Something For Your Soul
Quill Wordsmith
Wordsmith@excapethematrix.com
From consignment shops to his very own Fine Arts studio, James Murphy
has brought Something For Your Soul Fine Arts on a very beautiful
journey and has touched the lives of many as a ministry, in the
Baltimore/Washington Metropolitan area. This is James Murphy, the
artist.
QW: How did Something For Your Soul come about?
JM:
Something For Your Soul was established in 2001. I’ve been doing art since 4th
grade. I did a lot of stuff and art was one of the things I was good at. So I
decided to run with it. I actually have a BFA in visual communications and from
time to time when time allows it, I’ll do freelance illustration jobs. But my
heart is with my fine art which I make available through Something For Your
Soul. I wanted to come up with a name for the business and it came up with a
couple of different ideas. But I prayed about a name that would embody what I
wanted to do with my artwork. I look at my art work as a means of making income.
I want to do it in order to provide for my family. You gotta live and you gotta
eat. But also I look at my art as my ministry as well. I wanted to provide
something. And that’s where Something For Your Soul Came from.
QW: What’s your drive? I know you said how business is starting to pick back up and looking around your studio I know you have inspiration all over with magazine cut outs and candid picture shots. But what’s your ultimate drive.
JM: I guess my ultimate drive is the Lord. He put this in me. These past couple of years, getting established and building a foundation there has been some challenging times. I’m pretty sure they aren’t over but I don’t see myself doing anything else. I know that God has designed me to do this. SFYS is a big leap of faith. If you were to tell me a couple of years ago that I would be where God has got me to now, I would’ve been like, “if you say so.” That’s why I say that God is my primary drive to do this. I guess the second thing is, how rewarding it is to do a piece and have folk come up to me when I’m at a show or they’ve seen the website, and they can identify with the concept of the picture. It blesses me when they say it looks good and they like the technique, but it really blesses me when people pick up on the spiritual content of the picture as well. I remember there was a show that I was at this past year, June in the Columbia Festival of the Arts in Columbia, MD. And this picture that I did called, “Now I See”. A lady bought that and said that’s where she was at that time. That just felt like God was giving me a pat on the back. Just like he can use dance, instrumental music, he can use the visual arts as well.
QW:
Now with that said, I know you said that people come up to you appreciating your
work that feels great, and I know you got televised attention for your piece,
Sheet Music. How did the collaboration transpire?
JM: Tommy and I have been kicking it for the past couple of years and we kept talking about how we needed to do a collaboration but that’s all it was - - it was just talk. He works in a couple different forms of media and I work in a couple different forms of media. And our common ground is graphite pencil. That’s what the picture was done in. The idea for sheet music was actually my initial idea. It was in my sketch pad for about 2 years. So finally I thought that if we’re going to do a collaboration what piece could we do. While going through my sketchpad, Sheet Music stuck out. The reason why I chose this is because when you think of collaboration you think 50/50. We can split the picture in half. He did the guy from head to toe and I did the woman.
QW: Yeah I can definitely tell you did the woman now that you mention it. The facial structure. I don’t know if we ever mentioned this to you back during our bookstore days, but all of your pictures resemble you.
JM: It’s an unplanned habit man. They probably look like me because my face is the face that I’ve seen the most (laughs). I look in the mirror everyday but - - I assure you, it’s not intentional. But that’s how Sheet Music came about. We got together and I showed him the real rough ideas and he loved it. He got the paper and he did his thing. The cool thing about this project is that it was a collaborative project from start to finish. Our relationship is actually stronger now after doing this project because there was a big TRUST factor in it as well. When I gave him the rough sketch it was just a layout of how the figures would be on the paper and then I gave him the picture. We would communicate through emails but I couldn’t see what he was doing. He had it for about 4 months. Depending on what he did on his half of the picture determined what would happen on my half of the picture. So when I took the picture from him, he didn’t see it until I was done what I was working on. He had to trust me. He didn’t know whether or not I was going to erase something that he did or say, “I think I could make this look better”. So when I finished my half we got together and he took his pencil and I took mine and we sat down and critiqued it together and worked on the final tones and highlights to bring forth the finished piece.
QW: Wow, that’s powerful.
JM: It was cool and it’s been well received as well. Of course what you see is the original but we also have it available in a limited edition giclee’ as well. Signing number and print with our signatures and a certificate of authenticity as well.
Part two of this article will appear in the April “Fashion Issue”