Unique Like Her Art, Candice Alexander Is Finding Exceptional Success • By Brad Goins • Main Image Photo By Lindsey Janies
Alexander’s 3-D original mixed media pieces, like the Harley-inspired work above, are incredibly popular.
Artist Candice D. Alexander began by thinking that her artistic enterprise in Lake Charles would be “half art and half business.” But given the way the enterprise has developed, she finds that at present it’s 1/3 art, 1/3 business and 1/3 organization.
If you’re wondering why organization is such a priority, consider this: Alexander can often be heard telling customers that when it comes to choosing a work of art in her studio — whether it be a large scale painting, a cell phone holder or a Christmas ornament — there are 100,000 options.
Astonishing as it sounds, the information is perfectly correct. Over the years, Alexander has developed 80 different products. She’s also created 1,000 different designs — many of them incorporating her trademark fleur de lis. The fact that prints come in a variety of sizes also increases the number of options available to the customer and patron.
As busy as Alexander is with the demands of her large-scale operation, she stills finds ample to time to work on the art she most enjoys — the creations she calls “3D works.”
Alexander is now getting enough commissions for 3D works that she can create all or most of them for patrons who have committed to pay up front. When I was in her studio, I was astonished to see a 3D work being prepared for a tire company. Company representatives had brought in the gears and other parts that they felt best exemplified their business. These will eventually be placed on top of, or otherwise incorporated into, the canvas, or whatever surface Alexander is using for the base of the work.
Regular customers will know that to a certain degree, Alexander is generating business by branding some of her work. That is, fleur de lis designs can be hand-tailored to include emblems of the McNeese Cowboys or other Louisiana teams. I was surprised to learn from Alexander that it takes “months of paperwork” to get the proper licensing agreements for this sort of work. She now has licenses for McNeese, Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette. And while she doesn’t yet have an LSU license, she can certainly place motifs associated with LSU in artworks of all types. For instance, she could incorporate the head of a tiger into a fleur de lis print or Christmas tree decoration.
The Fleur de Lis
While some local patrons are obviously familiar with Alexander’s 3D work, her trademark throughout Southwest Louisiana and Acadiana is no doubt her hundreds of artistic variations on the fleur de lis design.
When this huge art project began, there was no hint it would eventually take on its current proportions. In 2006, a customer commissioned Alexander to make a brass engraving of a fleur de lis design as well as 12 prints for a total of $300.
But the customer never picked up the work. Alexander decided to take it to the booth she was renting in the mall in Lafayette. By this time, she had made 200 prints of the design on the brass plate. As quickly as she could hang up the prints in her booth, they sold. As she found herself producing more prints, she knew she had found a motif that resonated deeply with the people in her area.
She developed the idea by producing 200 doodles that were variations on the basic fleur de lis motif. From these, she eventually selected and developed 28 designs that would be marketed as prints and so forth to the general public. Ever since, designs have been added on a regular basis – often as the result of a request, suggestion or commission.
A fleur de lis 3-D original mixed media piece made with ammo.
In the course of her doodling, Alexander came to realize that one reason the fleur de lis designs connected so strongly with the area is that they could be altered to represent all the different types of people that make up the area’s culture; “the work speaks,” Alexander says, “to the diverse colors of the Cajun, the Roughneck, the Creole, the Hurricane Survivor, the Swamp Rocker, the Rice Farmer, the Mardi Gras Queen and the Jazz Musician.”
“If someone had told me how my future would unravel because of this one design,” she says, “I would have never believed them.”
‘I Started To Get Busy’
In 2007, one began to see the many different fleur de lis all over town. But it was in 2008, Alexander says, that the project really started going great guns in terms of revenue.
In 2008, she says, “I started to get busy.”
The changes began to show in changes in Alexander’s venues. In 2012, after 12 years of housing her studio in Central School, Alexander moved into the upscale front retail area of the Charleston Hotel Building in Lake Charles. And just recently, she’s traded in her Lafayette mall booth for a 5,000 square-foot storefront in the mall.
After all this time, every item in both of Alexender’s retail spaces is still handmade. She’s now reached the stage where she’s found it necessary to take on 6-12 “team workers.” And if one observes the goings-on in Alexander’s downtown Lake Charles studio and shop, there’s no doubt that these team workers are making art. When I visited Alexander’s space, a customer requested a particular Christmas ornament and was told that it would be made within three minutes. A team member went right to work on the job.
As this was going on, Alexander asked another team member to figure out a way to affix a set of scales to a 3D work that had been commissioned by an area pharmacist.
Right now, Alexander’s team includes Jade Harrington (her partner), Vernadine Alexander (her mother), Kelly Winterbottom, Hunter Romero, Julie Bergeron, Mike Van Dyke, Paula Arabie, Jan Broussard and Tiffanie Thibodeaux. Those at the beginning of the list come from Lake Charles, while those at the end hail from the Lafayette area.
Things will be getting busier for every one on the team. As you read this magazine, Alexander will be immersed in her three busiest weeks of the year. Christmas sales of her works in the Lafayette area are extremely brisk.
Alexander’s design for the 40th anniversary of Mayfest for Vernon Parish Tourism.
But it’s not just piles of holiday receipts that persuade Alexander she’s made extraordinary accomplishments in both art and business.
She recalls when she was working on the original fleur de lis brass plate. At the time, she was reading a book called The Artist’s Way that encourages artists to make journal notes about their artistic experiences as they have them. Alexander remembers writing she “hoped to create a body of work that reached masses.”
The words were almost eerily prophetic. “It was magic, really,” says Alexander.
Thus Lake Charles sees the rare phenomenon of the artist who goes beyond the small circle of other artists, critics and patrons to have an impact on society at large. “We are SWLA’s largest single artist studio and biggest art tourist draw and the hottest spot for gifts,” says Alexander.
Big New Ideas
Much, perhaps most, of Alexander’s exceptional success has resulted from her choice not to shy away from big new art ideas when they come to her. This boldness in seizing on both the aesthetic and business potential of new ideas developed not from Alexander’s art classes at McNeese, but from her youthful participation in the area’s 4H program.
Alexander says she got into 4H at the youngest age she could. While 4H might not have taught her how to draw a perfectly proportioned human skeleton, it taught her just about everything else about the complex realities of the art world.
4H “touched on every single aspect of business and creativity,” she says. Her long experience in the group taught her to keep accurate records and required that she master public speaking.
It’s likely that Alexander will continue to pursue big art ideas that will require her to use the lessons she learned at 4H. For instance, she anticipates that 2015 will see the publication of a coffee table book of her work. The full-color book will, of course, include many reproductions of Alexander’s art, and will, she says, offer a retrospective of her entire career.
In the meantime, Alexander continues to follow personal pursuits that probably grew out of her youth in 4H and SWLA. She’s a gardener, but one with a difference — when she gardens, she does so in the company of the small flock of chickens that she keeps. Also, Alexander still makes time for games of tennis on a regular basis.
Partner Jade Harrington, Alexander, actress Kathy Bates, hairstylist Daina Daigle and two cast members of American Horror Story on Dec. 15 at a presentation of artwork Alexander was commissioned to do for the show.
‘The Person Who Gets It, Loves It’
Alexander says that one of her greatest sources of satisfaction is the “amount of work we’re selling.” She finds the sales satisfying because she knows that ultimately the artwork will go to a recipient who finds it tremendously satisfying in turn. “The person who gets it, loves it,” she says.
The satisfactions can’t entirely compensate for the real challenges of a fiercely demanding business. Alexander is obliged to work hard. “It’s really crazy,” she says. “Nuts, nuts, nuts.”
But even after the intense labor, the satisfaction remains. “I have created something for everybody,” says Alexander. The community’s enthusiastic endorsement of the work is the best evidence that her statement is correct.
If you’d like to learn more about Alexander’s art and aesthetics, visit candicealexander.com or her studio and store at 900 Ryan St.
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