Welcome back! If you're new here- I’m Nikki, and welcome to AXN Atelier. Atelier is a fancy French word for studio; welcome to my metaphorical atelier, where I'll share some behind the scenes, travel recommendations, collaborations, gift guides, and more.

How I Built artxnikki: My Atelier Journey

We launched AXN in 2020 as a print shop on the platform Etsy and it has evolved over the past few years to become the AXN you see today- artxnikki.com, our Shasta camper mobile store, collegiate licensed, wholesale and direct retail, husband-and-wife little empire. 

Our humble beginnings began in our 400 sq. foot studio apartment in Tampa, both freshly post-grad from Florida State University. Nikki was in Cosmetology school, Brock was getting his masters in Athletic Training. Nikki painted at the kitchen table while Brock cheered her on from the couch, just a few feet away. 

Now Nikki and Brock work together to expand AXN with an equal focus on our DTC website sales and wholesale accounts! You can find AXN in thousands of homes, framed and hung on the walls and in over 150 stores across the US and Canada. 

My First Brushstrokes

I have been drawing and painting as long as I could hold a brush. My parents and sister have always been creative and art has naturally been a normal part of my life since the beginning. My dad owned an auto body shop for 25+ years, a master at painting cars. My mom collected antiques and curated a beautiful, museum-like home. My sister is an elementary art teacher-photographer-illustrator-yogi-artist in all facets. I think it was only fate I would end up with a creative career, and just coincidence my career is literally art (watercolor and illustration). I know it is not always the case to have a family that is accepting of the arts as a career option, let alone encouraging. And for that, I am incredibly grateful.

 

Early Professional Steps 

College

At Florida State University, I was originally preparing to apply to the Interior Design and Architecture program- a safer creative career option that promised a traditional job with traditional benefits. After my first semester, I knew this was not what I actually wanted to do and switched to a major in Studio Art, minor in Art History. A path to becoming a traditional artist- but without promise of a steady income and traditional benefits.

This didn't scare me or hold me back. You learn to become adaptive and scrappy early in college studying art. Not only is it an incredibly expensive major, having to constantly buy professional art supplies and materials for class, but you also have to spend way more time in classes than peers. Don't get me wrong, I had my fun in college but I also had to balance multiple 3 hour studio classes while my friends had 1.5 hour lectures. You learn the grit and time commitment becoming a working artist takes almost immediately in school. 

I studied abroad my junior year for the Spring semester in Florence, Italy where I interned for a working artist, Alan Pascuzzi, helping in his studio a few times a week. An incredible experience that made me fall in love with Europe and Renaissance art. Also a first hand experience learning how a working artist can make it work professionally, while doing what they love day in and day out. You can check out his amazing book about Michelangelo here.

Post-Grad

After graduation, I moved to Tampa with Brock (my now husband and business partner) while he went to grad school. I was not sure how to make art a career quite yet and was applying for creative jobs (and not getting hired by any of them) but planned to continue painting and figure out a way to make it my entire career some day. Art school was wonderful but it did not do a great job of showing us what is possible in terms of art as a career. They push gallery showings and masters programs heavily but barely touch on the possibilities of the commercial art realm (products, licensing, partnerships and collaborations, etc.) like I eventually would land on. So, I decided to go to cosmetology school to do hair- a creative job that can be incredibly lucrative. And another way to stall while I figured out how to make solely art a career. While in school, I started an art Instagram where Brock encouraged me to post about my work and see where it led. If he had not convinced me to do so, I don't think I'd be where we are today. Making art is personal- and can be really hard to put yourself out there. It took me 22 years to be brave enough to do so! I started taking commissions, painting things I enjoyed, and eventually launched an Etsy shop to sell art prints in November of 2020. I still graduated hair school, became licensed, and had plans of actually doing hair as well- but 6 months into assisting a wonderful stylist in Tallahassee, I was able to quit hair and go full time artist. I obviously do not do hair now (and wish I hadn't wasted my time and money going to hair school) but it did bring me back to Tallahassee where my career really took off and brought me some wonderful friends! Thank you Brenna and all of the Trove Salon girls!

My Trove girls <3

Taking the Leap

In the beginning, I was painting whatever people asked me to do. Portraits, dogs, cats, houses, huge abstract statement pieces. The style you see me use today came together on this piece named Citrus Cocktails. I had been painting in acrylic, gouache, and watercolor- drawing in pencils, charcoal, and pen. And with this cocktail painting, something clicked and I knew my future would be with watercolor and this style. It finally felt like me. I had found my artistic identity after spending years trying out tons of techniques and materials.

Going Viral

artxnikki really took off in June of 2021 when my Cocktails of Tallahassee and Bars of Tallahassee series went viral, which commemorated the fun and unique college bar culture in FSU's college town (IYKYK). With help from Madison Social  - who we did a t-shirt collab with! And then shortly after, I released my first FSU Westcott Fountain painting which also gained traction with more fellow Florida State University alumnus. I was still doing hair at the time, and one day I'm checking my phone between clients and I see all of these Instagram notifications with new followers. Not just 20, but about 2,000 in the span of a few hours. I know this isn't a lot, but for a small artist, this opened huge doors to share my art with more people. 

FSU

This led to painting more Florida State University imagery, becoming licensed with FSU, and partnering with dozens of local Tallahassee businesses and colleges/departments within the University itself. It led to our friendship and partnership with Picked, where you can find us popped up on most FSU game days. 

Our First Store

I was working at the salon by day, painting by night, working probably 100+ hour weeks for at least 6 months. I was finally able to quit doing hair, went full time axn at the very end of 2021! After a year of pop-ups and online orders, we opened a brick and mortar store in July of 2022 (a week after Brock and I got married, I do not recommend both events within the same month LOL). This helped us gain more traction, produce products alongside art prints, and helped us establish credibility. I hired our first (and only, and favorite) studio assistant Jaime! She is the most talented ceramicist and you can shop her work here. We held events and pop-ups in the store, celebrated holiday seasons, and somehow survived the Florida summer heat with our window AC unit. I welcomed Brock on full time during this time as well. We were growing in both the DTC and wholesale spaces and AXN was ready for the help! This freed up more time for me to be creative, and allowed us to build out the back systems and aid with accounting that was desperately needed.

The original artxnikki store is no longer open- we were about to celebrate our second anniversary with the store when 3 tornados hit town. They landed specifically in Rail Road Square where our store was located. Our roof was damaged and the space would not be operable for months so we decided to close. 

The Mobile Store

We moved our studio production into an extra bedroom in our house- and decided to go mobile. We were still going so many pop-up events outside of our storefront and I had grown to hate being tied down to one spot for 30-ish hours a week. To lessen overhead, we decided this would be the fun next chapter for AXN! We had a custom 60's Shasta Camper replica made in Georgia, drove it to New York for my dad to paint, and then drove it back down to Tallahassee to finish the interior build out. August 2024 we had our first event and haven't looked back since! 

Milestones

So much has happened in between these handful of huge events with the business and one day I need to write them all down before I forget. The quick version:

We've had tons of cool partnerships, worked on branding and artwork with some of the best small businesses across the country, are sold in over 150  boutiques across the US and Canada, have a cookbook coming out with Good Housekeeping, and just sent our largest wholesale order to date to a major account (more info coming on this soon!!). 

We turned our once little Esty art print shop into so much more.

Brock and I vending at Porter Flea in Nashville, TN

Cheers to the Future!

Building AXN has been a dream come true and we have packed SO much into the (almost) 5 years it has been around. I am even more excited to see how the next 5 go and cannot wait to share it all with you from AXN Atelier. Join me for more stories, art, travel, and collabs. Share your own journey in the comments or on Instagram (@artxnikki).

Cheers, Nikki!

 

Shop my art: artxnikki.com

Follow on Instagram: @artxnikki

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