15 years ago, I decided to make a full-time business out of drawing caricatures for a living. This was no small task.
Very few people make their entire living based on the art of caricature but I already wasn’t making enough as a freelance artist to support a family and the idea of working a full-time job was too depressing to consider. So, I took a breath and dove right in.
One of the first places I decided to try out was at our local annual art festival in Rochester, MI called Art & Apples. It’s been around for 50 years and was close enough to my home to risk seeing if I could make it work. The first year was in 2004 and I didn’t even own a tent. However, me and fellow artist, Ben Pierrot stayed busy enough over the 3-day weekend to come back the following year. The next year, I had a tent and my business grew. Then I started opening other caricature stands in different locations throughout the U.S. I have had as many as 9 retail stands coast to coast over the past 12 years. And each year, I would return as a sponsor at Art & Apples and each September, another artist and me would draw for 3 straight days.
We became a crowd favorite at the festival. Customers looked forward to seeing us each September and we became a tradition. Heck, 2 years ago, I drew a couple at the festival who decided to hire 3 of us to draw at the wedding. A year later they came back to Art & Apples for another caricature. This time, they wanted one showing that the couple was expecting their first child! They handed me an envelope that showed if it was going to be a boy or a girl. “Whatever you do, don’t tell us! We want it to be a surprise until next week when we use your caricature for the official announcement.” There were many special moments like that one. I always looked forward to drawing friends and family each September. I enjoyed working with several different artists over the years. We always had fun even though we weren’t making a fortune. I was always able to cover all my costs and pay my artists who helped out. That, plus the annual exposure, justified all our efforts.
In 2016, we decided not to participate as a sponsor of Art & Apples due to a significant increase in the sponsorship fee. It was the first time in 12 years that we were not drawing at Art & Apples. We were not there in 2017 either. However, in 2018, Paint Creek Center for the Arts, the producer of Art & Apples, approached us about returning at our original location and sponsorship fee. We accepted. I have always looked forward to drawing in my hometown but I also liked the spirit of community I felt from my involvement with the local festival. Even though we have caricature stands in Tampa, Los Angeles, Denver and other locations around the country, I considered Art & apples to be the place where it all started. And fortunately, it now continues! We just wrapped on our weekend at Art & Apples in 2019 and we were busier than ever. Looking forward to 2020!
I am very happy and relieved to report an update to my previous post about my close friend and great artist, Glenn Ferguson. As many of you already know, Glenn was viciously attacked by another artist at Universal Studios on New Year’s Day. Glenn was stabbed in the side of his head with a pair of scissors near the caricature stand that he has been drawing at for over 20 years. It took over 5 hours of surgery to remove the blades from his brain.
All of us in the caricature artist community were horrified when we learned of Glenn’s situation. Glenn is highly respected and greatly loved by many of us who share his trade of drawing caricatures for a living. A few of us organized a GoFundMe campaign to help offset all the costs and lack of income that Glenn was enduring while he is recovering. People from around the world have reached out with support and donations. So far, we have successfully raised over $67,000!
Miraculously, Glenn regained conscious a couple weeks later. However, that was only the first step. He has had a tough road since then. The injury affected his vision, speech and the vital functions that most of us take for granted daily. He was unable to understand what people were saying to him. He couldn’t walk. He didn’t know how to speak. Imagine waking up and not even knowing who you are. That’s exactly what Glenn experienced.
Fortunately, the wonderful therapists worked with Glenn in the hospital for weeks and were surprised at how quickly he responded to treatment. They had never met nor worked with someone like him before. Being an artist meant that his brain is wired a little differently than most people. And the therapists were learning a lot from Glenn while helping him recover. Glenn progressed well enough that the hospital discharged him ahead of schedule and sent him home. Now Glenn is working with his therapists from home several times a week. He is learning to read again. He still gets tired easily and he has no peripheral vision in his right eye. But the Glenn we all know and love is alive and hasn’t changed regarding his personality. That is a huge victory!
It’s incredible to think that only 45 days ago, Glenn was clinging to life by the smallest of odds. I am as blown away with his progress since then. Glenn has been overwhelmed regarding your compassion and support. As I mentioned before, Glenn is really one of the good ones and apparently greater forces than ours appear to agree. Keep up the great recovery, Glenn!
I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I make a comfortable living doing something I really enjoy doing on a daily basis. I get to create. I bring smiles to thousands of people every year. And aside from the occasional unsatisfied customer or perhaps an extra long gig that is too close to a DJ speaker, my profession is very low-risk, high-reward. As many of you know I am also a member of the International Society of Caricature Artists. It’s a trade association of caricature artists from around the world. It’s membership is around 500-600 artists and many of us have been involved for years. We are an extended family to one-another.
One of my closest friends that I met through ISCA is Glenn Ferguson. We both served as board members for 6 years. When I became president, Glenn was my vice president. We got along so well over that time that we became best buds. Even after we finished serving on the board, we keep in touch. He’s been to Michigan several times and has drawn with me at the Art & Apples Festival near my home. My family has visited with him and his wife, JoAnn near his home in Orlando. Glenn is an extremely talented artist who manages the caricature concession for Fasan Arts at Universal Studios, Orlando. He’s been there bringing smiles to visitors for decades now. Not only is he a very popular artist with guests but he is greatly admired among the artist community as well. In addition to serving on the board, Glenn has won more awards at the annual convention, ISCACON, than any other artist in history, including the top award of Master of the Year. Besides being an outstanding artist, Glenn has got to be one of the nicest guys I have ever had the pleasure to know. He encourages other artists, he is mean to no one and he has the patience of a saint. He also has a great sense of humor. In short, Glenn is one of the good ones.
On the morning of New Year’s Day 2016, Glenn Ferguson was attacked at Universal Studios, where he has drawn thousands upon thousands of caricatures over the years for tourists. He was viciously stabbed in the side of his head by a disgruntled co-worker and had to undergo a lengthy emergency surgery that lasted more than 5 hours. Glenn’s prognosis remains unclear–what has immediately become clear is how many people are pulling for him, a testament to how many lives Glenn has touched.
Right after celebrating their first wedding anniversary, his wife JoAnn is now facing the fallout from this attack–it will no doubt contain many bills from doctors and hospitals (even with insurance, copays and deductibles add up) and a long road ahead involving rehabilitation and recovery time. We all hope and pray that Glenn can make a full recovery, but there will no doubt be many hurdles to overcome since Glenn has suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Several of us who have known Glenn through the caricature community have set up a fund to help, which JoAnn will be able to access as bills mount. If you already know Glenn, I am certain that you have already donated or you are about to soon. If you do not know Glenn, please watch the video I included to get a sense of the kind of guy Glenn is. The world is a much better place with him in it and with your help, hopefully he can recover so that he can get back to his drawing table and delighting people once again.
For 49 years, the Art & Apples Festival® has transformed the 30-acre Rochester Park in Rochester, MI into one of the nation’s top fine art fairs with over 290 exhibiting artists from across the country. Goofy Faces has been a proud sponsor of this event for the past 10 years. Each year I enjoy drawing close to home for 3 days and seeing so many of our customers and clients drop by to say hello or get their caricature drawn by me or the other artists I ask to work with me at the festival. This year’s festival was our busiest one to date! We added a face painter for the first time this year and Michelle was busy all day long.
Watch our artists highlights from the CNN Grill during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC September 3rd-6th. CNN hired 2 artists from Goofy Faces to draw their staff along with guests at the grill during the convention. This video features samples from Glenn Ferguson and Tom Richmond!
While Republicans were gathering to nominate Mitt Romney as their presidential candidate, artists from Goofy Faces were busy drawing caricatures inside the CNN Grill at the Republican National Convention for 4 straight days! Lead artist, Glenn Ferguson, even arrived a day early to help prepare for this event while the convention was delayed because of Hurricane Isaac. CNN reporters, celebrities, politicians and other attending VIPs were enshrined on the back wall of the grill with their full color caricature which were drawn while they watched. Many news outlets, dropped by to watch and report on the action. Now that the RNC has ended, it’s on to the Democratic National Convention taking place in Charlotte, NC next week!
Les and Seth Gold from Hardcore Pawn admire their caricature by artist Glenn Ferguson.
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