Today, we’d like to introduce you to Ravi Zupa.
Ravi, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I love art. I have always loved drawing and painting and sculpture and I’ve spent most of my waking life on this earth doing some kind of art. In the early 2000s, I really started making fine art my focus for work. At the time I worked as a substitute teacher at a charter school in Denver and was able to use that job to gently move into only making art for my income. Ramping down the number of days that I worked at the school while ramping up my income in art sales.
I centered my operation on making a lot of small art pieces, priced low enough that regular people could afford them. I showed my work in as many coffee shops and bars as I could and always tried to make the openings big events. We would rearrange the furniture of the restaurant and set up movie projectors, I made movies with my friends, usually comedy sketches or weird avant-garde art films, and had live performances with my friends to bring people out to the openings. It was fun for us and the businesses always enjoyed the fun too.
They got a little business boost for that night and got to host a unique art thing. Over time I sold a lot of work that way, many, many hundreds of small pieces to people all over Colorado and I started showing at more formal galleries. Eventually, I was contacted by Vice Gallery in Mexico City and had a solo show there. That really changed my focus. I started pursuing bigger shows in major cities.
After that, I showed in London and Manchester UK, New York, Denmark, San Francisco, and more. Eventually, Shepard Fairey discovered my work and I was invited to do a solo show at his gallery in LA. While all of these gallery shows were happening I was building the infrastructure and systems for creating, printing, selling, and shipping out prints to buyers through my website and from my own studio.
That operation started to become the larger one with more income and more sales around 2015. I now have a staff of two wonderful employees who help me with the day-to-day operations along with about a dozen other partners and contractors. We make thousands of art prints and gifts and ship them out all over the world. It’s a really fun adventure!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’m guessing no one ever answers this question by saying that it’s been an easy breeze. Ha! It really is true that persistence is the main ingredient and staying on track despite difficulty and exhaustion is key. I come from a poor family, marked by a lot of uncertainty and chaos. My nature is not very structured and organized and I’ve had to learn to be very organized to keep this thing working and growing.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Over the years, my method for business has been to integrate it into my life more and more. There is very little division between work and life… for better or worse. It has given me a lot of freedom and helped me absorb the difficulty of funding these expensive projects but it also makes work, a larger piece of my life, than perhaps it should be.
In the last few years, I have been lucky to find two fantastic employees! Attie Schuler and Jesse Jarldane. Both of whom are young artists getting their careers started. They come to work every day and take on so many different kinds of work.
Communicating with galleries, shops, and museums, packing and shipping, drawing, photoshop editing, prepping for screen printing, welding, ceramics, carpentry, website maintenance, social media, and so on… All three of us have to know how to do all of these things and it’s always a new adventure. We eat lunch together and go for walks during the lunch hour and we have so much fun together. I’m very lucky!
How can people work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
We are actively looking for retailers to carry our products. We have dozens of different art prints, and several sets of matchboxes featuring unique art themes, t-shirts, greeting cards, coasters, playing cards, journals, and more. These gifts and products are featured in over 100 cool little shops and boutiques around the country and the world.
The items sell really well and our retail partners return for more art, often. We’re always looking to get into more shops so if you have a little boutique or know of one that you like to frequent, let us know through the website.
Contact Info:
- Website: ravizupa.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raviamarzupa/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RaviAmarZupa
Image Credits
Morgan Rindengan and Kelsey Arneson
