Today we’d like to introduce you to Tony Lipps.
Hi Tony, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I attended Kent State University’s fine art program for 4 years from 2001-2005, and joined the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in July of 2005 and started out as a corrections officer. While at the Sheriff’s department I decided to make law enforcement into a career and went through the police academy and got promoted to patrol officer in 2011. While working as a police officer I created art on the side and rented a studio space in the city at Essex Studios. In 2017 my wife, Libby, and I had a discussion about where I wanted to be in my life and the one thing I dreamed of was being able to devote all of my time into my art and treat it like a full time job. I had the support of my department too which was exciting. In 2019, the Sheriff at the time, Sheriff Jim Neil, granted me leave of absence for a year to pursue my art. He said if in a year I want to come back to police work I would be welcomed back. It took me three months to decide I didn’t want to be a deputy anymore and I stuck with perfecting my craft and resigned from the department after 13 years of service. I spent all of 2019 designing my website and painting cityscapes and getting photo references for future projects to build my portfolio. In 2020 during the pandemic I started experimenting with different subject matter to perfect my craft and had to get creative to make sales, but came out with a better profit margin than the prior year. Currently I am focused on a series of figurative paintings focused on ballet dancers.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are definitely highs and lows. The hardest part was making the leap to start my life over with my new career and staying focused on the bigger picture. I now have more time with my wife and two sons, Julius and Remy. I have full freedom to figure out the direction I want to take my art. Getting my website up and running really helped with pulling in sales especially because I can sell prints directly from my site and the orders go straight to the printer which saves me from having to deal with shipping orders on time. Just when things started picking up for me, I had made plans with a gallery to have a show in May of 2020 and had a few other shows lined up for the year. Then the pandemic hit and put a lot of things on hold. I was worried I would lose momentum. However, I think the most promising part of this journey was how I responded when the pandemic shut everything down. I had to get creative and work a little harder to find sales. Just making smaller more accessible paintings and offering a special on commission paintings pulled in a lot of profit for me in a short period of time. There has never been a doubt in my mind that I won’t succeed. I have been able to stay positive about where I am and where I’m going as an artist.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I paint in oils. While with the sheriffs department I originally started making sports paintings and personal portraits as commissions or to donate to causes. For the past few years I have focused on finding my signature technique and subject matter. My first year doing art full time I focused mainly on painting cityscapes and urbanscapes. I wanted to capture the city candidly and have a balance between realism and expressionism. I have always loved painting people and scenes, so any time I could get a reference photo with people in it was a win. Recently I decided to take a break from urbanscapes and wanted to focus more on the human figure, painting bodies in motion. Sometimes when starting a new project you refer back to past artists, and Degas came to mind. He was known for his ballet dancers and I thought it might be interesting to have that approach with a contemporary mindset. I’m not so much copying him, but following his footsteps somewhat. I love the movement you get from ballet dancers and wanted to capture that in my painting. I reached out to one of the photographers from the Cincinnati Ballet, Hiromi Platt, and explained my intentions and asked about collaborating for photo references, which she was excited to help. I feel reinvigorated by this project because there are so many avenues I can go with it. Once again, balancing realism with expressionism and abstraction I feel like I can experiment with this project. I’m currently on my third painting in the series and find myself loving each painting. I am proud to see the evolution in my paintings and to know that I’m still learning, which makes this all the more worth it. I feel what sets me apart from other artists is the way I use color and pull light to the foreground of my paintings. I mix smooth painting with textured painting to enforce that balance I seek. I look at each painting as another chapter and always push myself to explore new ways to solve problems I encounter with my projects.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I feel like I’m very lucky to have the opportunities that I do. My wife has worked hard to get to where she is in her career so that she can support our family and that I can have the freedom to pursue art full time. She believes in me to succeed and she reminds me of that when there’s times I ask about whether I need to go back to being a police officer. I was also surprised by the support I got from the Sheriff’s department. It felt like everybody wanted to see me go for this and it helped so much with word of mouth from everyone that knows me to help get me up and running with commissions. The pandemic was unfortunate, but I always remind myself that I could have it worse. I believe in creating my own luck. I work hard and jump at opportunities when they present themselves. I also accept that sometimes things just aren’t going to work out the way I’d like them to.
Pricing:
- Prices on prints and paintings are available on my website
- Prices vary on metal, canvas and paper prints
Contact Info:
- Email: Tonylippsart@outlook.com
- Website: Www.tonylippsart.com
- Instagram: @tonylippsart
- Facebook: Tony Lipps Art
- Twitter: @Tlipps00
Image Credits
Hiromi Platt Photography
