From Post-it Notes to Gallery Walls

“I’ve always been an artist,” said alumna Allison James (’13). 

“According to my mom, she has these little Post-it Note drawings of bears that I did when I was 18 months old. I don’t even know if I was walking yet. And Mom still has them.” 

She’s come a long way from her Post-it note bears. 

James is a contemporary abstract mixed media artist. Each piece she creates contains contemporary splashes of saturated color with subtle detail and recognizable shapes she calls her “decoder rings things”. What began on Instagram with newsletters and frequently sharing her work has blossomed into a successful art career housed in a wonderful studio in her hometown of Perry, Georgia. 

James came to Georgia Southern because it was close to home yet far enough away that she had a feeling of independence. 

“When I got there I really loved how small and close knit it felt,” she said. “It worked out perfectly. I was in Alpha Delta Pi sorority and all of my best friends still are from Georgia Southern.”

She also found out that Georgia Southern was filled with some of the best and most highly trained professors in art anywhere in the country.

“I didn’t realize that the professors that I would be learning under were Yale graduates, Cornell graduates, Rhode Island School of Design graduates,” said James. “I had no idea I would be getting the best training possible. I use that all today in my work. I don’t think I would have had a better experience anywhere else. It was the perfect mix of everything that I needed.” 

James learned from the best. But her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Georgia Southern didn’t automatically come with a built-in job as an artist when she graduated.

“I had to make money, so I moved back home to Perry and lived with my mom for two years,” said James. “Over the summer I washed dogs for $5 a piece. Then in the fall I got a job with a boutique downtown. I finally got recruited by a friend of mine that works for Anthropologie and I became a stylist for them in Atlanta.”

James was okay with that. She felt at least she was working towards something adjacent to what she was really passionate about. There was a lot of design and art in the Anthropologie job.

“So this is like spring of 2017, four years after I got my degree,” said James. “Since then I moved. Since then I met my husband. Then we get engaged, we get married, and we make a plan. And the plan was to match my Anthropologie salary. I was going to give myself a year and then I can quit and be an artist full time. So, I started with one day off a week from my retail job to do art.” 

By December of 2018, the demand in James’ art career had grown so much that she was down to one day a week at her retail job. In 2019, James became a full-time artist, selling all her art through Instagram, her website and galleries.

Galleries began reaching out to James and that solidified her career choice.

“I love working with galleries,” said James. “Some artists don’t because they typically take 50%, but there’s nothing better than creating a body of work, giving it to someone, and then just every month getting checks in the mail. I was doing all of that primarily through Instagram and my website.

“And I’m really big on email lists and newsletters, just growing that slowly over time. I don’t have a ton of email followers, but the people who are there in my email and in my newsletter lists, they’re very devoted. I would say 60% of them are repeat collectors.”

James also has had some time to help other artists who needed her kind of advice to have success.

“I think I have something bigger to share here with other artists, and I need to help as many people as possible,” said James. “The monetization was not even on my radar at first. For a stint there, I did some courses, I did group coaching, things like that and I still have private clients. But it always comes back to the art. It also comes back to checking in with yourself, asking how you feel about yourself, and are you really believing in yourself? I believe your mindset is everything in this career.

“Every Monday, I have a meeting with myself. What are my goals for the week and what are we working on? I think that’s where so many artists kind of fail. You don’t have to be business-minded, but you need to have structure.” 

James was supposed to have her first solo art show at a gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina, at Neilson Fine Art in October. She was thrilled because the first solo show is the pinnacle of an artist’s career. But she had to postpone it because James is expecting her first child in August. 

“I said I would like to be at my solo show, and I don’t want to be stressed,” said James. “I want to be totally free in mind and spirit while making that work. But my brain has been taken over by creating a healthy child and a safe environment.”

James has clients from California to Australia and hopes to get gallery representation there soon. 

“I’m kind of concentrated in the Southeast,” said James. “But I’ve seen it flare out so far, of course, to California, but also Texas and as far up as Connecticut and even the Boston area. But now I want to go out and continue to work with galleries. They bring new collectors into your world that would have never known who you were. When you work with the right galleries, it’s a really wonderful relationship.”

When asked what she wants people to get out of her story, James doesn’t hesitate.

“I want people to keep believing in themselves, as cheesy as that is. Especially if they’re an artist. And I would say to give Georgia Southern a shot. There is so much more to Georgia Southern than meets the eye. All the programs are just incredible. I mean, there’s so many wonderful things about Georgia Southern, and it is like a little safe, homey bubble.”
–– Liz Walker