Artist Craig Black

Patrick chats with Craig Black, a visual artist from Scotland known for his innovative acrylic fusion technique. Discover how Craig transitioned from a successful graphic designer to a full-time artist, leveraging brand collaborations with giants like FIFA and Porsche. He shares insights on building authentic connections, the importance of self-initiated projects, and how he uses platforms like LinkedIn to drive his business forward. Tune in to learn how creativity, strategy, and family values can shape a thriving art career!

Podcast Transcribe

Craig Black: I grew up in a world where I had no idea what creativity was or that you could even have a career like I do. I used to play football semi-professionally before the world of creativity, but that all happened because of branding and building your own brand. What we've purposely done is show who I am as a person, who my wife is as a person, so you get 100% transparency and authenticity. That has played a beautiful way into the art world as well because when galleries connect with me, they say, "I loved your story, I loved who you are as a family, what you're building, we love that who you are, and we feel like we already know you before we've even had that conversation." Yeah, and that has opened up so many more doors into the art world, which I honestly, like I said before, didn't know at all. So it's opening up different areas that I didn't expect, but it's been great.

Patrick Shanahan:All right, coming up on today's edition of the Art Marketing Podcast, we are having a couple of firsts here, Craig. One, I think you're the first official Scotsman to be on the podcast, and truth be told, dude, I think you're the first non-customer that we've had on the podcast. So first one, the thirst for everything. We can get into the backstory on that and how that happened, but let's start off at the top, Craig. Who are you? What do you do? Give us a little backstory on who is Craig Black.

Craig Black: Oh, I am Craig Black. I'm a visual artist from Scotland and best known for my acrylic fusion technique, which is... I'm gonna show off your Instagram too so they can see it by the way. You can see it there. So my acrylic fusion technique is a paint-pouring process. It's essentially acrylic paints mixed together to create interesting and mesmerizing effects on anything I can get my hands on. I literally just pour on and try to pour on anything that makes sure it looks good. And I've been fortunate to create this kind of world of art into a lifestyle and family business. My wife, Ali, is the managing director, and the two of us and our little girl, Olivia, who's four, we travel the world working with global brands and galleries, creating amazing immersive experiences, live art performances, branded products, and artworks. Yeah, and I have my studio here in sunny Scotland, a little town called Greenock. I don't know if anyone will know where that is, and you may have to Google it. Yeah, so I work from here and yeah, work with these global brands, and it's been a hell of a journey the past four years. Amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: So when you say the past four years, is that mapping to when you went full-time?

Craig Black: Correct. So prior to the world of being a visual artist, I used to be a graphic designer. I specialized in typography for six years, and I managed to collaborate with the top brands across the world, creating wordmarks, typefaces, all those kinds of things. And I basically accomplished everything in that field that I wanted to do. I created this dream project, worked on this dream project, finished it, and I decided to pivot my career, which I tend to do throughout my life. Yeah, because becoming an artist is all I've ever wanted to do. And four years ago, when that moment happened, there was a kind of a bright signal... What was the best way of putting it? Stars were aligned, that's the right way. My daughter was born, so essentially what happened was I had... We had a two-bedroom apartment at the time, so the bedroom was my studio, and she took over that room to become her bedroom. I had to find a new space, so it was either to find an office or do I find an art studio to go for what I really want to do for the studio. And then I went as a visual artist. But what a lot of people don't know is prior to that moment of announcing to becoming a full-time visual artist, two years in the background, I was perfecting my craft of acrylic fusion. I was practicing day in, day out on top of the graphic design job, every weekend, finessing my technique. So when that time came to becoming a visual artist, I felt confident enough to go forward. And fortunately, every challenge came along, I've managed to do it, which is great, but it's constantly evolving, constantly problem-solving, which is great as well. And yeah, that's the kind of short story to it all, really. Yeah, amazing.

Patrick Shanahan: And just looking at what you do, you know, you're going to be the artist I hate to say it that everyone on here is going to love to hate because I can tell based on your business, and I really want to drill into the revenue aspects of your business and what that looks like. We don't have to go into specific figures, but just which are drawing. But the fact that you are automatically... People are letting you paint $150,000 cars already, and you're having collaborations with Porsche and everything else. And then I look at your store, your online store, and you barely have anything going on there, right? Like just a couple of pieces. And so I imagine the promotional aspects of the business are the much larger one. I will just come out and ask the question everyone is going to want to know right out of the gates: How have you managed to land clients this big right out of the gates and have this be a thing right? Because it's that's an artist's dream, and you got that out of the gates rather than building this on the back of a robust print business or originals business.

Craig Black: Yeah, so I flipped the business model in my eyes anyway, which was going for the brands right away, coming out the gate as an artist because I knew that art can make an impact on brands, partly because of my experience of working with brands in the design world, knowing how they market themselves, knowing what they can do to enhance... I felt I knew what I could do to, like I said, enhance that brand kind of thing. So one thing I'm a big believer in is self-initiated work. So that... So if I was strategic, so the very first project I did when I announced myself to the world was a football (soccer) project. So you would see over my shoulder here, yeah, was the Fusion Series footballs. And it basically created seven footballs based on teams that were participating in Euro 2020. And what I did was I created a huge amount of content across showing the process of these footballs, video imagery... Like I had six weeks worth of content, but what I was doing was showing how these artworks could sit in a brand setting, for instance, for the Euros. So how the Euros use these artworks and situate them, so it'd be like Scotland vs. England, Scotland-England ball type in the middle. So it was combining my world of design and marketing into the world of art. And then so I'm basically showing brands what can be done, what we're giving them a teaser kind of thing. And that has been a hugely powerful tool to getting these brands in, to be honest. Every self-initiated project I've done has been very strategic, whether it's been football or basketball. Sport plays a big part, so that was the first thing that's where I decided to go. So I ventured into there, basketball. I think the most recent one was golf, and I did this golf series. And then from the back of that golf and a self-initiated project came a collaboration with DP World Tour in Dubai, where I flew out to Dubai and painted on large golf balls with famous golf players. And I'm going to say, I can't even remember the name, it's terrible. I'm not a golf fan, but yeah, not like your country in golf or anything. But also, I'm very entrepreneurial-minded and strategic in terms of how to create these opportunities as well. LinkedIn is a big driver for us in our business. We've invested a hell of a lot of time in there, and there's a lot of decision-makers there as well. So connecting with these people, showing what I'm capable of doing, gets the interest, gets the nudge, gets them excited kind of thing. And that is how the past four years has formulated, and the vast majority of our work has been brand-oriented to the extent that I've been so busy doing brand collaborations, it's like brand collaboration after collaboration, two sometimes three projects at the one time. So when you're looking at when you're talking about the online store, like we only launched that, was it like three, four months ago? And that's been four years in the making, yeah. And partly because one, bandwidth. It's myself and my wife, and we've got to be like, where do we focus our time and energy? We're creating a lifestyle that works for us. So I'm side-tangent here, and you may need to bring me back, but the reason why we keep it just the two of us is it creates that lifestyle that we can take our little girl to school, pick her up on our own terms rather than being a 9-to-5, having employees who could do all these things. That's how we want to live. That's how we want to run a business. Yes, if I hired a web designer or someone who could do the shop and do social media, yes, there could be more time and more energy, all those kinds of things. But we're doing it bit by bit, and now I'm starting to get the shop up and going, starting to get things out there. It is starting to pick up that way, which is quite exciting. But it's been relentless the past four years, and to be honest, Patrick, I've absolutely loved it. I love working with the brands. I love the constant challenges that come with it, and it always keeps me on my toes. So it's a balancing act, and I understand you want to be trying to hit every revenue stream, and to be honest, we're getting there. We're definitely getting there. We're actually launching a new homeware range soon, which is very exciting, and that's grown arms and legs. We sent out a campaign teaser this week, and we've had hundreds sign up to the waiting list, and I'm like, "Right, better get painting and start making stuff." So yeah, that's...

Patrick Shanahan: Is it food-safe, the paint?

Craig Black: Yeah, it's safe. I've not got any kind of plates or stuff like this. More, I've got plant pots. I think you can see I've got a stool here that I've covered in wrap, chairs, dining tables, coffee tables. There's quite a lot going on just now, but then you're going to have your hand-painted ones, and then you're going to have ones that are going to be wrapped as well, so you can have a larger selling product kind of thing. So it's... We're at the very early stages of that, but what was really exciting from a business point of view is putting that waiting list out there to see, do people want this? Are people excited? And that was one of the best... It's the first time I ever did a waiting list. Yeah, highly recommend it for anyone who's an artist out there who's selling a product or wanting to do something different. It's a good way of rather than investing loads of time, money, effort into a product that you hope people buy. Yeah, this is a way of getting that interest, saying, "You know what, we do like this idea. Invest time and energy." So we flipped that again, and that's been really beneficial.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, you're... I mean, I can tell already right out of the gates you're a unicorn because you do a bunch of things that the normal artist does not do. People are asking on Instagram, his handle you guys is right underneath his name, so it's @craigblack. Everyone else creates the thing and then goes and tries to find an audience for the thing. You went and found an audience and then you created the thing. You inverted it. And you know, you've listened to this podcast with Thor, I'm sure you've heard me talk about newsjacking.

Craig Black: I've not heard this newsjacking, no.

Patrick Shanahan: No? So, uh, it's a marketer in the United States who came up with a term. This guy that has three names—I don't trust people that have three names, by the way—his name is David Meerman Scott, but it's genius, and you're doing it without knowing it was a thing. But do you remember, God, it's probably 10 years ago now, the 33 miners that got stuck in the ground in Chile? Yes, do you remember that? So somebody on Nike's team, extremely enterprising, was like, "Oh my God, these 33 guys are down there. If they come out, their eyes are going to be so tried out because they're adjusted to that underground, no light. We've got to send down some sunglasses." And so some enterprising guy from the Santiago, Chile office went up to the mine, and they sent down 33 pairs of sunglasses. Okay, and every time the guy comes out of the mine, he's wearing the sunglasses like brand placement. And so it got coined "newsjacking," right? And it's this notion of how to insert yourself into the zeitgeist, the news, and take it for a ride. And I think it's honestly like one of the most genius artist marketing techniques possible. And for those of you guys that don't understand sports, we have the Super Bowl, right? NFL, huge event, everyone watches it. Europe, let's be honest, everywhere else in the world, every four years, there's a thing called the World Cup, okay? Five times the audience of the Super Bowl, FYI. And then every two years in between that is the Euros, which is also a huge soccer tournament in Europe. And so he inserted himself into that application and got traction. And that alone is amazing, knowing that you did that and knowing that you did that successfully, and especially did it successfully the first time, what would be your advice for someone else trying to do that? Because it's a very... I love the technique, I love the tactic, and I should also say like opportunities come up for this every single solitary day, right? There's a ton of people that paint portraits, and it's if someone really famous dies, get your ass on that portrait immediately, create it, and then put it on social media so everyone can see it, and you're newsjacking, right? Because all the news is talking about people like everyone wants to share it. Then every time their birthday comes up every year, throw it up again. But I would be curious about your playbook because it seems like you've gone back to the well again and again. You've got the PGA, you've got the NFL, you got Porsche in here, you've got Audi, you've got motorcycle applications. So love to hear about that.

Craig Black:I would say that the playbook... I always thought about how would I be if I was in a crowd and I seen this? What would excite me as a football fan? That would... I'll be that was the thing that got me hooked at the very beginning. But what I did was I spent six months of pouring paint on a football. Wow, six months of trying to figure that out. That's a lot of footballs. It's a lot. And the thing is, when I pour paint on one ball, it's not as if I could just... It's done. No, it's done. That thing's toast. The financial pressure and all those kinds of things was building. What I was starting to realize is one, getting better at my craft, getting more professional, more of a professional feeling to it. But getting feedback was a good point. So getting reactions from when I was... I would get like my wife in, and then I would get my brother in, and I would get one, two, three people, and I would create it live. And this was unintentional at first. I was like, "What do you think of this?" And they're like, "This is [__] hot. Seen this be made live." Yeah, and that was like a eureka moment. And then... And I think you've got to be aware of the signs in the world. And what I mean by that is someone said, "That was [__] hot, Craig. Seen that live. You should do that more." And I was like, "I should do that more." And then I started to think, there's the biggest events in the world in terms of football, which is the Euros and then FIFA World Cup. So I started going, "You know what, why don't I do this in front of an audience?" And I would get more of an audience each time. And then I would pitch. I would... I did a lot of self-initiated stuff, just doing it live in front of 10 people, 15 people, 20 people, getting a reaction. And then the thing is, see, when you're creating something live, see those 15 people, I guarantee they're all getting their phones out. They're all going to be tagging you. They're all going to be sharing their work, going, "Look at this amazing thing happening live in front of me." Because we went through COVID, and we were through a time of no live experience. We're not seeing each other. We're never having this one-to-one interaction. And when I... We came out of that, I was like, "I would love that personally, to see something like that. Why don't I create it?" Yeah, and what happened... So figuring that out along the way was a massive guide for me. It's like that waiting list, putting it out there, see the attraction. Some things I did do, it didn't work, so I went in a different direction and pivoted and tried to go, "What's going over here?" But one thing I am is I'm bold enough and brave enough to contact these brands and say, "Look at me. Look what I can do. Look how I can benefit your brand." The thing is, and I'm... I guarantee a vast majority of artists out there in this world do not do that. Yeah, they dream about it. They love it, but all they want is that client to slide in their DMs on Instagram and go, "We love your work. Can we collaborate with you?" Sometimes you need to grab the bull by the horns and reach out to them. Something like... There could be 100 people at a certain brand that you want. You write 100 emails. 99 of them, maybe nothing at all. But one reply could give you a little inch in the door. And that's exactly what happened for me. And when I got that inch, I'm [__] booting the door down. Sorry for swearing, but I'm booting the door down and I'm coming in. And actually, exactly what happened. And then you build momentum. You build momentum. You learn from one project. You go, "What worked well? What didn't work well?" I've now got a camera crew that works with me all the time now that I bring on the brand projects. At first, it was like, "How do I want to work in the angles and stuff?" But with brands coming on board, sometimes they have their own crew, but see, nine times out of ten, they say, "Craig, we want your crew because they know how you work. We know how you get the angles. Like, we watch the storytelling when we watch the videos." Like, everything's been a constant fine-tuning. It's never, "Oh, it's perfect, and that's it." Like, I'm constantly fine-tuning, and you've got to finesse every single time. But you've got to be brave enough and bold enough to try, experiment, put things out there. Maybe if you get one, two, or three likes, so be it. Put it out to the world. You never ever know who's going to see it. And that model benefited me in my career. Everyone just has the, "If I build it, they will come," and it just doesn't work that way. No one's coming. I've got this customer, longtime friend, Meg, and she says it like one of the most profound things in my career was, "Tumbled myself, no one's coming." Like, you have to go on offense. And you went on offense.

Patrick Shanahan: We talked about swearing on there, and I have to take an opportunity because normally I don't get these. There is a Scottish term, okay, that is mildly... I don't even know if it's derogatory per se, originally. In fact, I know it's not, okay. But I use this... I see everyone on football Twitter doing this, okay, because I'm a huge soccer fan too, and they do it in a little bit of a derogatory, taking the piss type of fashion, okay. I asked my Scottish father-in-law what it was, and it took him a few seconds, and he had to sound it out in his head. So I'm going to throw the comment up on the screen, and Craig is going to translate what this actually means, okay, in Scottish brogue. Can you see it up there?

Craig Black: Yeah, "yer da."

Patrick Shanahan:"Yer da." So actually, what does it mean?

Craig Black: It means "your dad." Yes, your dad. Yes, it's a bit of like... You're talking [__] at the same time. Yeah, it's a weird terminology because it can mean 10 different things, yes, but it's referring to your dad at the same time. It's weird, but it's part of Scottish culture, and I love it. And it's... Look at this bunch of Yanks and Americans have taken it up as a term, so that's just way too funny for me.

Patrick Shanahan: K, there's so many things to unpack. Unfortunately, you're an example of one of the unicorns in the arts, and I say this all the time because, for whatever reason, whoever you think made you, however God makes artists, like the concentric circles of the creative brain and the business brain, they just don't tend to intersect like all that often. And in the rare cases when it does, you end up getting a situation like what you have, which is you went straight to the finish line right out of the gates, which is working with the big brands. I imagine after you've worked with a couple now, it's just compounding. All the people that are making the decisions that keep coming back to you and back to you and back to you. So in terms of revenue for the business, is it how stark is it? Is it like 99-1, 95-5, all the brand deals, all the brand work, and very little direct sales or sales of originals and that alone?

Craig Black: I split up... Oh, say probably 60-40, maybe. Oh, that's great. 60's brands, probably 60-70. I wonder what my wife would say, but we certainly do sell a lot of private commission stuff. It comes via... Weirdly enough, it will come from the brand. So say, like, I would work with... I'll give you an example. I worked with FIFA at the World Cup in Qatar, and I created 32 acrylic fusion footballs live as a live art performance in front of all the players participating in the tournament. So I did the Brazil ball in front of the Brazil players, all these amazing things. So the impact that I made there was profound, and FIFA loved it that much that the top people in FIFA, like the ones who... Not even you can't get their email or you can't find them online or whatever, yeah, they came along and were like, "I absolutely love this. Can you create one for my office?" And then the other guy was like, "Can you create one for my friend back home?" And I remember going, "Yeah, cool." And then my wife comes in, "What's it going to cost you?" They're like, "No problem at all." It's like... And so we would create three balls off the back of that and make X amount of money. And so a lot of these private commissions come off of people who are in the top levels of these brands as well, which is really interesting as well because I'll be brutally honest, I'm not from the fine art world. When I started my career, I had no contacts in that field, none at all. But what happened was, like I said, I started in the brand world because I went right away. Yeah, the fine art world are going, "Who's this guy? Who's this guy? Who's this guy painting on a Porsche now?" And obviously generating momentum, so this guy's got something really cool. And what I'm doing is such a unique technique, it's very bespoke, yeah, to my... I don't think there's anyone in the world doing what I'm doing. But what comes with that is the storytelling element, but also these people in the art world are going, "All right, he's cool." So I've now had exhibitions in Sydney, Australia, last year, and upcoming, I'm actually going to New York in the next few weeks to do another event and an exhibition as well, London, all these kinds of things as well. So but that's all happened because of the branding things and building your own brand as well. And then what we've purposely done is I've shown who I am as a person. I've shown who my wife is as a person, so you get 100% transparency, authenticity. And then that has played a nice, beautiful way into the art world as well because when galleries connect with me, they say, "I loved your story. I loved who you are as a family, what you're building. We love that who you are, and we feel like we already know you before we've even had that conversation." Yeah, and that has opened up so many more doors into the art world, which I honestly, like I said before, didn't know at all. So it's opening up different areas that I didn't expect, but it's been great.

Patrick Shanahan: And how that's happened... Yeah, it's... You do give a window into your personal life, right? It's not all just art. And I get into this all the time on social. The way that I like to describe it is, look, no one's saying that you have to be a Kardashian and have a freaking film crew following you around 24 hours a day, but give us a little window into what's going on when you're not creating the art. And that really comes through on your Instagram. I didn't look at your other social profiles. I was pressed for time this morning—bad prep on my part—but is Instagram your biggest social platform, or are you doing more on TikTok or...?

Craig Black: My biggest social platform is LinkedIn. LinkedIn? Yeah, we've strategically invested so much time into LinkedIn. Near back four years ago, and I'll give you the reason why, and I think this is for the audience as well. When four years ago, or even right now, every creative is on Instagram, buying for attention. Yeah, everyone's looking to capture everyone's attention, and that's just the way the world is. And I wanted to work with the brands, and I realized that if I go over... What you're hoping is that, like I said before, a brand will see your work on Instagram and then slide in your DMs and just go, "Yeah, let's collaborate." Yeah, I thought, "I can go over to LinkedIn, and I could speak to the creative director of Adidas or Nike and go, 'Hey, how you doing? Love what you're doing. I've created this over here that could benefit your brand. Yeah, have a look.'" And that model... We started to get a lot of, at the early stages, a little insight into that, and people were connecting, going, "Yeah, I want to speak to you. I want to speak to you more." And I'm like, "Well, I'm getting more traction over here from a business point of view." And Instagram's good. It's great, and it gets me out there and stuff, but I would say the vast majority of my time and energy is in LinkedIn because that is where most of the work comes from. That is... And making those connections are far more important. Building relationships, networking... I can't stress enough the importance of them. And you mentioned it before, every collaboration we've had with a brand, it's not just been a one-off. They're continuing on. Yeah, that's because of the relationship we've built with them. And it all started from a conversation on LinkedIn, then meeting them in person, and it led to the project or whatever it would be. So I would... I've always encouraged artists to go over there because you always think it's just suits, and it's just boring. And if you go with that mindset, it's going to be boring, and it's going to be suits, and you're not going to get traction. Whereas the people who connect with me, they love to see the work that I'm doing. They're very supportive, very encouraging. And the thing that the algorithms on LinkedIn are, for me personally, much better because if one person likes your work or your post or whatever you're posting on LinkedIn, that spreads onto their network. Yeah, whereas I think on Instagram, it doesn't really work that way. So you're spreading further than you ever anticipated. And I honestly... I get things from, "Oh, you're the Scottish guy that paints on footballs. I've seen you. You're on LinkedIn all the time." Yeah, that's... It's like the standard line I get for the past four years, and I'm happy with that. Absolutely.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, and I see... Like, my experience doing this for 10 years, okay, has been a wild one, and it's a wild one in the sense that really early in the party, we started running webinars. So at this point, I've talked to I don't even know what the number is—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of artists. And what's amazing about that is routinely, week in and week out, I see people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and sometimes even 90s coming on saying, "I still want to grow this thing." And why am I bringing that up? It's given me like incredible perspective on the artistic gifting, talent, whatever you want to call it. It's something that never gets shut off. People just want to keep doing it. It's how you sustain yourself, fulfill yourself, relax, all these things, right? Creatively inspire yourself, all that. So knowing that completely changes the dynamics for me on how to approach the business, right? And I'll get into this, and I have a question for you at the end of it. It's... I love marketing, okay, and I'm 46, and I'm going to market until I can afford to not market anymore, and then I am going to peace out, okay? I am not trying to market into my 70s, 80s, 90s, okay, until I die, until the wheels come off. But it's different for you guys, and when you have that time horizon, everything changes because you don't just have a business you're going to be working on for 15 years. You have a business you're going to be working on for the rest of your life. So the value of what you do now, the value of the leads that you capture, the value of the audience you build on LinkedIn and you build on Instagram... And why I bring that up is understand the rarified atmosphere that you've gotten into already, like this level of success at your age, and not only that, you inverted the whole thing where you're at the finish line before you even started the race, which is working with the biggest brands. They're calling you, and you get FIFA guys that are buying your soccer balls. That's ridiculous. And Lord knows those guys are pilfering money out of that FIFA organization. They've got money to spend. So crooked. So cred... We could talk about that for hours, but the reason I bring it up is it... It goes back aspirationally to where, Craig, do you want to take this business? How big do you want to grow it? And I've got to see some of your value proposition now, which is my wife and I are getting to spend time with our daughter and take her to school and live life on our terms, and all of that is awesome. And I could understand aspirationally if that's the further that you wanted it to go, it's going great. We're paying our bills. We've got a nice house. We go on vacations. We travel. Why would I even want more? I would love to push back, and I'm not saying that's what you say. I would love to push back on that immediately just based on the number of folks that get to your level at your age. And you've got to understand it's a gift. It's like George Best, right? That guy threw away the greatest talent in the history of mankind being an alcoholic. And did he know what he had there? Did he know what he had there? No one's gonna... Who that is? You... You got that level of success going on, and mathematically, it makes you a freaking unicorn. So really, where I'm going, I'm like, "Craig, hire some people immediately." Okay, you're going to be in this for life. Start taking all the social platforms seriously. What size is your email list? Why are you not posting more on Instagram? It can be even bigger than you imagine what LinkedIn can be, despite the fact it's working. So that's just where my mind goes no matter what. My whole job over the last 10 years is to find as many revenue sources for you guys as possible and to freaking maximize them. So thoughts on all of that rant?

Craig Black: You're totally right, and in maximizing and all those kinds of things, and that's something we're constantly evolving and constantly thinking about. Where I want to go is... So acrylic fusion is so versatile that it can expand in so many different ways. So yeah, we're actually having conversations of being in the digital space as well, projection mapping, all those kinds of things. And more... Don't say the NFT word, Craig. Don't say it. I'm so tired of that. Sure, yeah, everyone is. Everyone is. And I'm more for the immersive experience type, bringing people into my world. Do I love the live art element to it? And even to give you an insight, like I mentioned, I was going to New York in the next few weeks, and I'm collaborating with a choreographer, and I am going to be painting on the human body form while they dance. Wow. So if you can imagine a dancer, and I'm gonna be painting... They're going to have some sort of suit on, not going to go directly on the skin, but I'll acrylic fusion on their body form, and then the arm and the movement of paint flows in different ways. Now, that is just one step in a totally different direction, never even imagined, but because it's so out of my comfort zone, I get such a buzz out of that. I'm like, "Yeah, where could that go?" And then the discussions of that is potentially lead to a Broadway show, and I'm like, "What?" Like, amazing. And I'm like, "But then I start to go, why not me? Why not this guy from a small town in Scotland can be on a big stage in New York, live painting, creating art, and doing beautiful stuff that's never been done before?" But pushing it in ways that's never been seen, and that's what I'm trying to do. And that's what I'm evolving. I'm constantly figuring that out and pushing and trying to go, "Oh, I could do this. Oh, I could do that." Yeah, so that evolution... Do I have this mentality on... Honestly, what is 5, 10, 15 years? Have at it guns blazing. But there is a part of me that goes, "See, after that, I'm going to slow down." Because one, I don't need... Personally, I don't need millions in the bank. I don't... That's not my... That's not what I'm going for. Yeah, it goes all back to the family and the lifestyle. I'm creating a legacy for my family, and it doesn't... I'm not chasing millions in the bank or money. I'm chasing... I'm creating something that can... My daughter can grow up going, "If my daddy can go for something he believed in and he made his dreams come true, I can do the same." So the point of that is I realize that I've got a kind of obligation here to fly the flag and inspire people because there's discussions now that I am, for instance, we had a discussion yesterday with a big brand over here in the UK, and I am going to be the leading artist to speak to schools, 80,000 students in Scotland, about how to become an artist and his career and how you can be from Scotland and do this on a global scale. Yeah, that fills my heart with so much warmth, with so much joy. That's things like that. It's like where I want to be, and that's my way of giving back then. And I'm flying the flag in a sense because I grew up in a world where I had no idea what creativity was or that you can even have a career like I do. I used to play football semi-professionally before the world of creativity. Everybody thought because I was the George Best of this town, that's what I was. Yeah, the alcohol and... I was gonna go on and play football, but I didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it at all. And this is where the art and this is where I find happiness. And that's why I always need to remember what I'm doing, regardless if I'm painting something for one person or in front of 10,000 people, whether it's 100 bucks or 100,000 bucks. As long as I'm happy, the people around me are happy, that's what it's all about for me personally. That's what it is, and we always need to bear that in mind. And over the years, like when you're talking about hiring more people and stuff like that, I'm not saying no, and I'm not saying yes at this point. What we're finding from a business point of view is that the authenticity of me doing the thing is much more valuable and put in, and actually, from a profit margin, it's higher. Whereas if I brought in staff and mass-produced it, it wouldn't... Now, maybe in the long term, maybe have a big five, maybe it's totally different, and I'm saying this now, but... If this is a constant question that we ask ourselves, and we've now got a... I know I'm side-tangent here, but it's business-related... We've now brought in a board of advisors who are not specifically in the creative industry but in the business world, yeah, to go, "Right, we have these ideas. Where do we want to grow?" And bounce off them, and they're constantly challenging us and making us think about where we want to go. And every single day, we're constantly evaluating, "Is this the right place? Is this where we are?" And then, "Are we happy? Is this where we want to be?" I've managed to create a business where my wife has left a job as a mental health nurse to come on board as a managing director, and she has... She's so incredibly smart. She deals with all the business stuff, right? She's learned so much, and she is dominating in that field, man. She is so ahead of the game right now, but it's all manageable because of the two of us. And the most core thing about it is our little girl. I want to dedicate most of my time with her, and that is the main thing. My fear, and I'll be honest with you, Patrick, like if I was to bring on more people and all that, my time becomes bigger with the work rather than the time that I want to spend with my little girl. So Olivia's four now, and maybe in the next 10 years, when she becomes a teenager, she'll say, "Daddy, I'm going to go play with my friends now," and I'm like, "Cool." And then that will give me free time, and then maybe at that point, I maybe bring on more people and the bigger stuff. But in the meantime, in that 10 years till that point, I know for a fact my brand's going to go up and up and up, putting in the hard yards. I just don't feel right now at this time I don't want to sacrifice my little girl and my family time for the business. It's a bit selfish, but it's my selfish, if that makes sense.

Patrick Shanahan: 100%. And we're talking champagne problems here, but I could... I could significantly challenge the premise, which is the premise that in bringing people on and doing more—that marketing, growing your list more, increasing the social followers, etc., etc.—it will actually take less of your time than you think. Yeah, it's just about systems than it is anything else. But the reason I'm driving at this agenda, and I'm gonna... And I'm going to pivot this a little bit to AI because I want to talk about it, is if I interviewed—and I have—100,000 artists, what percentage of those 100,000 do you think would even have one employee in the business? I'm guessing none. It's like less than 1%. Less than 1%. There's some folks like you that are in a... The significant other is carrying the load, but what I inevitably see is that they don't ever... Would bring on staff, and that works against you in two ways. And one, it's a chicken and egg, right? "I would bring on the staff and do this extra stuff and get my name out there if I could just afford it, and I've got to sell the art first." So there's a chicken and an egg inside of it there. But then also on your side, it's, in my estimation, propagate... You're leaving money on the table. You can donate all the money if you want. It's again, it's the George Best thing, right? Like, you've got the skills. Like, it's God-given. Like, you made it here, and such a great amount of luck. It's you. The stupid Spider-Man line, "With great power comes great responsibility," that everyone uses. So that would be my natural inclination to push that way, and we can talk about that. And I do see something that you need to do on Instagram immediately, and I want to talk about that. But I want to pivot briefly to AI, and my agenda with AI... Shameless plug, we have an AI application, but independent of that, I'm a huge nerd, right? And I'm going way down the rabbit hole in all the AI. And you can see it as a glass half empty, glass half full. It's just how you're going to look at it. Either the robots are all going to come to kill us, and this is going to be terrible, or how I see it is like the potential of an art business is basically like the GDP, right? Like, the gross domestic product. It's the sum total of everything that you're creating and all the work that you're doing. And for the first time, if you put these damn robots to work and you learn, your GDP goes up as an artist significantly. I think AI represents... And take out the image generation side of it. I'm not even getting into that. I'm just saying helping artists be more productive and increase their output across the board. It's... Okay, we're talking about an industry writ large that never has. It's always been a solopreneur. It's always been a one-man band. They've never had this opportunity to actually have help to get the word out there. And so I'm just so insanely bullish on it. All of which is to say, have you used it at all? Do you continually use it? Is it helping in your business at all right now?

Craig Black: I do, yeah. I do. Well, predominantly ChatGPT. We use that for copywriting for social media posts, to proposals, to contracts, to advice. Honestly, like even... I've actually asked things like issues I've had with painting in drying time and asking ChatGPT, and it would make me think differently, and I'm like, "Ah, genius. Genius." And it's... And it honestly... I'm with you. I'm totally with you and utilizing it. And I think partly that's one of the reasons why everything... A lot and... When did it come out? I don't know, six months ago? Whenever it was, even our business since been utilizing it has been much more streamlined. So many things that took up more of our time—copywriting and writing social media posts, trying to get the right... Like, dude, way do you start using it for tech support? The tech support is insane. And I'm not even just talking about like the IT tech support. Like, you have a problem with the car, you have a problem with the motorcycle, you know, the house heater, whatever it is, you throw it in there, and it's, "Do this," and it's like, "Oh my God, it does everything." If someone's wanted to work with a brand, and they go, "I would love to work with X brand. How do I make that happen?" And it will give you a strategic plan of doing it. Yeah, 100%. Why is... I don't know if everyone should be using it, but it's massively streamlined our business massively in our time. And the thing is, me and Ali work at such a high output when we're in the studio and when we're at home, such a high output, that ChatGPT and AI has massively helped into that kind of thing. Obviously, there's more to it, and there's going to be more to it. And I'm very... I'll be honest, I'm open to it. Like, I think there's a... I think there's obviously that fear factor of what AI can do and all those kinds of things, but I embrace it. I use it as another tool. It's a tool to our business, tool to create, and tool to market what we're trying to do. Yeah, so yeah, I'm a big fan of it, and it's massively helped.

Patrick Shanahan:God, we have so much to talk about. Before we forget, on Instagram... Okay, again, champagne problems, guys. I know I'm sorry if you have over 10,000, okay, you can start what's called a broadcast list, okay? And a broadcast list is basically... I literally want you to start this like today when we get off the phone or have your wife do it because the minute you start building this, it's absolutely insane. So here I am on the Art Storefronts profile, okay? Let me get to my profile. I literally just switched to the dark side like two weeks ago. I'm still trying to figure it out, but can you see the little... Oh, no, you can't see. Let me get it up. Okay, okay, great. Profile picture, following, all of that, tagline, and then obviously the link in the bio, right? Do you see the thing underneath it that says "Just Ship It"? Yep. Okay, so you start the broadcast list, okay? It goes into... And by the way, go to ChatGPT and say, "How do I start an Instagram broadcast list?" I'm not going to tell you how to do it. It'll list it out. Okay, you give it a name. It's going to need a reason, like, "Why did you do this? What is the reason that this thing exists?" Okay, but... And this is the first one that I did. You can style this thing. You can give it a name, and it becomes like an inside community. Okay, anyone can join it that hits your profile, right? And this was the initial little broadcast that I sent out for Art Storefronts: "We get it. You have to create the art. You have to price the art. Join this channel, okay, and I'll constantly share things with you." And what's insane about it is it's essentially an email list on Instagram, okay? The difference is it's an email list on Instagram with an open rate approaching 80 to 90%. It is an email list on Instagram where you don't have any competition with every single solitary other Tom, Dick, and Harry that is emailing incessantly all the time, right? Like, which is... You can do polls, you can do live broadcasts in here, and it is absolutely insane the response rate that I get on it, okay? And I'm streaming on their platform, so I shouldn't be saying these things, but the way that a social media post works today algorithmically is the easiest way to think about it is it's like dropping a rock in a pond, and you get concentric circles, right? You post, that's dropping the rock. The third circle goes out, and there's a timer on the third circle. And it doesn't matter if it's Instagram or if it's YouTube or it's Twitter, even LinkedIn. From the time you post till the time that third circle forms, a certain amount of people are going to see your post. A certain amount of people are going to like it, comment, share it, whatever, and those are going to be ratios. How many times was this thing shared? How many times was it liked? How many times was it commented on? What are those ratios? And then Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, all of them make a decision: Should I go and show it to more people because those numbers are good, or should I not? Right? And that's how every post lives. So you, with a broadcast list, you make a post, and you know it's a banger. You know this one's going. I want it out there. It's going to be awesome. I had the video production team drop the post, instantaneously hit it in the broadcast channel, okay? And you can link directly to the post in the broadcast channel, and what happens is it's a way to game the system because instead of a post getting 2,000 views in the first 20 minutes, it's got 5,000 views because of your entire broadcast list just sent all that traffic in there. So some inside baseball, but case in point, the types of things that I need to see you doing, okay? It's... And you're not going to get there without some help because, aside from your wife, aside from the board, which I'm sure you compensate, you have... What, your film crew you hire occasionally, but they're contractors, right? There's not anyone 9-to-5 in your studio?

Craig Black: No, no, 9-to-5, yeah.

Patrick Shanahan: So we need to get on that. See, this insight that you're sharing, like, I've never been... It's great to hear it, and it's great to know this is available as well, and that's also a bit... Massive amount of RS have benefited from it, so it's great for me, great for business. As much as I'm doing very well and successful, I'm always looking to learn, always looking to improve. So even if things like this about evolving Instagram, I'm all for it. Definitely, I need... I know I need to figure that out even more. This is great insight, and I appreciate you sharing that with us.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, and I also think just because I love talking about this, I think you need to go deeper down the news... You don't have to do any of this, but you should do this. Okay, I would go deeper down the newsjacking rabbit hole. I think you need to make a Ronaldo ball, whether you like him or not. I think you need to make a Messi ball, regardless of whether or not you like them, because my God, you get one mention... And most... Again, he and I were talking about this ahead of time because we're both huge football fans, right? And most artists are not, but in the realm of social media audiences, okay, over here we have the Kardashians and a couple other celebrities. Do you know who beats them? Leo and Cristiano Ronaldo. They have more fans worldwide on that platform than any other. And it's... You have the opportunity to... Get a list, ask ChatGPT, "Who are the top 25 players with the largest following on Instagram?" DM them, say, "I want to make you a ball. Let's do a collab." Right? Like, as much as me telling you to do a broadcast channel, my God, you get into... You slide into one of their DMs, and it's game over, right? I'm just gonna say that.

Craig Black: I'm already ahead of you. Are we getting a tease here, Craig? Something... Something in the works. I can't show you, but the guy you're talking about, there's something I've created with him and his company, which should be launching very soon. I totally get where you're getting from, and hopefully this comes off... Famous Marvel character. I'm going to see if anybody can guess what this is. What Marvel character is this? Amazing. I'm terrible at the Marvel characters. Who's W... This is Deadpool. Deadpool? Obviously, Reynolds owns Wrexham Football Club, yeah, and I inspired by doing a Deadpool football. So you're getting a preview before he's even been released. By the way, talk about another unicorn. Like, as much success as that guy's had in acting, he's had 10 times as much in business. When they finally go to sell Wrexham, and it's in the Prem, give me a break. It's crazy. It's crazy how he's done so well. But you know what? One thing leads to another, and as long as you're willing to explore different areas... Because what we usually tend to do with society is, "This is all I know. This is all I'm willing to go." Whereas if you're willing to try and find out over here, then you can open up more doors than you can possibly imagine. And that's exactly what I'm doing. When I mentioned about the fine art world and all those kinds of things, you've got to be brave enough to go in. And when you're talking about the whole Instagram thing, I'm like, "Fair enough. I'm an office. I'm happy to say I'm an office, even though I've got all this success." Yeah, I'm willing to learn, and then the next few months, I'll be like, "I understand that. Next thing, what's the next thing I can improve? Next thing again." Yeah, so you've got to be brave enough and willing enough to do that.

Patrick Shanahan: Yeah, the only way it's going to happen is if you hire a team member. You need someone that's dedicated to do it, and then there's very easy ways to give you a list of things to do. But I think if you did it, you would find that it would be a value-add, and you would actually get more of your time back. A little bit upfront, the training, that's a pain in the butt, but you're there. You're at that level. You should totally do it. Where do you want people to follow you? What's the best place to stay up with all things Craig Black, find out about these amazing things that are happening?

Craig Black: You can follow the Instagram, which is @craigblack. I'm also on LinkedIn. If you type in "Craig Black visual artist," I'm sure you'll find me. And you can also go to my website, which is craig.black. And then there, you can find out more about who I am, what I do, our story, family. You can also get a link to our shop as well, which is on there. And then in the next month or so, maybe two months, we'll be releasing our new homeware range, which is like functional art, which is a big thing I'm passionate about, and that'll be getting released. So yeah, that's the main places you can find me.

Patrick Shanahan: Amazing. And we'll... You might have to send me some of the links that I don't have. I'm sure I can get it all on your website, but we'll throw all of that stuff in the show notes for everyone that listens to it after the fact. Obviously, I'm going to have to put my salesman hat on and try to get Craig onto Art Storefronts rather than Shopify where he is currently, but we can have that discussion. You've got to call me when you come to California so we can have a beer. That's on the list. We'll have to talk more about football. And then huge shout out to your wife for proactively reaching out because she still does outbound marketing. That was smart.

Craig Black: Exactly, exactly.

Patrick Shanahan: Do you listen to podcasts, or is she the podcast listener?

Craig Black: I do listen to podcasts. It was me who told her to reach out.

Patrick Shanahan: How did you find it originally, just out of curiosity?

Craig Black: It was through... It was Instagram at first, and then it ended up in a rabbit hole. I think I ended up going on to Spotify. You know how I go into certain platforms to listen to certain things, and it was just like one thing to another. And I'm sure I was listening to it through Spotify in the car, yeah. But I did... It was through Instagram I found you first. That was where it was.

Patrick Shanahan: What episodes of everything that is in there do you find the most valuable, out of curiosity?

Craig Black: Just getting the insight from artists and how they go about doing their stuff. I find it fascinating. And I think comparison syndrome is a horrible thing, and I hate this because we're all guilty of it. Even I'm guilty of it sometimes, but over the years, it's getting less and less and less and less because you've got to realize every single person is unique. Everybody's art is unique. Everybody's story is unique, regardless of where you are in the world. And use that to your advantage. Use it as your superpower. And that's why I always double down and being who I am today is the exact same person you meet in real life, online and offline, all that stuff. Yeah, always be that. And made every... Amazing. Amazing. Can't end on a higher note than that. Craig Black, huge thanks. Can't wait to keep an eye on where your career goes. Everybody, follow him on Instagram for his imminently to be released Craig Black's Insider List Instagram broadcast channel or whatever he calls it, which needs to happen. And then yeah, thanks, huge thanks for the time. Enjoy the weekend. Friday, it's time to kick it off. Thanks, everybody, for watching. Appreciate it, and look forward to seeing you on a new one soon. All right, bye, everybody.