Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Haley.
Hi Laura, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My artistic journey has been a constant my whole life. As a child, I would enter art contests in elementary school, then always painting and selling t-shirts, sweatshirts, megaphones etc. in high school and college. I majored in art at Ouachita Baptist University and graduated with a BA in art knowing full well any career I chose would be in the art field.
I started off as a graphic artist for a publication and quickly moved to their photography department as a photo stylist. I really enjoyed photo styling and setting up a shot. I moved to Dallas in 1995 when I married my husband and continued photo styling here as a freelance stylist. I worked all over the metroplex and got to know a lot of people in the design and photography industry here. I mostly styled off figure fashion, but would also do room sets and work with models on an occasion.
I had been painting ceramic plates prior to moving to Dallas and picked it back up after finding suppliers in the area. This was right before all the ceramic painting studios we a hot thing. Friends said I should try to sell them and not really knowing where to start I rented a space at a home and garden show. I called my little business “Haley’s Comit”. I sold quite a bit and made lots of connections. The best connection I made was meeting a VP of one of the largest showrooms at the Dallas World Trade Center at the time, Omni Sales and Marketing. He wanted to rep my line of dishes in his showroom so after several months of designing and stock piling I did my first show at market in June of 1998. Omni had many road and corporate reps so I was selling to shops all over the country and several large venders like Lillian Vernon, Speigel, and Neiman Marcus. The line expanded to children’s furniture, lamps, chandeliers and decorative accessories. We were busy for a very long time and showed with other showrooms at the DWC over the years and also in Atlanta at Americas Mart.
After twenty years of being a wholesale manufacturer and designer I decided to end Hale’s Comit and shift my focus back to painting on canvas. I started doing watercolor house portraits and people portraits. Acrylic tends to be my medium of chioice, however, I will occasionally paint in oil as well. I started entering art shows in Texas and the surrounding states. Two years ago my piece “Red Plate” won first place in the water media division at the Richardson annual art show and I also won grand prize for “Blue Nativity” at the Chreche Festival in Houston. My work is presently being represented in Gallery T in Edmond Ok., and also at Daum Gallery in the design district in Dallas.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s not been totally smooth. I suppose I have learned that every artist struggles at times and every artist does well at times. Honestly, it is usually the piece that you think is silly and will never sell that flies out the door and the piece that you work on forever and think it is going to get the most attention gets hardly any. I’ve decided not to struggle or try to figure things out. Just let the work flow no matter what.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Lately I have been doing a series of western/chinoiserie style art. So, painting a cowboy hat or boots with a chinoiserie pattern on them and in the background. It seems to have really taken off. Also, I have painted a real pair of chaps, a westen jacket, a pair of jeans and a western vest in a chinoiserie pattern and adhered them to a board canvas painted in a different chinoiserie pattern. Some of them have a lasso painted and attached. The jeans have a big belt buckle. So kind of sculptural 3d art as as well as 2d paintings. I’m really proud that a Dallas based scarf company asked me to paint some western/chinoiserie paintings and they had scarves made from them. They turned out really nice.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
One time our street flooded and the kids across the street came over and picked up my sister and I in their inflatable raft.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://laurahaleyart.com
- Instagram: laurahaleydesigns
