Graphic artist Nick Caruso has a small studio in his Highland Park home where he works on the catalog and print assignments that pay the bills, as well as his Make Believe line of T-shirts featuring Pittsburgh themes.
“I like these images that catch a moment in time,” he said, gesturing to a table of shirts covered with bridges, baseball themes and sayings in Pittsburghese. “I think most entrepreneurs, we have something that makes us a little crazy, a passion.”
Being an artist entrepreneur is a little different than trying to start most businesses. And many who have had commercial success in Pittsburgh with their artwork credit each other with creating a supportive creative environment.
Mr. Caruso said that in the beginning he did his share of craft fairs. “I don’t know of a better way to get yourself out there.” His shirts sell for around $25 each.
But he’s now part of a loosely organized group that tries to meet weekly and share helpful information and support. “We all run into the same things: ‘who does your taxes,’ and other legal questions like that,” he said.
Networking is key for many artists in the region who make a living with their art.
Matthew Buchholz moved to Pittsburgh in 2008 for a relationship that didn’t work out. The Tucson, Ariz., native said he felt “supported” here and decided to stay.
“I had been in New York a long time and it really beat me down,” he said. “I checked out Pittsburgh, and explored it, and just loved it.”
He started doing his Alternate Histories work when he was working at the WildCard gift shop in Lawrenceville, and decided he might be able to make a career making his quirky cards and prints.
He describes Alternate Histories’ format as an homage to homemade science fiction images combined with history. Examples include his map of zombie outbreaks in the Greater Pittsburgh area, and his image of a tentacled creature attacking the Brooklyn Bridge, each of which sells on his website for $20.
“Pittsburgh is a cheaper place to live, and there are a lot of resources, which is why artists want to move here,” Mr. Buchholz said. “And people are generous. They share information, unlike other cities where it can be really competitive.”
He said he wished there was more support from state and local sources for individual artists, as opposed to some of the more traditional funding models that are in place. But he’s not as concerned that artists will become priced out of Pittsburgh as they have other cities that were once artist havens.
“To me, there is a spirit of generosity here, a sense that we are all in this together,” he said. “That is singular to Pittsburgh.”
When Lisa Krowinski started Sapling Press 12 years ago, she was living in Baltimore. She moved to Pittsburgh with her husband when he landed “an amazing design job” here.
“I knew I could afford to do Sapling Press full time in Pittsburgh,” she said. “The cost of living and the affordability allowed me to be able to get a studio to work on getting my name out there.”
Ms. Krowinski kept at Sapling Press, creating wedding invitations and cards that proved to be good sellers. She opened her first storefront earlier this month in Beaver, and said WildCard is an example of the store she wants to have, selling other artists’ work but still being able to produce her own.
“I don’t know if I could have this business now if I had not moved to Pittsburgh,” she said.
Tom Mosser is a painter who has been part of the Pittsburgh art scene for years and had considerable commercial success, including collaborating with fellow artists Sarah Zeffiro on the ‘Two Andys’ murals that hangs above Weiner World in Downtown.
His advice to less-experienced artists seeking to make a living from their art is to keep producing work, because one job may lead to another and so on. “And you have to separate yourself from the pack,” Mr. Mosser said.
He said he did that by developing signature techniques, such as painting with two hands. The only job he has ever had besides his artwork was a stint as the Pirate Parrot in the 1990s.
“You can collaborate with art directors and please clients, and still do the art on the side that may get you into the MOMA someday.” Or if not the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, perhaps the Carnegie Museum a little closer to home.
For his part, Mr. Buchholz said he thinks Pittsburgh offers a unique set of circumstances that can allow even artists whose work may not be terribly lucrative to still see some income from it.
“It takes a lot of work, hard work, but that can still be rewarded here,” he said. “In other cities, sadly, hard work may not be enough.”
First Published: October 30, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
