Steve's art/writing business fund
Donation protected
Hi, my name is Steve Emig, and I'm starting a new career around my art and writing. My goal in this crowdfunding campaign is to find 43 people to contibute $25 or more to jump start my small business. Everyone who contributes $25 or more gets an original 12" X 18" drawing and a zine I just published.
Currently in North Carolina
I've circled the country in my life, spending most of my adult life in Southern California. I now live in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina.
BMX and skateboarding
As a high school kid in Boise, Idaho in the early 80's (yeah, I'm old), I got into a weird, new little sport called BMX freestyle. A year after I graduated my family moved to San Jose, California. I soon became a part of the Golden Gate Park freestyle scene, one of the strongest in the country at the time. I started a zine about freestyle. For those who don't know, a zine is a small, self-published booklet, usually made on a copy machine. That's what we did before blogs. Somehow, my zine led to a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines. That job launched me into the BMX industry in Southern California as a naive 20-year-old. I didn't really fit in with the magazine crew. But that job led to editing a newsletter and later to video and TV production work. The whole time I was one of those guys out learning tricks on my bike every night.
Graffiti and Street Art
As a BMXer and occasional skateboarder, I was always going to ride in obscure urban places, often covered in graffiti. I became a big fan of graffiti, specifically the incredible walls the better artists (excuse me, "writers") do. Stickers, T-shirts, and board graphics are a big part of the action sports culture, which was another influence. As the years passed, street art emerged, wheat paste signs, stencils, and and other forms sprung up as another influence. Like BMX street riding and skateboarding, these are highly creative forms of vandalism, usually taking places in people don't care about and rarely visit.
It started with Cindy Crawford
My unique style of drawing with Sharpie markers actually started with MTV's House of Style show hosted by supermodel Cindy Crawford. In 2002, I was living in a small room in Garden Grove, California. The show had a segment about "doodle walls." The idea was that you take a roll of butcher paper, tape it to your walls, and draw or write all over it. My little room was like a cave. So I decided to get some rolls of paper and some markers and make a mural that looked like I was looking out of a cave at a sunset. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I drew the picture, but when I started to color it in, the colors looked terrible. I wound up taking the rolls of paper and making huge collages of photos from my BMX, skateboard, and rock climbing magazines. In between photos, I experimented with different ways to shade with markers.
Living in an indie art gallery
In 2003, I went back to driving a taxi, a job I started in 1999 after an injury. Unfortunately the taxi industry was changing, and I lived in me cab for two years, working 7 days a week, 80 to 100 hours most weeks. I scraped by, but never made enough money to rent an apartment. Then a another driver made an offer I couldn't refuse. He owned his own cab, and he also had an indie art gallery in an industrial unit in Anaheim, across from the dump. I could live in the gallery during the week when it was closed and drive his taxi on the weekends when the gallery was open. There was only one catch, the gallery watchcat just had a litter of kittens. I took the deal and became roommates with seven cats and a huge room full of art by up-and-coming artists. As a taxi driver, I had completely turned away from anything creative. Living in the gallery, I started drawing almost immediately. I went back to drawing with markers. One day I was drawing a picture of a tree, and started scribbling one layer of color over another. I liked the look of it, and that was the start of my Sharpie "scribble style" of shading with markers.
From hobby to career
Taxi driving doesn't pay anymore. Now, ten years after starting my unique style with Sharpies, I'm building a new career with this drawing style. You can check out more of my work at: Steve Emig Art . I draw mainly sports drawings, working from photos. I usually do the subject of the drawing in black and white, high contrast, and then color the background. Yeah, I know that sounds backwards, but I like it. Now you know my story, it's time to pick one of the donation levels and get one of my original drawings for less than I usually sell them for. I'm doing this to jump start this little business and to get my work out there.
What I'll do with the money
As luck would have it, my laptop just died, and it's hard to start an online business without a computer. So I need to get it repaired. Next I'll buy the needed art supplies to do all the drawings. I'll use another chunk on shipping orders out and day to day business expenses like gas money and promoting my work. If there's enough left, I'll buy a decent digital camera, I'm working with a pretty old one right now.
In addition to the original drawing and "Club White Bear" zine the first 43 of you will receive for a $25 donation, I also have three sets of brand new Synopsis skateboard bearings I will give to random people who help me out. Synopsis worked with engineers to create the highest quality bearings in skateboarding. Let me know if you skate so I can put you in the drawing for those.
Currently in North Carolina
I've circled the country in my life, spending most of my adult life in Southern California. I now live in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina.
BMX and skateboarding
As a high school kid in Boise, Idaho in the early 80's (yeah, I'm old), I got into a weird, new little sport called BMX freestyle. A year after I graduated my family moved to San Jose, California. I soon became a part of the Golden Gate Park freestyle scene, one of the strongest in the country at the time. I started a zine about freestyle. For those who don't know, a zine is a small, self-published booklet, usually made on a copy machine. That's what we did before blogs. Somehow, my zine led to a job at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines. That job launched me into the BMX industry in Southern California as a naive 20-year-old. I didn't really fit in with the magazine crew. But that job led to editing a newsletter and later to video and TV production work. The whole time I was one of those guys out learning tricks on my bike every night.
Graffiti and Street Art
As a BMXer and occasional skateboarder, I was always going to ride in obscure urban places, often covered in graffiti. I became a big fan of graffiti, specifically the incredible walls the better artists (excuse me, "writers") do. Stickers, T-shirts, and board graphics are a big part of the action sports culture, which was another influence. As the years passed, street art emerged, wheat paste signs, stencils, and and other forms sprung up as another influence. Like BMX street riding and skateboarding, these are highly creative forms of vandalism, usually taking places in people don't care about and rarely visit.
It started with Cindy Crawford
My unique style of drawing with Sharpie markers actually started with MTV's House of Style show hosted by supermodel Cindy Crawford. In 2002, I was living in a small room in Garden Grove, California. The show had a segment about "doodle walls." The idea was that you take a roll of butcher paper, tape it to your walls, and draw or write all over it. My little room was like a cave. So I decided to get some rolls of paper and some markers and make a mural that looked like I was looking out of a cave at a sunset. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I drew the picture, but when I started to color it in, the colors looked terrible. I wound up taking the rolls of paper and making huge collages of photos from my BMX, skateboard, and rock climbing magazines. In between photos, I experimented with different ways to shade with markers.
Living in an indie art gallery
In 2003, I went back to driving a taxi, a job I started in 1999 after an injury. Unfortunately the taxi industry was changing, and I lived in me cab for two years, working 7 days a week, 80 to 100 hours most weeks. I scraped by, but never made enough money to rent an apartment. Then a another driver made an offer I couldn't refuse. He owned his own cab, and he also had an indie art gallery in an industrial unit in Anaheim, across from the dump. I could live in the gallery during the week when it was closed and drive his taxi on the weekends when the gallery was open. There was only one catch, the gallery watchcat just had a litter of kittens. I took the deal and became roommates with seven cats and a huge room full of art by up-and-coming artists. As a taxi driver, I had completely turned away from anything creative. Living in the gallery, I started drawing almost immediately. I went back to drawing with markers. One day I was drawing a picture of a tree, and started scribbling one layer of color over another. I liked the look of it, and that was the start of my Sharpie "scribble style" of shading with markers.
From hobby to career
Taxi driving doesn't pay anymore. Now, ten years after starting my unique style with Sharpies, I'm building a new career with this drawing style. You can check out more of my work at: Steve Emig Art . I draw mainly sports drawings, working from photos. I usually do the subject of the drawing in black and white, high contrast, and then color the background. Yeah, I know that sounds backwards, but I like it. Now you know my story, it's time to pick one of the donation levels and get one of my original drawings for less than I usually sell them for. I'm doing this to jump start this little business and to get my work out there.
What I'll do with the money
As luck would have it, my laptop just died, and it's hard to start an online business without a computer. So I need to get it repaired. Next I'll buy the needed art supplies to do all the drawings. I'll use another chunk on shipping orders out and day to day business expenses like gas money and promoting my work. If there's enough left, I'll buy a decent digital camera, I'm working with a pretty old one right now.
In addition to the original drawing and "Club White Bear" zine the first 43 of you will receive for a $25 donation, I also have three sets of brand new Synopsis skateboard bearings I will give to random people who help me out. Synopsis worked with engineers to create the highest quality bearings in skateboarding. Let me know if you skate so I can put you in the drawing for those.
Organizer
Steve Emig
Organizer
Kernersville, NC