Young Art Entrepreneur

When I was a 17 year old senior in high school (back in 1991) I worked nights at a dance club (yes, with parental consent). The club/bar was called Scruples. There, a fellow waitress introduced me to her artist boyfriend, Aaron Fitzherbert. Aaron, a recent graduate from art college was looking to start an art business and asked if I would be interested. We became partners in a t-shirt business, focusing on the Zodiac for our image concept. Aaron designed one half of the Zodiac images and I the other. He taught me the skills needed to create a hand crafted t-shirt design. We didn't have print on demand back then, so I learned the process of silk screening and how to use an air brush. The final Zodiac drawings were silk screened onto the t-shirts in black ink and we custom painted each one with their own unique color combinations and details. We sold a crazy amount of t-shirts, between our friends and family, the people at the club, word of mouth traveled, everyone had to have one! It was super exciting! We even participated in a number of local craft fairs and had quite a bit of success with that as well. It was an amazing educational experience for a budding art entrepreneur. It was also a major boost to my self confidence and set the tone for receiving monetary compensation for my artwork from that day forward. Our t-shirt business concluded when I went to New York City for school but I took my newly developed business acumen with me and continued to make a profit from art sales while in college. That however is another night club setting, and story for another post. This is me (age 17-18) selling our Zodiac t-shirts at one of the craft fairs:

Photo of Amy E. Fraser 1991 Craft Fair Selling Zodiac T-Shirts

So that ladies and gentleman was my Art Marketing and Sales origin story. Hope your taking notes! I’m kidding! Found this picture while giving my son a photographic tour down memory lane today. I’m pretty sure he was horrified by most of it, but who can explain the complete and total awesomeness of the late 80’s early 90’s. Not me. Hope you all are enjoying your family this holiday! Happy Thanksgiving!

For more Amy E. Fraser art and information go to Aefraser.com

PS. Aaron if you ever come across this post, my older, much nicer self would like to say Sorry and Thank You for putting up with me and my obnoxious girlfriends. We were total brats! You were a brave and kind young man :)

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