James Corwin.mp3 - email linkedin scheduled

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Are you fed up with the corporate bullshit holding you back? Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the digital Entrepreneur podcast. The ultimate launchpad for entrepreneurs ready to seize control and unleash their creative genius. Hosted by Phil Better, the podcast mogul, each week he's breaking the chains of conventional work with bold strategies, raw insights, and inspiring success stories from the entrepreneurs who took the risk and invested in themselves. This is your call to arms. Invest in yourself, break free from someone else's rules and build the empire you deserve. Now, let's dive head first into today's explosive episode.

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Investing Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. I am, of course, your host, Phil Better, the podcast mogul who's here to help you ditch the nine to five and build a media empire of your dreams. But this is something today's guest has done because they are a true visionary whose entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of inspiring. From the wild landscapes of nature to the sleek walls of high end galleries, his work transcends the canvas and connects deeply with collectors from around the world. He's not just painting wildlife. He is redefining what it means to thrive as a creative entrepreneur in the digital age. With representation in over 30 galleries across the country and his own thriving gallery space, his name is becoming synonymous with modern wildlife art. But more than that, he's built a business that merges passion, perfect purpose and profit.

Something every digital entrepreneur strives for. Whether you're an artist looking to turn your creative creativity into a career or business owner seeking fresh inspiration, this episode will open your eyes to what is possible when you stay true to your vision and take bold action. Get ready to be inspired by the incredible journey of James Corwin. James, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. It's excellent to be here, James.

I'm going to jump right into it. What made you kind of shift from, you know, the corporate 9 to 5, or you know, just the regular 9 to 5 to not being a starving artist, but probably starting off maybe somewhat starving on the movie going full on. I'm going to switch the game up. I'm not just going to be an artist. I'm going to own the gallery where I show my case my art. So now you're becoming a business owner and not an artist. What, what made you decide to go from, you know, nine to fiver to kind of like a your own corporate world leader in the art world? Which is really weird to say because artists aren't supposed to be corporate people, right?

It feels like that often on most Days, you know, I suppose most people don't know that I have never had a 9 to 5. When I was, I picked an age, as I say, it's around 12 years old. I knew I wanted to work for myself and because both my parents had their own business, my mom had her own practice as a physical therapist and my dad had his own business as a environmental consultant. So I grew up in a family where I saw them creating their own schedules and had flexibility and I knew I wanted that as well. And whatever career I chose, I didn't know it would be art when I was younger. But during the summers up until I graduated high school, I would create ways to bring in income, make money, summer money for myself, but that wasn't employed under, you know, a business or an employer, so to speak. And when I began painting in high school, when I was 18, I would then spend my summers doing farmers markets and taking little paintings and prints to the Saturday markets and sometimes art fairs throughout the summer and set up my table and sell them at like 20 bucks a pop. But it would all add up and that would be, you know, what I would do during the summers as I was going through college.

But during those four years in college, I was also painting in my dorm room pretty consistently and beginning to sell those paintings online through family and friends, on Facebook and various platforms. Back then, I think Etsy was just starting to come around, but there are some others and that don't really exist anymore. But it was enough that it gave me some traction and, and kept me going so I can begin building a little micro business selling my art that when I actually graduated college, I just went into it full time because I had already had those four years of almost working as an artist part time and again going back to when I was a child, knowing that I wanted to work for myself, I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn't know it'd be art. But art allowed me to build that lifestyle that I was ultimately looking for, having the flexibility to create my schedule, to be able to travel and be able to really wake up every day and do something that I love. And art is a very challenging business to be successful in. And I certainly, you know, have my or and still have my work cut out for me and choosing this line of work to build a business in. But I think it makes it all the more worthwhile and rewarding when I do find success because I know it's.

It's very challenging for a lot of artists and partly why I love sharing the artist's journey. Because, as you said, I think a lot of people see artists and think of the starving artist. However, I think that by sharing the artist's journey, which isn't too often seen, the inside of what an artist does to create a business is very inspiring to perhaps other business owners and budding entrepreneurs and artists, because you can truly have a very successful business as an artist. It's just like any other business.

It is. You can go extremely niche and, you know, be one of those modern artists who do abstract and all that, or like yourself, attempting to redefine or probably redefine successfully redefining what it is modern wildlife art. Like, for the audience that isn't seeing this video, right behind James is this beautiful buffalo, like a white buffalo in snow. And then right beside it, is that a similar buffalo or.

Yeah, so that we have the. The white bison and then herb buffalo. Both are fine. And then the regular colored ones, the normal kind you would see.

Yes. And I have to say, so covered in snow. Yes. It's. It's like a beautiful snowy thing. And I have to say, it looks. From what I'm seeing on camera, it looks nearly lifelike, like it's a photograph.

Thank you.

Well, my praise is small because I. I have a Mickey with a boner sitting behind me. So it's me.

I was looking at that. I was like, is that what I'm seeing?

Yeah, it is what you're seeing. It's part of the brand. My taste in art shouldn't be the highest, but I have to say, yours is, I want to say, like, you're. You're sharing your story of the starving artist. Right. Or not the starving artist, the struggling artist to the. Or the artist's journey with your time learning the ins and outs nearly in a safe environment in school. Because if you look at.

You get to try and be as experimental as you want with your craft and with your selling of your art. So you're still saved because you're like, hey, I'm still getting this degree that potentially may, you know, pay take care of me, or I can try this business of being an artist. Right. So you got that safety net when you found your niche being more wildlife, being more the modern wildlife. Was that during your time in college, while you were getting your degree before you took it in full time, or is that something that's recently come about?

It was a few years after I graduated college. I was doing landscapes, and I didn't think the landscapes were all that great, but that's what I was painting at the time and selling it. Took a trip to Africa to really mark that shift from painting landscapes to wildlife, because I was unbelievably inspired by the wildlife there, which is larger than life. And you see giraffe and zoos and elephants in zoos, but when you're on the ground standing next to one in the wild, it seems twice the size. And so it was very exciting. And of course, coming back to the studio with a whole bunch of pictures, I had to start bringing these animals back to life on canvas. And these paintings were years beyond what the landscapes were as far as execution and for lack of a better term, how good they were. The quality.

Yeah, the quality. They were just better paintings. And I really enjoy painting wildlife as well. And I think from a business standpoint, the marketability of wildlife is great because everybody knows what an elephant is or giraffe. Not everybody would know what, you know, that mountain is that I can see out my window. Maybe people locally, but it's a beautiful mountain. If I painted it, it'd be very small amount of people that might actually be interested in buying it. But painting an elephant reaches quite a wide audience.

And also with wildlife, you can really create more, I believe, a story and an emotion behind it, because there's a personification and a relationship that we have with animals where we have eyes, they have eyes. We can see and feel things that they might see and feel. It's also harder to deal with landscapes.

Sorry, go ahead.

So wildlife became my. My ticket to narrowing down my nation. And what truly gets me excited at the easel.

I love that. I was going to point out before when I rudely interrupted you, which I apologize for.

Oh, you're fine.

With landscapes, the only feelings you can get are basic emotional things like scary old, like a dark, stormy landscape that can invoke a bit of fear or something, or large open field of bright sunlight. That's happiness. But with animals, you can get into like, the deeper sadness because a mother could be looking at her child being killed or, you know, like the birth of things, there's a lot more emotionals that we humans can project onto these animals, which we are obviously do. When you look at how we treat our pets, the dogs and the cats and even, oh, yes, the reptilian ones as well.

I wanted, hey, I used to have chameleons.

There you go, right? Like you. You call them Chuck and Larry Ann. They're your best friend, you know, and you tell them, they've said they've seen you at your worst. They've Seen you at your best. They are part of your family. And that's why I think there is that. I think the bigger connection with the animals is that because we can connect with them and it's just like this glorious, magnificent beast that we still can't comprehend. Like.

Like you said, like you see them in a zoo, like, yeah, okay, they're magnificent, they're cool, they're big. But like you said, when you see them in person, they just seem so huge. And I can see the bison behind you. Like, I can feel like. I feel like we're so far apart, like both where physically and how the camera is set up. But I feel like if I got closer to your painting, it would tower over me like an actual bison. Like the way you captured that. I'm sorry, I am.

I know, focused on the. The interview, but this is an amazing piece, so I'm going to jump from. Okay, thank you. You found your niche, you know, of animal portraits pretty much in animal paintings. When did you decide, I'm going to be a gallery owner myself? Was it. Was it because you found it difficult getting into galleries across the country in the world, or was it like, hey, this seems like a way for me not only to benefit myself, but also my fellow artists?

It's actually a funniest story. I didn't intend to be a gallery owner, actually didn't really want to be. And I owned a house about an hour south of where I am here in Missoula. There's a town called Hamilton, and that's where the gallery is. And I used to live down there. And I had a four bedroom house. And over less than a year, three of those four bedrooms had become studio and office spaces for employees and myself. And the garage became storage for goods coming in and out and packing and all that.

And so the house really became a place of business. And I knew I wanted my house back and needed to get a place for us all to work. And it just made sense to me that this space would also have a retail component because that's also the business I'm in. And so a building came on the market downtown, right on the main street where everybody walks. And so I bought the building and it was really perfect for everything that I needed at the time. It had the office spaces in the back and storage and places to fulfill orders and. But also the whole front space of it is gallery space. And I worked in there with everyone for a couple years, but ended up moving up here to Missoula.

But I still have the gallery running and the team working down there, and I, I pop down about once a week to check in and, and teach an art class to the community. And so, yeah, so that's how the gallery was born. It was more out of necessity for space, but I, and then I embarked on a journey of opening a second gallery in Aspen, Colorado, because I wanted to trial, or wasn't even a trial. You know, I was fully committed to making it work, and I wanted to run a gallery in another state. And because I felt, okay, I have a good team in place for a gallery and hours south of me, could I do this, you know, a couple states away, and if I can do this successfully, can I then do it again and, and repeat the, the process? And I, I, I ran Aspen for a year and learned a lot. I can go into those details, but it was, I, I'm a person who likes to do rather than wonder what it'd be like. So I ran it for a year and learned a lot and then decided I don't really like managing a gallery stay, so I'm not the right person for that. So I would have to bring on a partner for something like that.

But I still have the one.

I love the aspect that you were still willing to experiment as an artist, but also, not just as an artist, but also as a business owner. You looked at like, I have this successful art gallery south of me an hour away on a good day. On a bad day, well, we'll see if I get there, and I want to see if I want to go. You're experimenting, even though you, you're, you're safe, just like you did back in your college days. When you're going through school and learning about the process of selling, you're learning to be a business owner. And as most entrepreneurs have said on this podcast, they have a lot more failures than successes. But the failures, the failures have taught them a lot more than the successes I have. So I love how I've already had the success.

It's a patchwork. And the only downside I see, or I've heard in your story, was that it was just the distance. The distance was the biggest issue. If it was two hours away, probably would be fine. But being two states away, we're probably, yeah, you're too far from me, bud. Is that a fair assessment of the situation, that it was more distance than anything else that caused you to say, hey, I'm going to go back to one gallery?

Well, yes, distance was part of it, but what made distance challenging, was it what really came down to is getting the right people in place. And through my initial hiring I found somebody who I believed was right for the role. And in many cases they. They were right. However, they were more of an owner for a business rather than somebody who could receive direction feedback. So. Yes, exactly. So what made it challenging is that they.

Could I stop you? I'm not sure if it's on my end or on your end. There seems to be some little bit of a feedback coming from your.

Oh, is there? Yeah, yeah. Do you want me to try and switch through the computer audio? Yeah, I just don't want.

Maybe just retry connecting the. The microphone again. It could be a simple Bluetooth is funny like that.

Yeah, let's. Can you hear me?

Maybe it's my end.

Built in. Oh yeah. Can you hear that?

I can hear that. It's still coming up. Do you have echo cancellation on?

Oh, let me look at my settings here soon. I. Oh, I hear that. Is it anything better?

No, we'll continue. It's fine. I'll clean up and post. It's. It's fine. No worries about that. James. It's.

It's not enough to cause an issue. It's just me being a perfectionist with my audio but.

Well, you know, I. I have a whole mic kit and stuff but for some reason it's been buggy and I haven't been able to get it to work and so being going through the computer speaker is. Is, I know, not ideal, but it's new for me too.

Could we maybe go back to the headphones? Because it's. It's a little more noticeable with the. With you being on the computer mic.

Wonder if I can use different headphones. Does that sound any better?

Yeah, that sounds worlds better. I can hear you.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I can hear you clearly. It's just a subtle thing. But anyways.

Yeah.

As I was saying you. The gallery was finding someone who could also help you take over and could take back the feedback from your suggestions. Hey, this is how you like it or whatever it is or if a situation pops up. So it was distance as well as finding the right individual to really handle it while you weren't there with being. Deciding to go into owning a gallery without actually wanting to own a gallery, which is most entrepreneurs, they solve a problem they need then realize this is also not what I needed. Would you. Would you suggest for business minded artists, the artists that realize they need to set up a business to take care of their artwork to look into getting a gallery or would you suggest them Figuring out another type of business model to take care of their art.

Yeah, that's a great question. I believe that artists should really learn how to sell their own art first before relying on art galleries. Art galleries, There seems to be two types of art galleries. There's an art gallery that's more of an art dealer. They sell artwork. Then there's the art gallery that sells artwork. But they also invest in building the artist's notoriety, their reputation, their price point, their collector as almost like an agent.

Help them build the artist.

Yes, yeah. And which is very important. But very few galleries do that. More galleries operate as art dealers. You put the art in there and they sell it. But there isn't as much marketing going into building the artists themselves. So I think there's a misconception for artists just starting that they need to be in an art gallery in order to sell art and become successful. That can be true, but you need to find the right gallery.

And then galleries are very challenging to get into. And for most beginning artists, it is kind of like a chicken and egg thing. It helps to be in a gallery for sales, but a gallery is going to look at artists that have consistent sales to, to consider. And so I, I really encourage artists to begin selling their own art and not rely on a gallery for the success of their career. Because you'll learn so much more by building your own business and your own brand and marketing your work, which is what I've largely been doing for the last decade. I. It gets better every year. So the way I like to describe it is maybe in your first year you're selling, you sell 10 paintings to 10 new people.

And those 10 new people are now in your collector base and they may be interested in buying another piece from you next year or two years down the line. Meanwhile, the second year you sell 15 paintings. Well, now you have 25 new collectors in your base. And that compounds on itself to where today have around 10,000 people who have purchased from me and may be interested in purchasing again. So when I create a new painting, such as, like the one behind me, I can then present it to my collector base and shop it almost as a gallery would do. But if there aren't any takers, then I have any number of galleries that represent me who would be interested in the painting. But I'm not. My success now is dependent on me and what I have put into my business and not reliant on how well a gallery represents me or promotes my work.

And I, going back to when I was young, I have Always had a passion for business. So I feel blessed to, sure, I have some talent in painting, but moreover, I feel blessed that I actually have a passion for business. I read business books just for pleasure, all the time. I think people kind of look at me weird when I have a business book and a cup of coffee open every morning for breakfast, while having breakfast. And I, I don't know, I. I love it. I. I find it very riveting to learn.

And I'm listening to business podcasts all day long as I'm painting. So I'm absorbing this information and, and so I, I personally love business and I've been able to put the two and two together. However, I have found that no amount of books can compare to actively doing and learning through failures and successes. So again, to any new artists embarking on their journey, you can study and learn the books and apply it, but you need to apply it. So I think some of the best advice I can also give is what you put in is what you get out. And it is not easy. And it takes a hell of a lot of work and a lot of time and some luck too. And it goes slower than you think in the moment, but faster.

When you look in hindsight, does that make sense?

Yeah.

Going through it, you're in the weeds forever.

When you're in the weeds, it's like, I'm here forever. And then you look back. Like you. I look back a decade. I've been just over a decade in podcasting. I look from where I started, where I was in this weird jam space where my buddy would music to my living room of my first apartment, to now I'm in my own studio a decade. And it felt like a slog just to get here. But I look back, I'm like, yeah, this in like technically less than five years.

I'm in my own studio. Like, this is insane. And I've been talking with so many amazing guests like yourself and getting greater pieces of advice and pretty much it's just trial and error is life especially. You're not going to hit 100% all the time. Sometimes you're batting zero for a while and then all of a sudden you get that nice grand slammed and you're like, wow, that changed.

Exactly.

I want to look at what you do to invest in yourself. You're obviously listen to business podcasts, probably business books. You read business books. We know that because of this weird people give you at Starbucks. I want to know what else you do to invest in yourself. Something that would most people would Say is odd way of investing in yourself. It could be in business any way of like anything like that. What is a quote unquote weird way you invest in yourself?

Yeah, that is a great question, because I feel like there's two avenues. I can go with that one. Just from a financial perspective, I have really just bootstrapped my business and haven't taken on any debt or loans to grow my business and the profits that I make from it, I choose where to reinvest that into my business. And then any excess I invest outside the business, I, I choose to live below my means so that I can invest any excess capital into my future. Because I think it's. I, I've already am doing this and I think it's really cool to have investments that bring in passive income that pay for my just living expenses so that I can freely paint. And it doesn't matter whether a painting takes a day or a year to sell, I can still paint and enjoy it, but without the pressures of, of, you know, selling it.

Yeah, it's a profit piece, but it can just be a piece of art.

Right, right, exactly, exactly. And, but fortunately it does sell and it's become a wonderful business and I have a great team of employees helping me run it every day. And then as far as investing myself more personally, that isn't financially involved. I love to travel because that's really what inspires me and helps reignite new ideas for new paintings. And for example, just last month in March, I went to the Philippines and I learned to scuba dive. And the weekend before I left, I did scuba diving training and then did my certification dives in the Philippines and went to one of the best diving reefs in the world for two weeks and went on three to four dives a day. And it was incredible. It blew my mind.

I. I never done diving before, obviously, and was a little apprehensive because I didn't know what to expect and, or if I'd even like it. But I certainly did. And it was like visiting another planet. So many things are, are just colors I didn't even imagine could exist on an animal or a plant. But then the corals look like plants, but they're actually animals. And it's like everything moves and reacts and it's just so alien. Like, it was truly incredible.

So. So traveling is certainly something that I love to do. And then just being here in this beautiful state of Montana, I love hiking and backpacking and just being outdoors and I feel like I. In the summer, it's so hard to Be inside in the studio when it's just gorgeous outside. And so I, I do a lot of nose to the grindstone work during the winter hours so that I can play a little more in the summer because that's what I wait all year for.

I can only imagine. Especially on the great state of Montana which has just beautiful vistas.

Yes.

Amazing. Like, like wildlife of course, but also like just you walk 20 minutes and you're, you're just looking at beauty.

Yes.

And then I saw your, your face light up and the smile you had on your face when you're describing the colors. And I can only imagine the wildlife paintings that you are going to do of the creatures and the animals that you saw while scuba diving. While you continue to scuba dive and get those now that you're a certified scuba diver. We are coming to the end which I despise because I'm having a great time chatting with you. James.

Wow.

I want you to on the collector's list because I want to see new pieces so I can send them to my, my list as well to help promote you because you're wonderful. However, I have 10 year old James beside me. He's not yet sure if he's going to be a creative person but he doesn't want to be his own boss. What's a piece of advice you would love to hand back to your 10 year old self?

Yeah. I would tell myself that it's wonderful to dream and to plan and to have dreams and to go for them. But also know that the best part is the journey itself. I've been so destination based and in my 30s. I've realized that the enjoyment is being on the ride because the destination seems to always be changing. I know where I want to get to but the time it takes again is always different than what I intend it to be. So I would tell my 10 year old self to dream but know that it's okay to change and be flexible and enjoy the ride and to know that the time it takes to get to that dream, even if it takes your lifetime, it's possible. But don't rush it.

My last little bit was amazing. Don't rush it.

Yeah. Feel like I rushed a lot of my twenties.

Oh yeah. A lot of us wasted our twenties looking back when we're older going I shouldn't have done that. I should have done more of this. But. But again it's learning through failure. Right. Life is nothing but a constant learning example to become successful and go after what you want. James, I want to thank you for being here.

I'm going to jump off stage for a quick bit. Again, we're going to get you to talk more because that's obviously what you don't want to do. But I want you to let my audience know where they can find you, follow you, support you, become a member of the possible, you know, fan club of James Corwin because your art is amazing. So please let them know how they can get in touch with you.

Yeah, James Corwin. C O R W I N. You can just pop James Corwin into Google and a whole bunch of art and my website and other sites will come up. So my Instagram is James Corwin, Facebook is James Corwin, website is james corwin.com. so yeah, please check it out.

I love it. James, it was an absolute pleasure having you on and thank you for having that beautiful bison in the background while we're doing this, our, this interview because not, not that you're not good looking to look at, but like, and it's just mesmerizing. It's kept me intrigued into what you were saying, but also allowed me to be like, that's beautiful and just admire it. So I want to thank you so much for being here.

I love it.

Shut up soon. And thank you so much for being here. To my audience, thank you so much for listening in. And if you are an artist looking to take their work to next level, possibly check in with James and see if he has some words of wisdom for you. I want to thank you very much for listening. As always, remember to invest in yourself.

Thanks for joining us on Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. The podcast mogul reminds you that your journey to freedom and success starts with one powerful move. Investing in yourself. If today's episode sparked your fire, hit that follow button on Spotify and drop us a comment. Share your wins, your challenges, and what drives you to break free from the corporate grind. Remember, you're your best investment. Always invest in yourself because your potential is limited, limitless. Until next time, keep hustling and take control of your destiny.