Every Sunday, NEPA Creative turns the spotlight on some awesome creatives. This week, we have Mike Reznick!
Mike is an artist from Kingston, PA and the gallery curator at Black Fuse Gallery & Tattooing. By day, Mike works with individuals with intellectual disabilities at Keystone Community resources.
The way Mike found art was due to his dyslexia as images helped him learn. His art is created through things that either happen to him or that he has found interesting in life. He prefers a freestyle mixed media with basically anything that makes a visual mark on whatever object or canvas he is working on. His go-to supplies are usually thin body acrylic paints, paint markers and speedball ink and the occasional color pencils. “When in doubt, drip it out” has always been his motto throughout his self-taught career and artistic journey.
10 years in the tattoo industry made a huge impact on Mike, even though, according to him, “I completely sucked at it and thankfully quit.” Mike says he met people like Ron Russo, owner of 5-7-0 Tattooing Co. who gave his best effort to apprentice him. But seeing Ron’s drive for success along with watching the same drive for art and tattooing coming from Josh Anderson, the owner of Black Fuse Gallery and Tattooing and Mike’s best friend, inspired Mike.
Mike says together he and Josh have been showing and attending art shows from as far back as the early 2000s, which flourished into Mike meeting other tattooers & graffiti artists. This put Mike on the path to where he is now, like being a part of the Kitson Arts Alliance out of Tunkhannock run by Patrick Robinson and Dan Tompkins and now curating art shows at Josh Anderson’s shop & gallery.
When it comes to advice Mike has for other self-taught artists trying to make it, he cannot stress the importance of finding your own style. Practice, practice, practice and when you’re done with that, go draw some more. On a typical day, Mike puts in an 8- 14 hour shift at his day job then comes home and paints for 4 hours depending if he has his son or not.
Another important aspect is networking. Throughout the years, Mike again stresses the countless amount of art shows he was or wasn’t shown at, but has attended. While at these shows, he would ask the artists questions. Mike found out while talking to these artists that they love discussing their work and sharing their techniques. Mike also recommends adding new people to your social media pages and actually having conversations with them. This is also a very easy way to network and have collectors become aware of you and the style you do. Mike says while painting he’s listening to marketing & sales tactic books (killing 2 birds with one stone).
According to Mike, “You can’t expand into different areas of the world without the backing of your community.” When he’s trying a new technique or improving on his style, he goes onto social media and into the local community groups asking for ideas and then usually gives those paintings away for free. Interacting with the community is as important as tracking sales and testing the art market.
To see more of Mike Reznick’s work, follow him on Facebook & on Instagram @mjreznickart.
Mike created and runs the Facebook Group Art of PA and encourages others to join the outpouring of support he has for the Pennsylvania Visual arts.
Click here for inquiries about being booked for solo art shows at Black Fuse Gallery & Tattooing.
For booking a tattoo with Josh Anderson, ducky or Bob Lewis head to Black Fuse Gallery & Tattooing’s Facebook Page.
Click here to join Kitson Arts Alliance and use the code: Reznick2020.
If you are interested in being featured as part of our Sunday Spotlight series, click here!
