Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Tellez.
Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Art school dropout that had the raw talent but never the structure and discipline to do well in college ( at least not at that age). Worked as a graphic designer at a local screen printing and design shop in Denton called Pan Ector for many years. Created lots of cool designs. Posters, tee shirts, logos, branding packages. Mostly local Denton breweries, bars, UNT, and events like Denton’s Day of the Dead, but occasional clients from DFW like Dallas Observer, Dallas Veggie Fest, Amon Carter Museum, the DMA, Roanoke Roundup, Dallas Brew Fest Gas Monkey Garage, and Taste Addison to name a few.
I then decided to move to Dallas in 2019 with some friends.We set up in West Oak Cliff. I love all the genuine people you meet, and all the culture you can experience. It feels like one of the last places in Dallas where you can be 15 minutes from downtown and still have nothing but tire shops, Fiestas, taquerias, liquor stores, and check cashing shops around. It is a real community here and everyone looks out for one another. This realness and community extends to the art scene here in West Dallas as well. I quickly hit the local bars and art districts. From Bishop to the Fab Yard. From Oak Cliff Brewing Co to Texas Theatre. And I found everyone to be very down-to-earth and accepting. So long as you were real and not here for the wrong reasons. There’s a lot of people who come to this area of Dallas to exploit and use. I think there was a mutual understanding that if you’re here, you need to support and put on for the artists and community that is already here. Once that is established, get in where you fit in pretty much. I got alot of artistic energy from seeing all the amazing street art, taqueria sign lettering, murals, and galleries.
It just so happened the as soon as I was finding my place and friend group in Oak Cliff, covid happened and everything shut down. At this time I still worked for Pan Ector but was already working remotely from Dallas. I began to develop many designs based on feelings of being in a pandemic that many people related to. The tone was low brow and meant to be funny. The art was polished and not thrown together. Its kind of like half meme half artwork. Many times I’m taking a corporate logo like Whataburger and replacing the words with “Whathashappened”. I started to get alot of love for these designs. It wasn’t until the pandemic was over that I began to interact with folks again in the real world and people were telling me they liked my art. They recognized me. Sometimes they were just folks in Oak Cliff. Other times they were established, really talented artists. The praise from the latter never really seem justified to me, but I took it with a gracious smile and bow. I can’t understate how much talent there is in this little corner of Dallas. Some discovered, but a lot hasn’t seen the blow-up that many artists have seen from the corporate world.
Anyway, part of living here in Oak Cliff is doing things for the community. I see this firsthand with friends and people from all walks of life volunteering their time and resources daily to help others. There are so many young people, especially, that create, organize and run programs for the homeless and hungry in this area. I was inspired by this and my love for nature and the outdoors to start Kickball CleanUp. It is a weekly or semi-weekly ( It hasn’t occurred since the fall, but will be coming back soon) even that takes place at Lake Cliff park. The idea is to take an hour to two hours to pick up as much trash as you can and then afterwards we all meet up and play a game of kickball. It had a great turnout at the start, but slowly the group got smaller. I hope this year will bring all new people to come and have a good time in the sun.
Well, that pretty much is my story or at least the parts that I think you could make into a story. Thanks.
Some things: I no longer work with Pan Ector but love them very much.
Also my Instagram is @ice_cubism and @kickballcleanup
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
All things considered, I have been very fortunate to have met and developed relationships with all the people in my personal and professional life. I feel somewhat undeserving for all the support and confidence they have given me throughout the years. I have no doubt that without my friends, coworkers, and family’s support I wouldn’t be half the man I am today. That said, I’ve had some challenges, for sure. I dropped out of art school because of a relapse of social anxiety and depression. I also had an addiction to video games, that didn’t help my cause. Ultimately I got back on medication and quit the video games cold turkey and haven’t looked back. I am able to pursue my design career now and create artwork freely. All through my 20’s, I was just getting in my own way with my decisions. It feels good now to be in control and on the right path.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I didn’t realized how many questions there are, so you can go back to that first question and pull some stuff from there. I am a graphic designer. I do digital and analog designs using mostly pen and marker. I try to show my sense of humor in my designs. Often times force connecting two unrelated ideas into one image. My work is sometimes opinionated, sometimes niave, sometimes silly, sometimes serious. I take inspiration from the news. I stay up to date on world news and local news. I don’t pretend to be an activist or big humanitarian, because I know people that really are. And I’m not that. I just use my little voice. My little sliver of Instagram feed to speak my mind. If it makes you think, great. If it makes you laugh, awesome. If it makes you want to get up and do something, even better. I don’t really have a single moment or design that I’m most proud of. When people see me and say “hey, you do great stuff man,” that means alot, especially when it is coming from a very talented artist. Or when someone says “you got me and my friends to go register to vote” because one of my comics, that also means alot to me. I think what sets me apart is my background in graphic design. Some of my artwork is silly and cartoony perhaps, but I still follow the principles of design. Emphasis, balance, contrast, repetition, proportion, movement, and white space.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
School isn’t for everyone but try. Try your best. When you are in art school or getting ready for it, you are told by society, advertising, and teachers that there are only a handful of careers you can do with art. And they try to get you ready for only a few careers because, well, there isn’t time to prepare you for all the hundreds of careers that you could potentially use your talents in art. But the fact of the matter is there really are hundreds of careers that you could apply your know how in art. Start looking at the world with the question of “who made this” in mind. Everything has to be designed, drawn, digitalized, and created. Once you stop focusing on the narrow pipe that art schools try to throw you down, you realize that if you’re not good at this one thing, maybe there’s something else out there that’s a better fit for you. Of course, art school produces some of the strongest and most talented as well. If you can succeed there, you got a good chance of succeeding in the real world.
I’d say many opportunities don’t reveal themselves until they are right smack in front of you. So don’t stress too much about careers in art. Find what you like and do it. Everything usually works itself out if you do that.
Pricing:
- $20 Texas Shirt on anduru.me
- $16 Myajima Shirt
- Is this what you meant? Not really sure
Contact Info:
- Email: anduru.design@gmail.com
- Website: www.anduru.me
- Instagram: @ice_cubism & @kickballcleanup
