Valerie William interviews Mandy Adamick, owner of Madcanvases. What started as the desire to find the perfect piece of art for a dining room wall helped Mandy discover a new photo technique, and the desire to share her art with the world. Mandy’s photos of Chicago architecture are an intriguing mix of layered black and white photos and color experimentation.
Tell us a little about yourself and what you create.
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went to college at the University of Illinois in Champaign. My degree is actually in Computer Engineering, but I realized almost immediately that I was more drawn to music and art, anything more creative than technology. Once I moved into my first condo in the city with my now husband, I used my new blank walls as a place to experiment with photography and developed my own style based on photography of the landmarks in our neighborhood. As a self-taught photographer, the images I took weren’t exactly “blow them up and hang them in a gallery” quality. I thought maybe if I manipulated the pictures and overlapped a couple of them, I could create something more abstract that would work in a large grouping.
When and why did you decide to turn your creative talent into a business?
I knew that I was not destined for the corporate world, but I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do instead. After I finally designed the first eight images for myself, I had to figure out how to print them. My dad, a screenprinter, introduced me to a new technology called sublimation, where the inks turn to a gas when heated. We played around with printing them on canvas and when I got them displayed, I loved the way they looked. I was already a buyer on Etsy so I thought I would just take a picture of the set and throw them up on Etsy to see what happened. That same night, the entire set of eight sold. Panic mode set in quickly because I had no idea how to reproduce these, let alone produce copies quickly enough to sell. Slowly I began to see the opportunities this could open and it became my new career goal. Over the next couple months I worked out the kinks and then started officially as Madcanvases in early 2010. Even now 18 months later, I’m still working out the kinks but it’s been really fun learning and tweaking along the way.
What do you enjoy most about your online Etsy shop?
The best part about Etsy is that you control what you get out of it. On one hand, it’s a great help to have the base for a shop already there for you. If I’m out at a festival for the weekend, I always have the Etsy shop in the background able to take orders and it required little hands on monitoring. On the other hand, if you have the energy and the desire, you can work to create relationships with your buyers and other sellers. It’s a great community of people who have similar artsy mindsets and are going through the same struggles you are running your own small business. Meeting people has been the most fun part, sometimes working from your computer all day can make you go crazy but there’s a sense that someone else is out there thinking the same things.
What inspires you and your creative process?
A majority of my work is based around buildings and architecture. After working on this style of art for over two years, I find myself noticing more details of architecture that I had glossed over so many times before. I like the combination of lines and patterns and textures that can make something so naturally boring and utilitarian look pretty and edgy and urban all at the same time.
What do you enjoy most about being an artist?
The best part about being an artist is feeling like I belong in this little community of artists in the city. I love getting out to street festivals and interacting with customers. Watching someone come into your booth and stare at something you created from scratch and compliment your work is so rewarding. All the late nights spent going blind in front of the computer or stapling until your fingers were raw all suddenly seems worth it.
What inspired the name Madcanvases for your shop?
I had just gotten married when I decided to take the plunge and organize myself as a business but was at a loss for a name. I was only selling canvas prints at the time and although I was mainly focused on Chicago images, I knew eventually I wanted to expand to other cities. My married name is Mandy Adamick, and my husband, Bryan, was occasionally called “badamick” in high school. Someone joked that I would become “madamick” so I just took the “mad” part with the idea that some of these abstract images are a little mad, a little crazy, and I became Madcanvases.
Find Mandy selling her mad canvases at the following upcoming shows:
Ravenswood Artwalk (October 1-2)
Autumn Festival of Art (November 3-6)
Bucktown Holiday Art Fair (December 10-11)
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Valerie William is the owner of Additions Style.
