“It took me three days to fall in love with Guelph,” said Tania Crook, an artist living in the city since 2010.
Although two years prior to moving to Guelph, Tania built two businesses with her partner Arthur Kerrey, it was the vibrant arts community of the city that helped to establish and encourage Tania as a talented visual artist.
Crook’s body painting business, Infinite Body Arts, explores different forms of body art and painting. From painting with glow-in-the dark paint on bikini clad bodies at a night club, to painting a body mural on a pregnant woman, Tania does it all.
On their Facebook page, the artists tell their customers: “sometimes we paint more skin than some people are comfortable with — just you know, while all the naughty bits are covered there's still a lot of skin showing. So do look around, but be forewarned.”
Tania explains that the occasionally adult nature of their body painting caused them to create a separate business name and page for their children’s face painting venture.
Makin’ Faces is Tania and Arthur’s family-friendly face painting company. With a separate Facebook page that displays family friendly images, it can sometimes attract a different set of customers.
“It’s turned into quite an art form in the last decade,” said Tania.
Although it may seem atypical for an artist to make a living painting skin, Tania explains that they are artists who happen to paint faces and bodies, among many other things.
“We paint anything. Most people have a book, or a standard set of faces memorized. We aren’t clowns that face paint, we are artists,” said Tania.
Their business has become so popular within Guelph and throughout Ontario, that the demand has increased beyond just Tania and Arthur’s ability to keep up. They now employ hand selected artists to work for them on different venues and projects.
Tania never imagined she would be able to make a full-time income working as an artist. It wasn’t until her partner encouraged her to enter a contest at a body painting convention in Toronto that her dreams became a reality. Arthur encouraged Tania to sign up for the face painting contest, with the caveat that if she won, she would have to turn her passion into a full-time pursuit.
She won first place.
“It was a big deal for me to win first in the face painting competition. I have done lots of others since, and even won some. But that first one was one that really tipped the balance. I realized suddenly that everyone else took me seriously, but me. We are our own worst critics,” said Tania.
Beyond body painting, Tania is involved in graffiti and mural painting, as well as tattoo design.
Arthur is a well known graffiti artist in the area, and the couple work together to speak to others about tagging, graffiti art, and the culture surrounding it.
The two artists only participate in legal graffiti art, often covering up illegal and unattractive work with their own artistic and skilled artwork.
“We like any art form that everybody hates. We joke that it’s all maligned art forms that we do,” said Tania.
Their hope is to bring beauty to misunderstood art forms that are poorly represented.
Guelph has been a wonderfully open and inclusive community, where different ideas and concepts have been explored, and connections have been made that encourage challenging the misconceptions of alternative art, said Tania.
A potential project that Tania hopes to work on is a mural for some of the well-loved and ground-breaking artists that passed away this year.
She added that both David Bowie and Prince were two pop icons who have inspired her most. Losing them in the same year was a tragedy for many who found solace and strength in their music and style. Both Bowie and Prince were no strangers to the artistry of body paint and make-up.
When asked about how the community of Guelph has shaped her artistry, Crook commented that she had no idea how strong of an arts community existed in the city. “Guelph it almost like its own island,” she said of the city's artistic uniqueness. “I totally lucked out on being in The Ward, where we live. I realized we were in the arts community of the whole city.”
Tania added that Downtown is home to many lively art installations and studios, and that the Arts Council is an important force in the city for local artists.
“It’s absolutely decadent with art here,” she said.
When asked what’s next for Tania, she said she hopes to venture into making more permanent drawings on people’s bodies, as a tattoo artist.
