There's this empty space on my living room wall right now, right above the couch, right under the swag lamps.    For a while, my great-aunt's Tiger Lily hung there.   It's a lovely painting, but it never felt quite right.   Then this beautiful, kind of melancholy Kay Blaco piece we picked up at the Rose Bowl Flea Market took over for a while, but it's since taken up residence in the dining room where it's much more comfortable, inspiring a no-cost makeover that's really brought life back to it's surrounding decor.    The right piece of art can do that for a room.   My living room is counting on it.   

Using raw wood as his canvas, and drawing on his background as a graphic designer for his [mostly] two color and monocromatic images, mixed media artist Gregg Deal may just be the answer to my living-room-wall's prayers.   His distinguished brand of pop art makes class out of kitsch, cool out of camp, and family portraiture into avante garde, and I can't help but feel that we're looking at a body of work that will be collected for years to come.

I first came across Modern Bird Studios sponsoring a giveaway on a blog I read, and I instantly fell in love.  That's part of the brilliance of Modern Bird, made up of Gregg and his wife and business partner Megan.   Faced with the loss of Gregg's job when the economy went kaput, the Deal's rallied and harnessed the power of the internet to get their work in front of thousands and build their brand quickly to keep their family afloat doing what they do best in uncertain times.   Megan keeps the machine running smoothly, while her hubby puts his passion for painting to work.   And the rest is...well, history in the making.

The bread and butter of Modern Bird Studios are their custom family portraits {which are INCREDIBLE} but it's clear from the instant you lay eyes on a Modern Bird piece that Gregg is a truly gifted artist.   So when I heard that Gregg would be having his [first ever!] solo show, I knew Cargoh had to be there...if not in person, in spirit, and so - Gregg and Megan agreed to give us a few moments of their time -

CC: What's the Modern Bird story?  

Gregg: What isn’t our story?  We are a company born out of nessesity with the economy, the primary bread winner of our home in a saturated market; it was a mess with no hope.  We asked ourselves the question: why would we have talents and abilities if we are unable to use them for the good of our lives and families.  We thought outside the box.  Well, not that outside, because frankly, what is now Modern Bird Studios was just me making stuff to make stuff.  We tightened it up and figured out some marketing for it.  It’s a labor of love; a happy accident.

Megan:  What he said.  It's amazing how creative people become when they are backed into a corner and survival kicks into overdrive.  It was our pimp slap to the sucker punch the economy gave us. 

 
CC: Working and living for and from your art - what does that mean for you in your every day life?

Gregg:  It’s a dream.  For me to be creative doing what I love to do daily is a dream.  I'm at my personal best when I'm doing this, and even more so when I love the outcome of each piece.  I pour myself into each piece I produce, and love every minute of it.  This translates to peace and happiness in the home from me.

Megan: It also means many late nights, stress keeping up with demand, constant juggling of projects, but also excitement for creating.

CC: So, you guys have a really interesting {read: brilliant} marketing plan - can you talk about that a bit and how it came to be?

Megan:  We had to be really creative since our entire marketing budget came out to be ZERO DOLLARS. We knew we were going to work social media since it is free, aside from the hours and hours we knew we would need to put into it.  Our overall marketing came about by accident.  We had a few ideas, but what really set us in the direction we are going now happened right away during our first week of launching when we were approached by a blogger to do a review/giveaway. What the heck is a review/giveaway??  We quickly schooled ourselves, read everything we could get our hot, little hands on, and met amazing people who took us under their wings and, in some cases, offered to talk to us over the phone to help us understand the industry more and give us some priceless tools that we use today. 

We also focus our efforts with Twitter with a dash of Facebook.  We are trying to build a community around us by interacting with the people on Twitter and by doing weekly blogger interviews to help others get more exposure through our networks.  Give and take, ya know?  Gregg has a personal twitter account (@the_lame_sauce) that has help to 'humanize' us.  He's the unprofessional side of Modern Bird so he gets to have a lot more freedom in what he tweets than I do, since I always have to represent. 

Everything seemed to fall into place, and I do mean EVERYTHING.  The planets have been aligned for us from the beginning, and we continue to grow, gain more fans, and gain more exposure.  We owe everything to our fans.  They are the ones helping us grow.

Gregg:  My wife is a marketing genius.  Let me be clear on that.  She downplays it, but that is a TRUTH BOMB.

Megan: Gregg is just trying to get laid.

CC: A lot of your commissioned pieces are portraits -  but from time to time we see a monument or robot or total abstraction pop up...do you prefer one over the other?   Is there a particular commissioned piece you really loved?

Megan: I think Gregg can answer this one.

Gregg:  Portraits are ok, but only certain kinds.  This is a tough thing.  When someone submits a photo, they often submit something that they love and are familiar with.  More often that not that photo has a very defined representation of the figure, particularly through the face.  Using only two colors, as Modern Bird does, it makes it difficult to do an exact representation of anyone.  My favorite portraits are ones that represent something special to someone with a moment captured candidly (or looks candid), but something that still is general enough to allow for some freedom in rendering the image to look good.  There are a number of pieces that you can look at and identify with because of the spirit of the image, and not the figures represented.  In my personal work, I have much more freedom here.  I can create work that I like for just about any reason.  Using multiple colors enrich the work, but using multiple colors on acrylic is off the hook! I just realized that when I talk art, I’m all serious and s**t.

Megan: Yeah, take it down a notch, will you?

CC: How often do you paint just for you?   How is that process different?

Gregg:  Not often enough, but enough to make my own work.  The difference in the process between Modern Bird Studios and my own stuff is total freedom.  I ultimately don’t care what people think of my final piece, as long as it’s important to me.  It sounds narcissistic, but I love my own work...I love making it and looking at it and everything in between.

Megan:  You're so narcissistic, Gregg. 

CC: You guys are partners and married, with children.   Discuss.

Gregg:  It’s precarious, for sure.  There is a delicate balance in working from home while co-existing with my family.  There are lots of breaks to contribute and help coupled with long nights to make up time.  I also wouldn’t trade it for anything.  I’m a sucker for my wife and kids.  Also, Meg and I have our differences on things.  We take a pretty honest approach in how we communicate and compromise a lot because ultimately we have to get the job done.  I have to try my best to keep peace because I don’t like being beaten. Did I just say that outloud?  Damn...I’m in trouble later.

Megan:  If he would do as I say, there would be no drama.  It is definitely a tough balance trying to manage the kids full time while trying to market Modern Bird.  There is a lot of 'just a minute' going on with the kids.  I feel guilty.  All the time. 

CC: This is Gregg's first solo show.   How did the show come to be?   Did the show grow out of the business, or vice versa?

Gregg:  Megan is my handler when it comes to 'Gregg the artist'.  I’m hopelessly lost without her. I’m hopelessly lost with her, now that I think of it.  When are we going to get interns?

Megan:  Twitter hooked it up!  An up-and-coming interior design firm in the DC area, r:u (http://www.residentsunderstood.com/) found us and tweeted us some love.  We really appreciate that kind of thing.  I noticed they were right up the road from us and suggested we work together somehow. They agreed.  Then they mentioned us to Sukio Design Co. (http://www.sukio.com) who ended up approaching us about doing it, and we took the opportunity and ran with it! 

CC: Where do you see the artwork of Modern Bird going in the future?   How about Gregg Deal?   {And are they different?}

Gregg: To me, Modern Bird is a means by which we can ultimately supplement income to our home.  After the art show and the amount of work I produced for it, I realized that my work is not just some work I did.  It’s my life work.  It will always be my voice.  First and foremost I want to take care of my family.  It is my hope that as we continue to move forward that my personal work will find a place in the art world and have a significant contribution to the income of my home.  I just want to do art.  I don’t know that I’ve ever been more happy and excited about getting up in the morning and doing ‘work’ than I am right now.  It’s pretty fantastic.  Modern Bird and my personal work are still married right now though, and will likely be for a long time.  I’m ok with that for now.  I guess I want a manageable empire.  Ha!

Megan: I see us adding more cool and innovative offerings to our Modern Bird line up, including the acrylic.  The acrylic is total awesomesauce.  Fo' reals.

Inspiring, aren't they?  We're hooked.  You can follow Modern Bird Studios on Twitter via @Modern_Bird, or Gregg Deal himself via @the_lame_sauce.

To see more photos from Gregg's Popmatic Show {which, for you DC locals, can be seen at Sukio Design Co. through July 31st} click HERE.

Photos courtesy of Megan Deal and Sukio Design Co.