Marti McGinnis |
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Marti McGinnis - Motivated Creative
Having moved to the Bluegrass area in the summer of 2004 I have embarked on the fufilling of a lifelong dream to get some horses into my professional and private life. Thus you will see I have begun to create a body of equine art and am a recent graduate from an equine education program. I am motivated to add value to others' equine operation(s) by using the uniquely accessible skill set I have and am putting together. Life is a feast of opportunity and one does well to add their own spice to the recipe!
EXPERIENCE:
Equine:
*Groom, Keeneland November 2005 Mares &
Foals Sale, Brookdale Farm Consigner
*Groom, Keeneland September 2005 Yearling Sale, Brookdale Farm Consigner
*GateKeeper, 2005 Summer and Fall National Saddlebred Shows, Kentucky Horse
Park, Lexington, KY
*Groom, Tom Mitchell, Private party Hunter/Jumper show participant, Summer
2005
*General Barn/Horse help, Big Barn, Kentucky Horse Park spring/summer 2005
- grooming mustangs, brood mares and assorted geldings
*Foal Watch spring 2005, Kentucky Horse Park Big Barn
10/2003 - Present
Gallery Artist
Reconfigured my overall approach to my own work by zeroing in on some
delicious concepts and seeing them through to completion within the framework
of fine art. The first was a series of 9" x 12" gouache paintings
I call "Big Idea". Each day I did a new one, building off the
previous day's piece. See my site: www.happyart.com and click on the "Big
Idea" icon. Then I began creating a body of work called "HapiLani:
a Natural History of a Happy Land" in which I created the specimens,
artifacts and illustrations I 'collected' as a naturalist documenting an
imaginary land. This has been shown twice so far in its original state (Saville
Gallery, Allegheny Arts Council, Cumberland. MD) and Melanee Cooper Gallery,
River North Gallery district, Chicago, IL. You can see it on my site and
clicking on the Jelly Jolly icon. I'm preparing for a second show here this
summer revisiting this concept. I was awarded a residency this past February
at Ragdale in Lake Forest, IL where I created the first 30 multi-media pages
of a journal documenting and explaining my travels so far to HapiLani.
10/2001 - 5/2004
Art Reach , Evanston, IL
Instructor
Art Reach is a non-profit after-school art program that targets 'at
risk' children throughout Illinois' District 65 (Evanston-Skokie,IL). I
go in 2 afternoons a week to a progression of 4 schools and get the kids
(K-6) to broaden their creative experiences through art. Our budget is miniscule
so projects really stretch my inventive abilities. The effort is well worth
it.
1/2000 - 9/2004
Evanston Art Center , Evanston, IL
Instructor
I invent and teach a variety of classes and workshops for this renowned
arts center. Some of the classes I've completed to date are: 'Toons (cartooning
- both a kids and an adult version), Giant Puppets (culminating in a 3rd
place finish in the 2001 annual parade), Garden Sculpture (using cement
as a media), Sculptural ODDysey (a 3-d exploration for kids), and a pack
of pre-existing summer programs. Coming up are: Concrete, Art Books, Art
Icons & Dolls, and Sequential Images.
6/1999 - Present
amazon.com, Seattle, WA
Freelance ecard writer & computer animator
I have been lucky enough to have created and animated over 100 ecards
for this world class website. You can see all of my ecards by searching
"happyart" or "Marti McGinnis" within the ecard section
of amazon.com.
3/1999 - Present
Anton's Greenhouse, Evanston, IL
Sales Associate & Resident Artist
When we moved to Evanston, I found myself with what is to me, a big
giant garden space, so when I was out shopping for some plant material a
couple of years ago I noticed that there was a seasonal employment opportunity
at this third generation family owned and run old-time greenhouse just down
the street. They hired me, the neophyte greenhorn and have turned me into
a bit of a green thumb! I can actually say with confidence now that I know
my perennials from my annuals at least in our grow zone.I'm the "resident
artists" because now I paint all their signs!
1/1998 - Present
HappyArt® , Evanston, IL
Freelance Graphic Artist
When I stopped making multiple "Martoons", I re-configured
my art offerings to become less craft oriented and more into the freelance
graphic end of things - the name "Martoons" had been registered
so I trademarked "HappyArt", and started my website: www.happyart.com
It is under this name that I have licensed work to
clients such as amazon.com and MacGraw-Hill.
6/1993 - Present
M & M Building, Chicago, IL
Landlady!
My husband and I own and manage two rental buildings in Chicago's trendy
Bucktown neighborhood. One is a residential 3-flat, and the other is an
artists studio commercial property (6 units total). We managed the rehab
and ongoing maintenance of these spaces and lease them as well.
6/1989 - 3/1999
Martoons , Chicago, IL
Owner/Artist
When I came back from the Peace Corps I started up my own company. Since
my art is cartoony and my name is Marti, I called my art "Martoons".
With a $2000 assignment completion stipend from the Peace Corps I built
the sales of my own creations up into a total of about one million dollars
cumulative of 10 years' worth of retail sales. I booked my own shows, built
my own booths, made all my own samples (and subsequent pieces), wrote, filled
and shipped all the orders! It was a riot, and deeply satisfying. I won
awards, sold to prestigious galleries and generally fulfilled a dream. After
ten years I decided the madcap production pace would have to level off or
my hands might freeze up into paintbrush gripping useless fists!
4/1987 - 6/1989
United States Peace Corps, Washington, DC
Peace Corps Volunteer - Fiji - 1987-89 (Fiji 63)
My version of "the best job you'll ever love" was as a graphic
designer for the Fiji Ministry of Health. My duties were to assess project
needs, create health materials as needed and transfer these skills to the
local staff as best I could. Despite a governmental upheaval and subsequent
deterioration of Ministry departments my team and I were able to complete
those projects as had been funded by The World Health Organisation during
my first year. My best moment was the release of "Worm & Germs"
a 100 page cartoon book on various health topics researched and created
by me! My most surreal moment was teaching the school kids about these same
subjects in pantomime in a remote village where I lived my second year.
3/1985 - 3/1987
Des Plaines Park District, Des Plaines, IL
Public Relations & Arts Supervisor
Coordinated, wrote and illustrated all the district's informational
pieces, including brochures, catalogs and pamphlets. Wrote and taped a couple
departmental training tapes and taught a class or two on creativity. Also
supervised the part time arts instructors and coordinated their schedules.
6/1984 - 12/1984
Metro-Parks - Dade County, Miami, FL
Market Research Intern
Joined the fledgling marketing department of this giant parks department
in southern Florida and helped coordinate and run their brand new zoo's
user survey. I also was charged to research and explain the intra-departmental
communication challenges and develop a working plan to address and solve
these issues.
EDUCATION:
8/2005 Certificate
Equine Management Program
Kentucky Horse Park. Six month intensive hands-on and lecture based content.
12/1984 MS - Western Illinois University, US-IL-Macomb
Master's Degree
When I contacted some of my old Recreation professors for a reference
for a program in Wyoming, they offered to pay my way through their experimental
new degree offering of Recreation Marketing. It was an offer I couldn't
refuse. I combined recreation administration classes with marketing classes
from Western's Business college and generally found a new way to confuse
people with my pursuits! My idea was: I saw that business marketing had
made huge progress in understanding consumers, whereas public parks administrations
had not. I hoped to change that by employing proven business information
gathering methods within the realm of public parks & recreation administration.
12/1980 BA - Western Illinois University, US-IL-Macomb
Bachelor's Degree
graduated with honors from a unique and challenging degree program called
"Kaskaskia", or 'independent study'. The deal was, you could invent
your own degree requirements for a specific field of study if you could
defend it to the Kaskaskia Board. Mine was a combination of Geology, Geography
and Park/Recreation with a minor in studio art that I put together to get
me a job as an geologic interpreter for one of our national parks!
SELECT AFFILIATIONS
9/2004 - Present , Lexington Art League
10/2004 - Present, K.E.E.P (Kentucky Equine Education Project)
2/2002 - Present , Mermaids Founder Mermaids is a group of women
who meet to teach each other new skills.
2/2000 - 1/2002, Graphic Artists Guild National Rep - Chicago Chapter
Selected Skills
Computer Animation - gifs
Adobe Photoshop
website design
Cartoon Illustration
multiple arts media
including: paints - ALL kinds - oxy-acetylene cutting and welding, arc welding,
freehand woodworking, variety of mixed media, pen & ink, - many shows, and awards
instructor Intermediate
REFERENCES
Available upon request
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
My interests and skills have taken me around the globe in one way or another.
For example as a self-employed artist I met a German dealer who arranged
for and had me go to Germany about 8 times to create art, which he then
sold to galleries all over that country and France.
Another German fellow, this time a greeting card mogul invited me to join him and a group of designers and artists from all around the world on an island in the southern Philippines for a creative junket. He bought 12 of my designs as a result of that effort.
I've also been lucky enough to have illustrated a number of paper greeting cards for some companies here in the US (Design-Design, SilverDog, Mani Graphics to name a few).
And one fine day in January, 1999 I walked into one of MacGraw-Hill's affiliate's offices right next to the United Nations in New York City with a portfolio filled with the completed illustrations for 2 of their children's reading program books!
Right now I'm working on some personal art goals which include welding steel sculptures for my garden and embellishing these 10 foot tall icons with concrete and stoneware pieces of my own making.
And finally, I have begun my own sequential art
experiment called "Big Idea" in which my self-assigned task is
to paint one painting a day for the entire year and post the results in
monthly increments on this website!