Brian McKelvey, 36, has mastered his craft. His booming business thrives on the finely detailed downtown scenes of what he calls his
“Pubs Of“ series: paintings that consolidate an area’s best watering holes into one nostalgic, beautiful and evocative image.
“The idea came about when I was living in
Mackinac [Island],” McKelvey says about his wildly popular streetscapes. “I started drawing different, limited edition pictures of landmarks on the island. A local shop owner came up to me when I was drawing in the park and asked if he could commission 50 prints to sell in his store.”
Even while the Mackinac prints were still gaining in popularity, McKelvey set his sights on painting more Michigan townscapes — including the sights of his alma mater,
Michigan State University in East Lansing
“After finishing
Pubs of East Lansing, the reaction of people was really good, and people kept approaching me saying, ‘You should do the pubs of Ann Arbor, Columbus, Madison,’" says McKelvey. "So that’s how the
Pubs of the Big Ten idea came about.”
McKelvey has since finished 65 street scenes, including the
Pubs of Lansing and the
Pubs of Madison, and is working on the ‘Pubs of Minneapolis and St. Paul.’ He’s currently wrapping up his tour of the hometowns of Big Ten colleges across the Midwest, creating prints that bring each downtown to life.
McKelvey recently traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to show local shops his newest masterpiece, and the response was overwhelming.
“I have so many orders for Madison, and more and more places in Michigan are now placing orders,” he says. “In the past year, one painting seems to snowball into others. Now I have orders for scenes that I made years ago.”
Business of ArtFor McKelvey, the business aspect of selling the product is a key ingredient.
“I’m sure that I will have to hire some people to help manage accounts and just do the overall travel that comes with selling them,” he says. McKelvey’s Web sites,
brianmckelvey.com and
pubsof.com, will eventually become interactive sites that will let users zoom in to see detailed sections of all of the paintings.
McKelvey grew up in
St. Johns, just north of Lansing, and comes from a line of artists. His father was a pastor who retired and took up art when Brian was 18. His
uncle is a member of the
Portrait Society of America, and owned and operated a graphic design studio after studying with renowned Bulgarian artist,
Dimitar Krustev, in the 1960s.
McKelvey started young, “going door to door after high school, asking people if they wanted a portrait of their house painted,” he says. “Usually one out of every ten people I talked to ordered a painting from me. When you are going door to door, ten percent is pretty good.”
He used the money to help pay for his
landscape architecture degree from Michigan State University.
McKelvey’s inspirations are vast and range anywhere from famous abstract artists to childhood movies.
“I’ve always been inspired by the expansiveness of
Dali’s paintings—it’s a sort of balanced chaos," he says. "And I loved the way [Disney’s]
101 Dalmatians captured the feeling of London in its background, with the
buildings kind of toppling over onto one another.”
Giving Back To MichiganAlong with the countless MSU students that have already purchased McKelvey’s art, the
Michigan State University Alumni Association (MSUAA) has also taken notice. He’s scheduled to part of the MSUAA’s August convention, and wants to make the East Lansing street scenes more available to students and alumni.
“In the future, I’d like to create a partnership with MSU, because this is the place where I’ve received the most positive responses, especially at the
(East Lansing) Art Fair. I’d love to have the (East Lansing) street scenes available on the MSU market Web site, and maybe even have them be a part of a bundle of gifts for incoming students. But we will just have to see.”
“Some of the alumni,” he says, “gave me the idea of creating a vintage Pubs Of series, with all of the old bars and restaurants that were there when they attended MSU.”
According to McKelvey, many of the Big Ten universities “have gone through huge overhauls in just the past 10 years, and I think a vintage theme would hit home with them even more.”
On top of his non-stop schedule, McKelvey is designing covers for
Smart Dining Magazine, which spreads the word of Michigan restaurants and local fare.
“It’s another great idea to remind people to eat local and keep smaller independently owned restaurants in business,” he says. He adds that is “also just inform people of where to find great local cuisine in your area or when you are traveling through Michigan.”
Going GlobalThe “pubs of” idea has developed into a global plan, and McKelvey is looking far beyond the Big Ten.
“Well obviously I want to finish the ‘Pubs of the Big Ten,’” he says, “and with a lot of patience and sleepless nights move onto doing all of the NCAA Division I and II schools. And then travel to Ireland and Italy and do themes for historical streets of Dublin and Rome. It’s sort of a global plan right now.”
Painting for a living is every artist’s dream. McKelvey’s paintings are classically composed, and meticulously detailed, but his humbleness and sense of humor stand out most when you meet him.
“The funny thing is that when I am in my studio surrounded by all of these art utensils and supplies and paint . . . and the one thing that racks my brain — and I can never find — is a simple Number 2 pencil to start my sketches. Maybe you should leave that one out, Josh.”
Freelance writer Josh Marino has friends that see every blank wall as their own personal mind canvas. He often wonders if those same friends are on, or should be on, medication.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of
Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Brian McKelvey working on his next pubs painting at Biggby Coffee Shop in East Lansing and his gallery on Mackinac Island (gallery photo Josh Marino)
All Photographs unless noted © Dave Trumpie (unless noted)