UNGENERIC Podcast
Get an insight look at the process, motivation, and journey of a creative mind. Brought to you by XZBT Media.
UNGENERIC Podcast
Episode 10: The Accidental Artist: Mario's Path from Salesman to Creator
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Discovering artistic talent in the most unexpected moments – that's the story of Mario Solorzano, who picked up a paintbrush during COVID lockdown and never looked back. What started as a way to combat boredom quickly evolved into a surprising career change for this former cell phone salesman and Army veteran.
Meeting Mario Solorzano
Speaker 1I'm here with the lovely mario solar . Help me . Oh , no , mario solarzano solarzano you got it .
Speaker 1I got it all right . It's a tongue twister . I got it . I'm sorry . Um , how are you this evening ? I'm good . How are you fabulous ? Thank you for joining me tonight . Um , so , let's talk about your art okay , what do you want to know ? All of it . No , it's checking it all out , so you did a little bit of everything . We're all across the board , yes , so what is your ? If you can nail down like what is your favorite style to do ?
Speaker 2uh , well , I feel like it's the pet portraits . At this point I I've kind of dabbled with , uh , with all type of portraits and weird art and I enjoy the pet portraits the most . I paint my girl dog as Empowered Women . Lucy is her name . Yeah , I just had a show at the Chamber of Commerce for Pomona where I did all art of her . Yeah , so it's been my favorite to do . And then whenever I get commissions from people , which I get a lot , it's the pet portraits that really get me excited .
Speaker 1Okay , that's awesome . So let's go back . Let's rewind to to mario before the art or when .
Speaker 2When
Finding Art During COVID
Speaker 2did the art start for you ? Uh around covid really okay .
Speaker 2Yeah , when covid hit um , I was bored at home , me and my sister got like a bunch of paint stuff . I gave it a shot and I painted um . We painted our dog , zoro . I had two . I was like , oh crap , I could , I could paint dogs . And then from there I just started painting everyone's dog . So if you had a dog and you were my friend , on your birthday I was going to paint your dog . And then it just evolved into like cartoons , bodies , people , portraits , and then now it's just whatever I feel like painting and it's mostly just like pop culture stuff I like on TV and everything .
Speaker 1Were you into art when you were younger at all .
Speaker 2I drew a little bit when I was a kid . Okay , so it's not too foreign , I kind of knew a little bit about it . But but I didn't . I never messed with paints or blending colors or anything that really comes with it . It's a whole new , new monster once you try actual paint yeah , so what kind of medium ? Acrylic acrylic okay . Yeah , I'm impatient . It's great because it dries up really really quickly . I uh , oils are beautiful , which I think I wish I could do that , but it just I don't really have that .
Speaker 1Plus , it smells and I have dogs yeah , yes , oh , so we're definitely , we're definitely a dog man . What type of dog do you have ? Two chihuahuas two chihuahuas so cute lucy and zoro oh , that's so awesome . So you said you have a sister yes , uh , crystal .
Speaker 2I collaborate with her a lot . I've actually , um done a lot of artwork with her , uh , that I put out . It's mostly skulls with flowers and she'll add actual 3d stuff onto it gems , okay , all kinds of stuff . Her name is crystals crystals curiosities , with two s's um on instagram , but you can just look at my page . She does a lot of art with me very cool .
Speaker 1So where do you get your besides the dog portraits , where do you get your inspiration ?
Speaker 2because I saw like kind of like a dolly , like whimsy and some of your stuff uh , well , uh , I think if it's not dogs , I do paint a lot of this character I call dancing jack . Uh , I submitted one today . I call a um fake id dancing jack , where he's just dancing in a club with a bunch of girls . He's uh , it's a kind of a fetal skeleton , so he's small , you . You just see legs around him and he's spilling drinks all over the place . He has a fake McLovin ID .
Speaker 2I've done a bunch of him as different things that he's doing a bad job
Pet Portraits and Dancing Jack
Speaker 2at , and I just kind of make him funny . He's black light reactive , so if you ever shed a black light at him I put little hidden hearts or little extras . You might not catch unless you actually do have a UV light , but but it's a lot of him and if it's not that it's just like pop culture . I paint for a lot of burlesque dancers . I've gotten lucky enough to get hired to paint during the pre-shows on stage or paint the models themselves . So it's been great gigs with that . But yeah , aside from that , mainly portraits , realism .
Speaker 1Yeah , I saw your realism in your portraits . They're absolutely beautiful . You really know how to capture a face , because sometimes that kind of gets lost in some of those . Oh thank you that's really nice . Um , so , what is your favorite as far as like ? Do you like doing shows or do you like just kind of , you know , just posting stuff on the internet ? How do you get your art out there ?
Speaker 2uh , I do a lot of events , um art walks , uh . I just I just finished uh a month-long uh thing with the la county fair where I got to paint live every day that they had me there .
Speaker 2I actually finished a couple of paintings and collaborations while I was there . One of the paintings you guys are going to get for this upcoming event is a collaboration I did with a buddy of mine , brandon Zarf , who , who he did the background and I just painted the foreground . It's a portrait of a friend of mine who's a singer , but yeah , we worked on that . There live at the fair , but yeah , just anything where I can go outdoors and show my art really .
Speaker 1Okay , what's your big ? Has that been like your biggest moment in art so far , since you're kind of fresh into it and things like that ?
Speaker 2Biggest moment , I don't know . I sold a big piece of me and my dog , zoro , to somebody who didn't even have a dog . Um , that was like a thousand five hundred and I feel like that was the biggest thing for me , because I realized that I don't know who's gonna buy my art or what really is gonna hit yeah yeah , that was a really big uh painting I did and it was just my arm and my dog zoro in the sky like the uh , the that .
Speaker 2That michelangelo painting yeah , yeah but it was just him and he's kind of chunky and not really reaching out that much . It's cute and I had a big grand frame and I just put it out at this show called Pancakes and Booze because everybody was putting their best step out there and I wasn't expecting to sell but it sold and it was a big eye-opener for me that you really have no idea and since then it's been that way know what people will like from what I make , but I just paint whatever I like and someone buys it eventually .
Speaker 1Have you found it kind of hard to you know , come across your certain details that you do , or like get into what helped you kind of like hone in on your craft ? Have you taken lessons or anything like that ?
Speaker 2No , I think I have ADHD .
Speaker 1Okay .
Speaker 2I think it's undiagnosed . But I don't have the focus for a lot of things . I don't really take classes I haven't gone to school for it but I'll watch a video every now and then and try to see if there's a trick on how to blend it . It's more curiosity for me . I buy weird paints and I'm like , oh , I can make it glow or I can make it disappear in the heat and I could glue this to it and it'll be funny . It's just more curiosity and having fun with it and seeing what will come out of it and eventually it just I get better . Because I do it so much . I tend to obsess over things I like and art just became one of them and I haven't stopped .
Speaker 1Okay , awesome
Art Shows and Events
Speaker 1, you've done a lot of shows then .
Speaker 2Yeah , quite a bit .
Speaker 1Okay , awesome . And where are you planning on , like traveling anywhere with your stuff , or ?
Speaker 2Well , at the moment I like to keep it local . It's a lot of stuff to lug around At any given moment . My truck is completely full of art just waiting for me to set up at a new spot . It's hard to take it really much farther than anywhere I can drive to , but I'm setting up at the Queen Mary next month , which is exciting .
Speaker 1I've never set up on the boat , so that'll be cool and I'm looking forward to doing more LA County Fairs a Um , and I'm looking forward to doing more LA County fairs or really big events where I can really meet a lot of people . I was going to say are you going to be ?
Speaker 2at that Orange County fair . I don't know , uh , this , this uh first fair was uh uh a bit of a first experience and a last minute thing for me , but uh , it was a lot . I feel like I definitely have to rest .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Cause it was a it was a marathon day and not leaving till 12 at night . That's a long day . Yeah , you don't really have help or security . You just got to stay there next to your booth and keep doing what you're doing all day . But it was great . It was overall an awesome experience .
Speaker 1What's the event at the Queen Mary ?
Speaker 2I'm going to post it on my Instagram . I don't remember it exactly , but yeah , there's one there .
Speaker 1And then I saw you've got a show coming up in June as well is it the Leviathan ? Oh goodness , I can't remember . I just know that I was like remember the 6th of June . Is that a Friday ? So look at the Instagram I'm normally booked from like Friday , it is a Friday , okay .
Speaker 2That one's really cool . It's called Leviathan . It's like a like a goth kink variety show . Oh , cool .
Speaker 2Yeah , like I remember I went to sword swallower who , just like salt , swallow a sword and then just do like a little somersault and start scaring everyone in the front row . It's wild , it's different things that you wouldn't see before . Uh , shibari , they have somebody who's just tying herself up and yeah , yeah , and I actually got to uh paint her and um , and just finished selling that painting too . Uh , but it's a . It's a weird , crazy fun show called leviathan . I have , um , a flyer that they put on my page and added me as a collaborator with details . I'm doing another show this upcoming Saturday too . I'm not sure if it's going to air before then , but it's with Foster Army . They do a lot of stuff with dogs .
Speaker 1They're awesome at the shelter .
Speaker 2So I hope to be doing more stuff with them if this is aired after . But yeah , I normally just try to book myself from Thursday all the way to Sunday with art walks and the Upland Farmers Market I do that one . The Pomona Art Walk , the Long Beach First Fridays I usually do that one as well . It's a bunch of different events that I try to keep myself busy with so I can continue doing this instead of a job .
Speaker 1Yeah , and what did you do before you started doing art ?
Speaker 2I was a salesman . I sold cell phones .
Speaker 1Oh , there you go .
Speaker 2Nice . Oh , there you go With Verizon Nice . Yeah , it was a while with them . It was a good job . They closed my store because of COVID . Because of COVID , and it just happened to work out well , because I was starting to make money with art and wasn't too crazy of a transition .
Speaker 1I feel like it's such a common theme that I've seen with a lot of artists lately that they started in 2020 .
Speaker 2Yeah , covid did bring on a bunch of things that we didn't know we'd like to do . Yeah , I was 35 . I feel like I wouldn't have thought I'd picked up a new hobby , much less a new career choice . It's crazy .
Speaker 1I feel like people kind of had to break out of their shell of their normalcy and be like okay , what else can I do with myself ? How could I reinvent myself ?
Speaker 2What am I going to do with myself ?
Speaker 1We're going to do that , and I'll have to go to this box and go to work . That's good though .
Speaker 2So if you could give yourself one huge goal where do you want to see your art in the world ? I don't really even think about that too much . I feel like the goal is going to scare me . As far as my art career , it's been spontaneous and it's just grown on its own . I never really expected anything , but
Finding His Style
Speaker 2I hope to keep doing what I'm doing , yeah , and being able to afford it . I love being able to just do a burlesque show on a Friday , then a farmer's market on a Saturday , then work on commissions and pet portraits all week , and I mean that's a dream for me . It's just , it's me getting to spread my wings and do all types of different art at different days and and afford to still pay my bills and pay my dog . Yeah , yeah , it's , it's all that , yeah .
Speaker 1What's been your biggest hurdle as far as like doing art ?
Speaker 2Just the inconsistency Cause it's really just trying to figure out where my next check is going to be . Luckily , I have a lot of support and I've met lots of really great companies , like XCBT , that they've taken me to a bunch of shows and they themselves have a lot of my art and that was mine . Yeah , yeah . So it's . It's been a lot of really cool companies that I've worked with that that kind of keep me busy and keep me in front of eyes , that that that take my work home . Yeah .
Speaker 1Are you going to be out in Vegas ?
Speaker 2I won't be there I actually will be at . Is that the same weekend as Leviathan ?
Speaker 1Oh , that is Yep .
Speaker 2That's the same weekend , so I'll be doing that Leviathan event , but I'll be there in spirit and in art .
Speaker 1Yeah , they'll have your pieces up right . Yes , awesome , perfect . So what is one artist alive or dead that you wish you could collaborate with ?
Speaker 2Ooh , wow , I want to see like Salvador D dali , because it's jurado , yeah , and I , and I don't know what he would come up with . Uh , it seems like it'd be a lot more fun , um , but , uh , but , yeah , probably him dali .
Speaker 1Yeah , I can kind of see that , like in your little um , your skeleton guy you were talking about yeah , I've done one of him with the mustache too . That was , uh , salvador dali , so that's awesome um , as far as going back into like what your pieces are and things like that the dogs and stuff like that , is there a piece you're kind of working towards or like maybe a style you're kind of working towards with your art ?
Speaker 2I'd like to just keep dipping more into the portrait realism . I feel like I'm not where I want to be yet . Want to be yet . Um it I'm . I'm still constantly learning , uh , uh , and trying to just get it so I can match their likeness a lot faster , so that it's still uh , profitable . But I feel like at some point I just want to get to the point where I'm so good at painting people's faces that that's not even the the part that takes up so much of my time when I'm painting . I want to just add more fun stuff to it afterwards and make it feel like I didn't work on this for 100 hours for this much money when I couldn't really , yeah , but it's just getting faster and better . I guess that I could do even more and have more fun with the paintings . I feel like I could work on a face forever and never stop . One of the paintings I'm submitting today for the Las Vegas event . I was painting up until I started driving . It was just still adding more hair . Oh , my goodness .
Speaker 2A little extra stew , I could really work on a painting forever doesn't say what's your average amount of hours you're working on a painting they vary so much now because I'm so unsatisfied with the realism and the uh , the details in it that I just feel like I can't pull myself away from my art . Uh , and I'm working more towards the bigger detail fun paintings that have like all kinds of , like , little hair or small details that make it more fun . Um , but I've been known to finish a painting like within four hours on a good day okay , yeah , so tell us about .
Speaker 1Let's go back to young mario where are you from ? Are you local ?
Speaker 2uh , well , I'm , I'm . I'm in pomona now . I've been there for a few years . I lived there with my sister , um , but I grew up in riverside um borno valley in paris . Okay , my parents moved out there . I was born in Texas , but I don't remember any of that .
Speaker 1Was any of your family into art at all ?
Speaker 2No , not really my parents . They never really got into it too much . They let me draw . I feel like they never were not supportive of anything I did , but this really was something that just kind of came much after .
Speaker 1Okay , what were you like in school ? Were you all about the art or all about not being at school ? Because that was me I was all about not being at school .
Speaker 2I wasn't a bad kid . I joined the army right after . I feel like I was kind of like a straight edge type of kid . When I was growing up I used to break dance . That was something I did for a while . Awesome , that was my whole scene in high school and then just the kids that were funny . But yeah , that was such a long time ago , so you were in the Army .
Speaker 2I was in the Army . I joined right after getting out of high school . I was in there for eight years with the Army National Guard Okay , but that helped me grow up quite a bit .
Speaker 1Yeah , and then so did you have to be stationed anywhere ? Were you local ?
Speaker 2Oh well , I joined right before 9-11 . Okay , expecting to go somewhere , but they never sent me anywhere really . I got to go to Guam , the Philippines , hawaii , a bunch of fun spots , but really never anything that was like a war zone or put me in danger . I got very lucky .
Speaker 1You're lucky . Yeah , very lucky , got very lucky lucky , yeah , big time , okay .
Speaker 2So that brought you back to local like pomona . You were saying yeah , well , uh , from there I jumped around , I've lived in long beach , bueno park , la , all different parts ,
Life Before Art
Speaker 2and then , uh , eventually pomona , which I really like , that scene nice .
Speaker 1Yeah , pomona's pretty cool . I feel like that's a little art scene too .
Speaker 2They have a great art scene . Yeah , they have my favorite gallery there . It's a . It's artists in the alley Alley . I haven't missed a showing with them in four years now . They have an artist call every month .
Speaker 1Oh nice , so your art's in there as well .
Speaker 2Every month . Yeah , I give them three new pieces they submitted during the Art Walk which is every second Saturday , along with a bunch of other new artists as well . But that's one of the galleries that I haven't missed a single showing in about four years , since . They kind of pushed me because I always try to make three new pieces every month at least so I could still submit them , and so far I haven't missed . So it's fun .
Speaker 1Okay , what are you into as far as like other arts , like you're into music or anything like that Dance . Dance , okay , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2Believe it or not , this is a dancer's body . No , no . I don't think there's any like certain dancer's body anymore , but I used to break dance and then I I stopped doing that , uh , I got into salsa , uh , because it was more girls in that yeah , and then from there I just evolved into bachata and that's what I've been doing for the last , I think , maybe 15 years . It's , uh , it's awesome .
Speaker 1Yeah , so you do that on the weekends , are you ?
Speaker 2they actually have places to go dancing every night of the week .
Speaker 1At this point we're spoiled in la , so like there's websites where you just find all these different spots , yeah , and they're normally just like they'll have a class beforehand and they're familiar . You can just dance and there's always yes , that's how it was when I lived in portland . I had first moved to portland and I didn't know anybody . Yeah , so I go this little spot called the grand . We'd go downstairs and they have the hour-long lesson and the rest of the night you just dance your ass off .
Speaker 2That's the formula yeah the best , yeah , yeah , no , they're fun . It's a really great community . I feel like that's the most exercise I get .
Speaker 1Really dancing is the best exercise . You sweat your ass off , that's great . So dancing , okay . And then do you like going to live music , anything like that ?
Speaker 2no , not so much . I feel like my outings normally revolve around where I'm setting up a booth at or where I'm going to be live painting , which usually do include live music and dancing , all all kinds of different stuff . So I am around it , but it's never so much intentional . I feel like if it's just on , on on me to go out , I don't mind going out to see a show . I like burlesque shows or magic shows .
Speaker 1I love magic . Yeah , love magic . That's so awesome . Have you been to the magic castle ? Uh , yes twice invited by somebody who , like knows it's all secret society , but it's so cool . Yeah , I so wish I could take pictures in there . Oh , just once one girl told me she's like , don't even take pictures in the restroom . I'm like , first of all , that's not the place I would take the pictures but duly noted .
Speaker 1Nice , okay , awesome . So if you could have your , if you could travel with your art anywhere in the world , where would you want to go ?
Speaker 2I guess that would just be an excuse to travel , Right ? I mean , I want to go to Spain . That'd be awesome . I feel like they must have a lot of beautiful art out there too . It just seems like a more rich community . But no , that's a good question .
Speaker 1I hadn't really thought about it too much . You had a flamenco dancer in one of your pieces , right , did I say ?
Speaker 2that Burlesque dancer .
Speaker 1Okay , maybe a burlesque dancer .
Speaker 2Oh no , there was a like not flamenco , just where there was no , it could have been salsa bachata Okay .
Speaker 1Or one of those .
Speaker 2She had the nice flowy dress on .
Speaker 1Oh , it probably was a really pretty , though , all right . So I ask all of my guests , whether they like it or not , what is your favorite horror movie , sir ?
Speaker 2Oh , uh , it's going to be in the uh in the it series .
Dancing, Magic, and Inspiration
Speaker 2Yeah , I , I , uh . I never was into horror movies . I never watched them . But when I was , when I was younger my cousins , I went to their house and they were in the middle of watching .
Speaker 1It's always cousins .
Speaker 2Yeah , they were , and they were in the middle of watching . It's always cousins . Yeah , they were , and they were in the middle of watching it . I just kind of glanced at it and from there I was traumatized and I was it was the scariest thing and I was never gonna watch that movie . I never watched any movies and I feel like I got way older . I moved in with my sister in pomona . We saw um , like the new it , and we were like , oh , this is a really good movie . Then we saw like the part two and then we like went back to the old one . We're like , oh , these are all really great movies . I didn't realize . But yeah , I like those .
Speaker 1They feel good yeah it was always the clowns and then the cousins you're like oh , thank you . Thank you so much for traumatizing me with the horror movies .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I love clowns now I feel like I paint them a lot or skeletons , all that stuff just kind of came around but it was traumatizing and scary at one point .
Speaker 1Yeah oh , so we have . Thank you for answering that question even though horror movies are not your jam , but I always have to ask uh , so we have show coming up . We have . Thank you for answering that question , even though horror movies are not your jam , but I always have to ask . So we have a show coming up , we have the sixth , and then what do we have going on for the summer besides that ?
Speaker 2Who knows . I feel like it's a blur , All the things . Just follow my Instagram and see what I'm doing that weekend . I have to look at my Instagram to see what I'm doing that weekend too , because it's a lot .
Speaker 1So where can we find you at , uh ?
Speaker 2it's my instagram . It's art by mario solorzano . Uh , it's art period by period , mario solorzano , but if you just type art by mario , I think I pop up already . It's just me painting on there okay , awesome .
Speaker 1Well , thank you for joining us and thank you for your time , and don't forget to check out his art . It's fantastic and I hope that we'll see a lot more of you .
Speaker 2Yeah , I hope so .
Speaker 1Thank you .