J Steven Manolis of Manolis Projects: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist
Learn the skill of emulation, this allows you to always be original to yourself while at the same time recognizing others’ skills and accomplishments without ever, EVER being derivative.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist” I had the pleasure of interviewing J. Steven Manolis.
J. Steven Manolis is a noted colorist and abstract expressionist, born in South Dakota, started his career on Wall Street before following his childhood dream of becoming an artist. Manolis now lives and works in Miami, Florida, where he founded Manolis Projects, a 5,000-square foot working studio gallery. Manolis has had 3 solo museum shows, 16 solo gallery shows, and 16 group shows, his work is exhibited in 15 corporate installations, and he has over 360 private collectors.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in a small midwest prairie town, Huron, South Dakota. I was one of five children. My grandfather from Greece, John Manolis, was the family patriarch, and he and my father were partners in the coin operating business, with a route that covered much of eastern South Dakota. I was very active in multiple sports, a top student, and co-founded a rock band named The Torres. In my youth, I asked my family if I could be a professional artist when I grew up, but my grandfather refused to allow this because in his home country all artists were communists. But the love of art was never far from either my heart or my soul.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
I spent nearly 35 years of the closest possible friendship with world-famous colorist artist Wolf Kahn. We first met in 1980 when I purchased my first painting of his, and worked together with him at the National Academy of Design and the Vermont Studio Center. We became best friends. He was my art teacher and mentor and gave me one on one private painting lessons for thirty years. After a forty-year Wall Street career, the drums pounded to a breaking point and I answered a late-life calling and started a full-time fine arts painting career in 1966. For this, I owe Wolf Kahn everything.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
When I was at a society cocktail party with my then-girlfriend, now wife, Myrthia Natalie Moore, an attendee asked me in front of Myrthia, “What is your profession?” I answered that I was a painter. He responded after a few moments, “Do you paint interiors or exteriors of houses?”
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
As a gallerist, my family and I are very enthusiastic about staging a group show for Art Basel 2021, the scale and quality of which would set new high mark standards for all of Southeast Florida.
As an artist, I will soon be embarking on an 11’H x 25’W REDWORLD commission for indoor placement at the epicenter of one of America’s most prestigious public universities. This will be the high water mark of my professional painting career, and will provide an enduring campus art monument to my illustrated REDWORLD life philosophy story, Full-On; All-In.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
By far the most exciting has been the 360 individuals and couples who have collected my work. This group is unified by a love of art, and the thrill of collecting. They are in constant communication with me as an artist, and this dynamic communicative duopoly is the nirvana of my late life.
Where do you draw inspiration from? Can you share a story about that?
My desire to create and paint is overpowering. I concurrently have the strongest desire to simultaneously achieve cutting-edge status as an art teacher, art adviser, curator, gallerist and art collector. My daily inspiration comes from my wife and family.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
My collectors write and call me to say that living with my beautiful color-based abstract art has transformed their lives. My REDWORLD series of paintings as an illustrated story influences tens of thousands of students daily.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Constantly strive to learn art history, nearly everything has been done before! Where, how and why did this happen and how does it now relate to your art today.
- Learn the skill of emulation, this allows you to always be original to yourself while at the same time recognizing others' skills and accomplishments without ever, EVER being derivative.
- Have a ferocious work ethic.
- Put everything you have into everything you do, or don’t do it at all.
- Never ever EVER give up.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Donald Kuspit, one of the world’s leading art critics, wrote that I am the heir apparent to the global founder of abstraction, Vassily Kandinsky and that through my student provenance (Kandinsky, Hans Hoffman and Wolf Kahn) I may have started ‘The Miami School of Abstract Expressionism’….a 21st-century artistic movement of beauty, light and life inspiration. If any of this becomes recognized as true, it would be the accomplishment of my lifetime.
We have been blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she just might see this.
I would like to meet and discuss my art and art philosophy with Stephen Spielberg, Tom Ford, Jeff Zuckerberg, Tom Brady, Kate Middleton, and CCP Xi, and posthumously Michelangelo and Muhammed Ali. Each of these individuals has the ability to use their talents and credibility to profoundly affect the use of art to inspire humanity in a manner few others could.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Instagram: @Manolisprojectsgallery & @jstevenmanolis
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
