Meet Carla Garrison-Mattos

We were lucky to catch up with Carla Garrison-Mattos recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Carla with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

Since becoming a full time artist in 2018, I’ve been called a workaholic more than a few times. It started with my first job as a lifeguard at a city pool in Illinois when I was 15 years old. My parents told me that if I wanted to buy anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary for my survival, I had to pay for it. So I went to work. Through the years I worked as a receptionist, EMT-B, tanning salon attendant, teacher’s aid, leasing agent, waitress, bartender, and restaurant manager.

Throughout all of this bouncing around from job to job and hating every minute of it, my one consistent passion was creating art. I attended Winthrop University and took as many art classes as I could, but I never thought I could make a career as an artist. I was also constantly creating art, so I sold my art at festivals on the weekends while working full time in the restaurant industry. I would cry often as I drove home from work and wondered how I could live like this for the rest of my life. I had watched both of my parents dedicate themselves to their careers but could never understand how they could commit to the same job for so long, doing the same thing every day for decades of their lives.

My Mom worked for the same school district in HR for 30 years before relocating to the Carolinas to be closer to my sister, niece and myself. She was working so much overtime that we legitimately worried about her health. Did she retire when she moved here? Nope. She got another job in HR for a local school district. I honestly don’t know if she’ll ever retire.

My Dad has been with the same company in Illinois since the day before I was born, May 2nd 1979. He’s still not retired. The plan is for him to retire in 2 years when he turns 70 and move down to join Mom. They take turns visiting each other from 800 miles away, because of work.

My sisters and I have complained about their workaholic tendencies for years, begging them to retire and just relax. But they have no idea how to do that. I rarely ever see my Mom sit down, and if my Dad isn’t at work, he’s in the yard…working. This is not something I thought I had inherited. However, once I took the leap and became a full time artist I realized that working for yourself means throwing all you have into your business. When you are doing something you are obsessed with, it’s not hard to sit down for work in the morning and realize it is time for dinner in what feels like the blink of an eye. It doesn’t matter if I am painting, designing, marketing, applying for artist calls, or just organizing my finances. It is so easy to get lost in my creativity and lose all track of time. Finding a work/life balance has been more of a struggle than I thought it would be over these last 7 years. I get better at it every year, but I still get lectures from friends and family when I put work first a bit too often. If I give myself a day off and there are no pressing plans or to-do lists from my wife, you can probably find me scrolling for artist calls or painting “for fun”.

My work ethic is absolutely something I learned, either consciously or subconsciously, from my parents since a very young age. My Dad takes such pride in his work and loves what he does, while Mom is just crazy good at what she does and wants to leave as big of an inheritance as she can for her grandkids. For them I think their work ethic comes from the generation they were raised in, and the drive to be as successful as they can to support the family they have created. My Mom told me once that no matter what job you have, be the best at it that you can be. So for me, it is a little bit of everything. I strive to be the best, love what I do, and life is expensive.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I have been painting pet portraits professionally since 2010 using acrylic on canvas and have been painting commercial and residential murals since 2015. I always dreamed of becoming a full-time artist, but the absolute fear of failure kept me from making the leap. I would say, “One day I’ll go full-time”, but never had an actual plan to do so. Then when I was 39 years old, my wife asked me when “one day” would be. So with her support and confidence nudging me along, I quit my job and became a full-time artist. That was 2018, and life has been a whirlwind of artistic opportunities since then.

I have painted over 100 murals in my career, thousands of pet portraits (I’ve lost count), and I even teach Paint Your Pet classes at local venues once or twice a month. Some of my most notable projects include designing 5 murals for Walmart and just got invited to design my 6th, painting pet portraits for Chewy when I have a little downtime, and painting a mural for NoDa Brewing at the CLT Douglas Int’l Airport! After I complete a few murals for Cabarrus Brewing in Concord NC this month, I am heading to Virginia in May to paint for an elementary school that is currently under construction.

All of my mural work is custom designed by myself to suit my client’s requests, and I like to describe my style as a bit of stylized realism with a dash of pop art influence and a pinch of illustration. I strive to tell a story in a single image, so every aspect of my design has a definitive purpose and meaning.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Budgeting, Customer Relations, and Marketing. Working in restaurant management I learned how to manage inventory, budget, profit and loss, and how to speak to customers in a professional manner. These things are so important when it comes to running your own business! Painting is the easy part. Speaking to your clients and having good communication skills is imperative for repeat business and generating word of mouth recommendations for future jobs. And if you don’t know how to balance your finances and keep track of inventory, you’ll get yourself into some fiscal trouble. Marketing is something I had to teach myself, and I’m still learning. My biggest advice is to let people know who you truly are. I am not one of those people that has a perfect life on social media. I share my struggles with mental health, my successes, and my failures. I think that is why people like me, because I am real and shameless.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

I have struggled with mental health issues since my teenage years, primarily with anxiety disorders. I feel overwhelmed on a fairly regular basis, but making daily and weekly lists helps keep me organized and calm. At any given time I have a minimum of 2 notebooks filled with to-do lists, business ideas, goals, design ideas, and consult notes. I also have a daily task list on my digital calendar that I look at almost hourly, and I have an excel spreadsheet which organizes my jobs by month. The most satisfying feeling for me is crossing something off of a to-do list, and because I have so many lists with the same information on each list, I get to check 3-4 boxes for completing just one task. It motivates me and keeps me on task, while not overwhelming me with too much at a time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.paintingsthings.org/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/paintingsandthings
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/paintingsandthings