Sage Art is the child of Equine Artist Alexandra Joy.

The seed of this child was tossed about late in the 90's, but really took hold when the first calendar was produced in 1999 for 2000. That was a special signed and numbered, limited edition, to commemorate the year.

What started out so small in Southwestern Ontario has burgeoned into a healthy demanding child with product going into the United States, to Europe and as far as Australia.

Joy still does some commissioned work, but her book is limited, as much time is spent on “guiding the missile”.

The company now has a warehouse in New Jersey for speedier delivery to the growing number of stores carrying her product. There is also a Sales & Distribution Centre in Southwestern Ontario, that was put in place to help take care of the growing Small Animal sector.

 

Who knew this could get this big?

The product line has increased even after the crazy success of the temporary tattoos. We have now caught the energy of the poker explosion and offer four different designs.

But there is even more...please go to the products button and check it out!

It's very humbling for Joy watching this company grow. "Sometimes in the evening as I'm drawing," says Joy "I get a shiver when I realize that I am making a living because so many of you are enjoying the finished product."

"God Bless and thank you all"

                                                       

Against The Grain… 

“Do something sensible.” How many young artists get told that? Listen to all that sage advice and you will never feel the rush, that wiggling of the hair on the back of the neck when you see someone appreciating a piece of art that has just started to breathe life. 

It seems to me that much editorial that we see on artists is done in the third person. I guess many of us are too shy and embarrassed to write on our own behalf. I have actually had a story written for me, about me, and though it was very flattering and I thank the writer, I couldn’t help but think that I’d seen versions of this story many times in the past. It seems many of us are similarly inspired. The thing was, it didn’t read like I feel. And isn’t art about “the feel”?

So here I go… 

We as artists all have such wonderfully diverse stories and reasons for doing what we do. And some of us are simply driven and somewhat oblivious of motive or cause. What we have in common is that we all produce a unique reflection of what we appreciate, of what we understand and sometimes what baffles us and makes us angry. It all starts from so many different places, but it is all equine art and comes together in places such as galleries, web galleries, and coffee table magazines. How lucky for us that enterprising individuals and groups have made it possible for us to do what we do.

What does need to be understood is that the good stuff on the wall and the mantel and the stuff behind that glass door isn’t just something for your eyes to appreciate. It is a creation from the gut of an artist. It is a reflection of an emotional place inside an artist. Whether the work came in a time of fury or wonder, it likely didn’t come from a place called inner peace.

And then there is the work part of “artwork” There is that school of thought that artists are just born with a unique skill. Then they go to school to legitimize it. Some get a bigger slice than others. Maybe. What I do know is that many of the artists that I know are some of the hardest working people I know and that most of them never quantify their effort. They wake up in the morning and do what they have to do. For many of them that means dealing with nine to five and then breaking loose and digging in for the real thing. It means going to the place where your mind meets your heart and then letting it go.

So that gets me back to what I first said about doing something sensible. I did that.

Got married, started a business, started a family.

It was all done at a sensible time in my life, in a sensible order. I guess “sensible” is a concept open to interpretation.

Because as sensible as that all seemed, it did all fall apart. 

But I started out fresh and got a real job and In short order I pulled myself out of the isolation that I had become mired in.

oooh what fun. That’s a whole ‘nother story. 

Eventually I started to draw the horses in my head (and the horses in the field). I called it Art Therapy. It was like a correspondence course with nowhere to send. When finally some friends did see what I was doing, I could not predict how much this was going to change my life. Sensible went out the window. I quit my job. I don’t recommend that part. But the writing was on the wall in this case. The company went under months later, throwing dozens of people out of work.  

So it was decided, my therapy was now going to be my livelihood. 

This is where everything went fuzzy. Suddenly I had to share my stuff with the real world. Not just share, but ask them to like it and in fact to buy it. All by myself. My days of terror were just beginning. 

What I learned over the next few years I learned by splitting myself in many pieces. There really is a huge chasm between the type of energy required to produce art and the type of energy required to sell the art. I very much understand the role of a good art agent. I found out how difficult it can be to place a dollar value on something that comes out of that place way inside. Balancing the art of modesty and being excited about selling yourself at the same time was a peculiar learning curve. I did learn the art of personality when I took on a bartending gig at a club in town. There was another balancing act. It’s hard being “sophisticated city” when you’ve got bits of hay hiding in your hair! It really was a no brainer that I was going to suck it up and do what they told me I couldn’t do. I was going to sell my own art. Be in control. Yeah, right. 

I hadn’t begun to fathom how much thought it would require to separate but keep together, the artist and the business that was being created. There was no guideline, there was no career counseling. I apparently was in the woods, in the dark, on my own, eating berries.

And then a cool thing happened. It actually started working. People were responding. People were buying. I even got to illustrate a book!  And the wonderful thing about that is that not only were buyers putting bread on my table, they were putting confidence and excitement in my soul and that was transferring exponentially to the creative process. Call that the wonder emotion. (This came on the tails of the anger and the fury emotion)

What this did in the big picture was join up the artist and the business person. My creativity was out of control and giving the business end as many ideas as the artist end was getting. When would the artist draw? 

This is the place I am in now. I am sleep deprived and so thankful of it. I am getting help now to keep all the business strings from unraveling. I can go to the place I need to be in, in order to draw and to paint. There is a time and place for everything.

Order will yet come to my world. Maybe not tomorrow but soon. Then again, maybe order isn’t so good for an artist. I’ll figure it out.

Today Sage Art has a successful line of calendars, (equine and companion) some other specialty calendars, a perpetual day planner, note cards, art prints, art wear, and even poker decks. I still do some commission work when time allows but I do spend a lot of time in guiding the missile. And of course, the beauty of the calendar is that my pencils are never dull and the paper never gets dusty. I get to draw. A lot. 

And most gratifying for me, I had a submission accepted for an AAEA show in September of 2004. I had to give pause to consider the overwhelming amount of experience and indeed experiences that would bring that amount of equine art to be shown under one beautiful roof.

Life is good!
Joy