Meet Mollie Fox

We recently connected with Mollie Fox and have shared our conversation below.

Mollie, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I get my work ethic from my mom. She was a single mother in the 1980s, at a time when there was so much sexism in the world. When she wanted to start her own business, it was never just about her knowledge, talent, or intelligence, she needed her father to come to the bank with her to guarantee her loan and sign her lease. I saw how much she had to sacrifice and how many hours she had to put in each day to make her business a success. When I was a kid, I resented that time it took away from me until I was old enough to understand that when it’s your name on the letterhead, it’s your responsibility to keep the lights on. She supported two kids, put us through college, and was a role model to her grandchildren. Her work ethic was unparalleled. At moments when I feel truly successful, it feels like I’m honoring her legacy. I think about her everyday and as an adult, artist, and now a business owner myself, I have truly learned to appreciate that in that capacity, as the owner and head of Mollie Fox Studio, I have to be the fuel, the engine, and the road. While it always takes a village of supportive family, friends, and colleagues, showing up each day, putting my head down, and doing the humbling AF work is the path I choose. I’m a working artist with the emphasis on work. As tempting as it can be to slack off, I set defined work hours and during those hours, I work. My screen saver even says, “DO THE WORK!” It’s a mercy that I love my job.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

What don’t I do? Mainly, I’m a live painter. Currently, the biggest demand is for live watercolor guest painting at weddings and corporate events. Additionally, there is the live painting for brands, either on their products or some version of live painting in service of their customers. With live guest painting, I take a photo of the person and then they go away and enjoy the event, during which time I paint; at the end of the wedding reception or whatever, they come back and pick up their painting. I love live watercolor guest painting. When I get to show someone a picture of themselves, done in this quaint, old fashioned, and precious way, they feel the joy of truly being seen. We share this uniquely intimate moment of artist and muse. Painting is so different from photography. In a painting, you are trying to create this illusion of instantaneity, but you’re both in on the ploy that it actually takes time. However, with live guest painting, there is a bit of speed involved and so it creates a thrill and suspended disbelief that this happened like a smash cut in a movie. Time feels compressed. Even though I can paint someone in 5-6 minutes, it’s not an Instamatic camera, it’s me laboring over a piece of paper with a pencil and then watercolors. It’s like we are sharing a magic moment that takes our breath away because the illusion feels like reality. Like, we all know magicians are just performing a slight of hand, but when done well, we live for that moment in that space of wonder where things happen we don’t believe. When I paint live, people tell me they feel that wonder, they feel a sense of value they hadn’t known before. I know that sounds silly or made up, but I could show you hours of video of people expressing those thoughts when they see the reveal of the painting. I love painting live full stop.
When I’m promoting a brand live painting on their products, like for Jo Malone or Tecovas, brands I wore even before they hired me, I get to elevate a product for the client and make it personal and truly their own. I’ll paint their dog or florals, special messages, even team mascots. For one woman’s cowboy boots push-present, I painted the constellation and moon phase of the day she gave birth. People like their brands, but they want to feel the ultimate luxury of having an artist zhuzh it up. Getting asked to paint live feels like getting asked to the prom in front of the whole school.
I also have a studio practice that is divided into painting commissions for clients and wedding stationers as well as doing surface patterns for textiles and wallpaper. I love the challenge. That’s the fun stuff. The majority of my week is spent with my puppy/studio assistant, Bluebelle, on the less fun stuff like business development, being my own director of communications and social media, working on my website, bookkeeping, bill paying, etc. I started my business on my own and have done 98% of the grunt work from designing my logo and website to learning how to pay my sales taxes. I find pride in that, too. Being a live painter means travel. From October through Christmas Eve in 2024 I traveled every single weekend. It was exhausting, but rewarding. Moving into 2025 I have a very full calendar of weddings, galas, and some exciting projects for some heritage and some newer brands. I’m not going to lie, being asked to sign an NDA because I’m painting recognizable individuals is something that will take some getting used to. I’m also glad I just renewed my passport because I travel for work and am looking forward to some upcoming world wide bookings. At this stage of my career, I’m still all hustle and no flow.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

When I think about qualities and skills that allowed me to do what I do, I’m going to go with being delusional, being task orientated even thought I have combination ADHD, and being able to take the long view even when time is not necessarily or empirically on my side. I mean, I’m 55, so to leave a secure teaching job at a time when most folks have settled into their careers and are looking towards retirement, to throw caution out the window, take a deep breath and leap into the void is not nothing. You have to be a little imbalanced to believe it will work out, right? I read a study once that proved that the best Olympic athletes were also the best at lying to themselves when put up to it. The upshot was basically that you have to be able to convince yourself that you deserve to win even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. I had to believe this was going to work before I could try doing it. That being said, I’m super task oriented. Highly distractible, sure, but I will deep dive research, pester anyone who might have answers, and make a plan and do every step. I just spent 7 hours crash course learning about SEO and then going over my website and fixing my mistakes. I’m also super creative when it comes to inventing new tasks for me to do. My avoidant behavior is often more directed at making the actual art than making my art seen by a greater audience.
So, what advice can I give along those lines, be a little unrealistic in the face of reality, don’t be afraid of doing the humbling work, and don’t fear the present when it seems like it’s not working. Step back and take in the long view and be honest with seeing the possibility of future success. Also, I’ve learned that most people when given the choice will be rooting for you, because why not? So, don’t be afraid to ask questions and ask for advice.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

The nature of what I do makes scaling and growth a bit of a tangle. To be a live painter means being hired because someone is choosing your style, your product. So I’m trying to future-proof my studio by learning some new skills like textile design, but the challenge right now is definitely scalability and growth. Even when accounting for the brands and galas in addition to wedding work, there are only a finite number of days in the year when people are going to schedule an event and out of those days they need to want me, and out of those days I have to be available because there are actually prime days that everyone seems to want. I’m one person who can be in one place at one time. Keeping to that model means the only way to earn more is to charge more. I’ve thought about hiring junior artists, but there is a rub. I was an art teacher for many years and I know that everyone has their own style; much like a fingerprint. Everyone can learn technique, but they make their own mark. Thousands of people takes the same English creative writing classes every year and yet only one or two folks percolate up to be top selling authors. I’d basically need to find an art forger for someone to be able to paint like me. So while I could train other people to paint in my style, that is problematic because people are hiring not just a live painter, they are hiring Mollie Fox to paint live. I’m happy my studio illustration work is gaining some exposure because of the live painting work. I’d love to work with a design and event firm that does major events and where I can have an opportunity to do more conceptual art. In the short run, time is a particular challenge.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

I took all of the photos myself.

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