Get Inspired

Get Inspired

Original wallpaper illustration by Maggie Feltman-Ruiz featuring a floral textile design.

What advice would you have for someone interested in your field?

Learn all you can now! Teach yourself how to create pattern repeats, learn how to play with color, and get acquainted with current trends in both the fashion and home industries. The more you can teach yourself and learn now, the more skilled you’ll be by the time you graduate and begin looking for a job.

Photo of Maggie Feltman-Ruiz
Maggie Feltman-Ruiz
Textile Designer, Illustrator
Designer at Springs Digital in Rock Hill, Visual Communications graduate from Winthrop University.
Cover of Comic Book, Doom, illustrated and written by Sanford Greene.

How did you get your start as an illustrator?

When I was a kid, I used to watch a lot of Saturday morning cartoons, and was fascinated by them. Back in the day, I saw the comics on the spinner racks at drug stores and it blew me away because I made the connection that the stuff that I watched on TV was actually in book form. I begged my mom for a few comics and tried to copy what I saw in the books. And that kind of set me on my way. I was about six or seven years old. It just kind of enthralled me from that point on.

What is your greatest career accomplishment so far?
‘Bitterroot’ is a comic series that I co-created with another fellow South Carolinian, Chuck Brown, along with David Walker. We’ve won quite a few awards. We won what is equivalent to the Oscars for our industry. We have a film adaptation of a book in the series directed by Regina King and Ryan Coogler’s production house. That is definitely the milestone of my career so far.

Learn more about the award winning comic book, Bitter Root, here.

Sanford Greene
Illustrator, Author
Award-winning Comic Artist and Writer, Benedict College Professor, native of Greeleyville, SC.
Original art work by Kevin Harrison, titled 'Van Gogh's Cafe in Arles, France.'

I love the daily autonomy of working for myself. Even though I own a few companies and have partners, we all work from home. I love not being tied down to a cubicle desk.

Professional headshot of Artist, Kevin Harrison. He is smiling slightly and wearing a black blazer on a grey background.
Kevin Harrison
Creative Director
Fine Art Painter, Video Editor, Creative Director based in Charleston, SC.
Sculptor piece by Bob Doster, made of small individual bodies connected together.

What do you love most about your job as a sculptor?

I won’t have to retire. I’ve been lucky to be able to survive in a small town doing what I love. I also enjoy working with students helping them create legacy sculptures for their schools as a certified teaching artist.

Bob Doster, sculptor, posing with a metal life-sized art piece of a bear made of many hand pieces.
Bob Doster
Sculptor
Lancaster resident, Award-winning artist, Teaching Artist, Owner of Bob Doster's Backstreet Studio
Film Director and Producer Sherard Duvall works with a camera on the set of a project, with other film crew members partially visible in the background.

If you have a passion for filmmaking and making art, if you are willing to focus on how to be the best at what you want to do inside that world, if you are willing to do the work and research what it takes to be really good at that thing…your work and dedication and commitment will be rewarded. Simple.

Film producer, Sherard Duvall, poses for a professional headshot in all white outside in an urban environment
Sherard "Shekeese" Duvall
Filmmaker/Producer
Nonfiction storyteller, media literacy educator, media strategist. Owner of OTR Media Group.

Arts Grow SC partnered up with SC Future Makers to highlight creative professionals working in manufacturing in South Carolina! Check out the shorts below. Visit the Creative Careers Studio YouTube channel to watch the full-length films. 

Video production by OTR Media Group.

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