We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christopher Roche. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christopher below.
Hi Christopher, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
This is a great question, and I have never really thought that much about it to be honest. But I have thought about what things in my life have motivated me to do the work I do, and I think that motivation is where my work ethic ultimately comes from. I think fear is a big one. I have been motivated by fear in the sense that if I am not working and painting then I am not getting better at my craft, and others will zoom right past me, so I am always working on something, my easel is never empty. A specific time in my life where I remember fear really motivating me is when I went to art school at Long Beach State University. Art had always been fairly easy for me, and I felt that I was always near the top of my class. Suddenly, I was at this giant University and there were incredibly talented artists everywhere. It frankly scared the hell out of me, I feared that I was not good enough and that motivated me to work harder than I ever had. That fear of thinking maybe I wasn’t good enough gave me the motivation to push myself to a limit I had not been to before, and it was there I started to find my voice, and the confidence that yes, I was good enough. My work ethic was definitely developed in some part by that fear of failure.
Today, as a more accomplished and confident artist, my work ethic comes from many places. Number one, if I am not creating, I don’t feel alive. I have to have projects going on at all times, I do not want weeks or months of down time and waiting for inspiration to hit me. I need to paint to find that inspiration, and I find a different challenge and inspiration in every piece I do. There are so many things I want to paint I need that motivation and work ethic because I want to get to them all. Another element in my work ethic is I want to keep my clients coming back for more, so I must continue to create new work to engage them and get their attention, as well as creating these new works to reach those new people who may be interested in my work but have yet to purchase it.
Another motivation that produces my work ethic is taking care of my family. As my art has grown and begun to pay the bills, I am excited to create new work to keep the ball rolling and keep the opportunities coming to enable me to provide for my family. This also ties into the exhilaration of selling my art. There is no greater affirmation than people paying their hard-earned money to purchase art that I created, and place that work in prominent spaces in their home and making it part of their daily lives. It is so exciting as an artist have people choose your work, when there is so much beautiful art out there, but they chose mine. I want to keep giving my clients and audience more and more reasons to choose my work. Therefore, I better keep creating it!
Last and most importantly, is the fact that I love what I do, it is who I am. There is nothing better than seeing a blank canvas come to life, and become a finished piece of art. This artist life gives me a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Once I finish a piece, I just have a need to create more, that will never stop.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about your business before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Right now, I am focused on expanding my business through the art festival scene in Arizona and getting more involved in the downtown Phoenix art scene as well. I am growing my festival business by entering more high end, juried shows each year and exposing my work to more people, as well as expanding my tent and festival set up to be able to accommodate and exhibit more of my work. During the summer months which is my most intense studio painting time, my work is focused on my continuing series of classic neon signs throughout Arizona and the West, and the Americana it represents. These summer months allow me to connect and exhibit with galleries in downtown Phoenix such as FoundRE Contemporary, 9theGallery, and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council among many others. It provides a nice change from the festival scene, and it allows me to expose my work and my brand to more and more people.
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?
I would say never giving up is the biggest thing. You can’t worry about setbacks, and rejections, that is part of the business. Use setbacks as fuel and motivation, and don’t lose focus of your ultimate goal. Another thing that has helped me is that I have always relied on my passions to dictate my art, no matter what you do, if you are truly passionate about it, that will come through in the work, and people will respond to, and be attracted to that passion that is clearly present in the work you are doing. Lastly, I have always been able to easily interact with all different kinds of people, that has helped me a great deal in finding mentors who have helped me along the way, as well as made interacting with clients and people interested in my work much easier. Over the years you get more comfortable with who you are and those interactions become that much easier.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I am always looking for new opportunities to expose my work to new audiences. So as far as collaboration I would love to work with other artists who might have projects or shows where they think my work would fit with what they are doing. Working with other artists is always such a cool and powerful way to connect with your peers, but also new audiences in the process. Artists can always connect with and contact me through Instagram, Facebook, [email protected] or at christopherocheart.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: christopherocheart.com
- Instagram: Christopher Roche Art
- Facebook: Christopher Roche Art
