10 Minutes With Tipton: Artist Justin Manning
10 Minutes with Tipton originated in January 2022 on the Education Page. Students in the After School Education and Safety (ASES) Program at Tipton Elementary School take time to Zoom with individuals in the community to ask them questions about their jobs, lives and strategies they can use in their own lives to help them become college and career ready.
Justin Manning, artist, carpenter, philanthropist What is your job title/ role in our community?
“I hesitate to call this a job because it’s not a job. A job is something where you punch in and you punch out and it helps you make ends meet. Being an artist costs you your time and it also costs you a lot of suffering and work to get to a point where you don’t have to work as hard. I do other things, as well. I have my own line of pencils and drawing materials and all kinds of other things I do to work through the waves of the economy. I would consider that I am an artist, but my role in the community, at this point in my life, I’m more interested in raising money for causes too. I’ve raised money for the Porterville Museum and I’ve helped raise more than $50,000 for the families of the two firefighters (Captain Ray Figueroa and Patrick Jones) who were killed in the Porterville Library fire a couple of years ago. I’ve kind of gotten into philanthropy. I want to help out my community as well as keep my head above water.”
Please tell us a little
bit about yourself — Your background, where you grew up, your family.
“I grew up here in Porterville. Actually, what I did is I worked with my dad when I was young and then I worked at a water district in about 1994-1995 and because I was kind of married to this water district. I couldn’t leave. Since I spent a lot of time at the water district, I found a hobby and started drawing again, which I did in high school. It went from a hobby to making prints of it. It started as a hobby and then somebody said ‘Hey, I’d like to have a print of that!’ And I said ‘What’s a print?’’ I started making extra money to where I got to where I could leave the water district around 2000.
“I am a Porterville native and I will likely die in Porterville.”
What do you love about your career?
“What I love about this is that people love the work and it becomes bigger than me. I’m just a lowly guy. I draw pictures, I scribble with a pencil. It’s such a silly thing when you think about it. Yet when you make these things, and to think I was able to make over $50,000 for people who risked their lives to save other people’s lives during a library fire. I get to help organizations make money from pencil scribbling on paper. It becomes bigger than me. It started out as such a nothing and over time it’s gotten to where it’s bigger than I am and I’m humbled by that.”
Can you tell us what you do everyday in your job?
“I wax and wane between spending a week in the drawing room and a week in my shop, which is adjacent to my drawing room. I build frames, pencils and all of the other art materials I make. I have a line of frames I make, so as you can see I have a lot of irons in the fire.”
Would you encourage others to pursue your career?
That’s a tough one. You have to do it with passion, put on blinders and just go. Apart from the music industry this is probably the hardest job. Sometimes you have to do dirty jobs, just to get by. I would like to say to people that it is something that you just draw and they will come … It’s more along the lines that it’s a tremendous amount of suffering. You become heartbroken at times because you’re doing something you’re really proud of and you may not have a buyer for it. You may have spent a month on it and X amount of money on the frame and then you don’t win the contest, or you don’t sell the piece and you have to chalk it up to a learning experience. If you’re OK with suffering, or paying your dues, then do it. Musicians go through it as well. Don’t stop. Once you get bit by it, it’s hard. Musicians will make 100 CDS, spend $1,500 on CDS and end up giving them away. I spent a lot of money on brochures and direct mailers before the internet and before social media. So, I would encourage you to do it if you’re prepared.
What advice do you have for young artists?
“If you are interested in a career in the visual arts, the best advice I can give you is to expect to suffer because you will suffer. It’s not like you get up in the morning and you clock in. You have to motivate yourself, you have to get up, and put your best into it. The best investment you can make is to be really, really good at something and don’t bounce around. Find a medium you love and dive into it and strive to be the best even if it takes a month to complete. Strive to be the best you can be. One to two people will come along and buy it and at some point three. Social media, such a blessing, gives everybody a platform.
So many people that are at such a high level that when you have to have something that knocks people’s socks off they will want to have it, they will have to have it. When you frame it, frame it right. It’s going to cost you money. You have to make it important to you for other people to see how important it is. That is some of the best advice I can give. I quit 50 times. I quit and then I would wake up the next morning and do it again. You may have to do some other things — Frame some stuff, do consignment, commission stuff so you can do original works, but because those things are going to help pay the bills so you can do what you want. It will take a long time to get away from those things. I am pushing 50 years old and only in the last 10 years have I not had to keep grasping at different things to keep my head above water. I don’t do it because eventually I’ll be rewarded for my
hard work. I do it because I’ll leave something behind. It’s the best I can possibly do. I want when my kids see it, or someone sees it 100 years from now when people see it I want them to say it’s incredible.”
What is something that might surprise members of the public (either about you, or your career)?
“What might surprise people would probably be how dull and boring it is. It is not exciting. It’s not glamorous. Most of the time I’m filthy, dirty and covered in “man glitter,” also known as saw dust. When it’s not quiet time in the drawing room it’s loud tools in the workshop.”
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
“Well, if I’m still able to get up in the morning and see well enough to put this chicken scratch on paper, and hopefully, the good Lord grants me health to help me do it — I plan on doing it until I can’t see enough to put it on paper anymore.”
Anything else you would like to add? (Maybe a current, or past project you’re proud of?)
“I’d like to reiterate the thing I’m most proud of now is that I can give back now. I’m not saying that I’m in a position where I have the personal funds to be able to extend something to people, but I still give. I still struggle along to make ends meet like everyone else. What I mean is that I can give back to people and I can support good causes and that’s something I love and that’s something I’m proud of. My girls are very proud that I can do that and it’s given them an example to follow what they love no matter how hard it is.”