and how you've pursued opportunities as they've been presented to you. Thanks so much for being with us thanks for having us.
Craig Black:It's been wonderful chatting with you both.
Ally Black:Thank you so much thanks for your time thanks for listening.
Announcer:if you like this podcast, please subscribe and leave you both. Thank you so much. Thanks for your time. Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please subscribe. Visit artsentrepreneurshippodcastcom to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts and this podcast.
Nick Petrella:Thank you.
