YES my real name is Promise. I actually get asked that quite often. As an artistic fashion junky I grew up loving the arts and expression. Following my love and desire to improve my craft, I attended Northwest College of Art in Poulsbo, Wa. where I graduated with a BFA in 2007, double majoring in Graphic Design and Fine Art.
My work has been featured with the Dr. Phil show, Juxtapose Art and Culture Magazine, Collide Magazine, Kontakt Magazine, Foliopodcast, ShowItfast, and Jasmine Star Blog. I have worked on projects with/for Jedidiah Clothing, Hollywood Music Composer John Debney, Candace Cameron-Bure, Above the Golden State, Catalyst, Phil Wickham, and Matilda Jane Clothing.
Plywood People-Russell Shaw: What are some of your sources of artistic inspiration? Where do you go or what do you do to tap into creativity?
Promise Tangeman: I love flipping through fashion/creative magazines, browsing blogs online, and lately I have been getting creative epiphanies in my sleep. It’s that moment right before I am fully awake. It’s that half and half place. Weird, I know. I am really inspired by the passion of the people i work with. I love hearing and listening to dreams of my friends and clients and then running with ideas.
Plywood People: Who are some of your favorite artists and designers?
Promise: Honestly, my favorite artists are my peers and friends. I love their techniques and even business models. There are so many great artists doing amazing things, but here are a few: Elsie Flannigan, Kelli Murray, Barton Damer, Jasmine Star, Michelle Moore and many others.
Plywood People: You are set apart from many other designers in that your work includes a lot of handmade, fine art qualities. What influenced you to start blending graphic design with fine art?
Promise: Ahh I love this question because naturally I love making arts and crafts. I started out painting, and making old things into new things. When it was time to choose a college my eyes were opened to the fact that everything in the world needs to be created or designed, even the food at the grocery store, or the house that you live in. In my mind this opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. Graphic design seemed like a practical and business-y way to make art as a living. And now I can blend the two mediums, and the options and ideas are endless. Its funny to think that I never wanted to get near computers and now I am kind of a computer and program geek that way. Haha. I love that i can dream it and make it.
Plywood People: Tell us a little bit about the collaboration project, “Art for Huruma,” that you were involved in several months ago, and do you have any new cause-related projects coming up that you could discuss?
Promise: Art for Huruma was AWESOME!! It blended my fine art passion with the my graphic design ability. Art for Huruma was a collaboration between me and the talented Barton Damer During the month of July last year, we passed the artwork back and forth and came up with one artistic collaboration of the minds. Barton began the artwork and within a couple days I updated it with my touches, etc. The cycle continued back and forth until each artist had developed the artwork 3 times each with a final meeting of the minds to complete it. We then had it printed on t-shirts and posters and sold it to raise money and awareness for an orphanage in Africa, called Huruma Children’s Home. We posted the process on our blogs and people felt really connected to it in the end after watching the progress and collaboration. It was a lot of work, but it was an amazing opportunity and a fun project to help Africa.
The newest one I was apart of was called “Art for the Greater Good“. It was a design challenge where I had people create and submit a small piece of digital art following the instructions and guidelines of the challenge. At the end of the challenge I collected all submissions and created a collaborative collage containing all submitted pieces. Every artist received a link to download the digital version of the final collage to professionally print, (OR slice up, recreate, etc) and sell in their Etsy shop as A Beautiful Idea project (An organization where all the proceeds that were sold went to the Haiti relief fund). It was amazing to see people’s submissions as well as what they created with the final designs. It really blew my mind. People LOVE giving, helping, and doing things for others.
Plywood People: Why do you feel it’s important for artists to use their craft for projects that impact the world for the greater good?
Promise: Art and the ability to think outside of the norm inspires people. Creativity and artful images can pull emotion, thought, and ideas out of people that words sometimes can not do. In my opinion the world will eventually look to creative people and art to inspire change. We can begin to start that now. By our passion and knack for beautiful presentation we can make old ideas into new ideas and begin to change the world. I am so excited to see what our future holds when humble and giving artists start to move and work together for the greater good.
photos by Sarah Rhoads
