Austin Business Journal Article — Blue Genie Art Industries Press

Way out of the bottle
Blue Genie Art Industries creates quirky work

Blue Genie Art Industries Inc.'s home looks like it could be part of a Hollywood movie set.

Walk into Blue Genie's 10,000-square-foot warehouse on East Seventh Street, just down from the Goodwill drop-off center, and you enter a new dimension. Huge sculptures of fantasy creatures and the products of someone's fertile imagination are all over. It's a veritable fantasyland that sucks in the random visitor.

"Their work is fun, kind of odd and very likable," says Scott McAfee, vice president and creative director at GSD&M, the Austin advertising powerhouse, which is a Blue Genie client. "It's the kind of company we are — and the kind of work we like to do for our clients."

As a full-service commercial art design shop specializing in custom sculptures, props, signs, mold-making and conceptual designs, Blue Genie and its owners have put a unique stamp on Austin, as well as on the companies and organizations that contract their services.

Forget galleries

Blue Genie began as two separate businesses: Kevin Collins and Dana Younger owned Black Mountain Art, and Rory Skagen and a partner owned Skagen Art.

Black Mountain specialized in custom sculpting and mold-making. Skagen Art did Styrofoam sculpting and murals. Both studios were in South Austin, and the owners were friends, so it was a natural progression when they began teaming up on floats for Austin's Mardi Gras celebration.

"We started collaborating on so many projects together that we decided to form Blue Genie," says Kevin Collins, one of the company's three owners, along with Skagen and Younger. "The name Blue Genie comes from a sculpture Rory did in 1996 for the top of a building on South First."

Blue Genie was born in 1999. Much of Blue Genie's art philosophy extends from the heart and soul of its owners. All have backgrounds in areas such as studio art, painting, photography, theatre, mask-making and set design. And all were disillusioned when they finished school and were set to launch their art careers.

"Galleries are more about networking than about art," Skagen says. "It's not about the visual elements or the craftsmanship. The gallery scene has a lot of art that really doesn't do much."

Collins agrees.
"It's a bubble — art for other artists. We all talk about the decade long period after college where we all had these horrible jobs. We've had to create this [environment] for ourselves."

Collins, Skagen and Younger's philosophy is the reason for Blue Genie, whose sculptures and murals are accessible to all. The owners also want to help other artists who are struggling. Blue Genie hosts field trips for art classes and art educators and provides a place for artists to work.

"We've gone from keeping ourselves spiritually fed with Blue Genie to providing an outlet for other artists who work with us," Collins says.

Skagen says art school also should include real-world lessons, not just the high art of being an artist.

"They don't teach you in college what you really need to know — things like being your own businessperson and making opportunities for artists. It should be mandatory," he says.

After holding down some of those "horrible jobs" — ranging from an animal handler to a clerk in a video store — Collins says it makes sense to look at the business of art realistically.

"It's pragmatic to think about it that way," he says. "Especially when we think about all those wasted years when we could be doing what we're doing now."

Blue Genie has designed three of the five 25-foot to 35-foot long entry signs with motorized parts and chasing lights for the Star of Texas Rodeo, done in conjunction with GSD&M, which counts the rodeo as a client.

In another project, Blue Genie is creating six 11 by 16-foot relief sculptures commissioned by the Texas State Preservation Board for the new Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, set to open in April.

Blue Genie also is responsible for the murals in 17 Schlotzsky's Inc.restaurants around the country, as well as the large mural at Threadgill's that pays homage to namesake Kenneth Threadgill.

"The Blue Genie guys are gods of 3-D — there seems to be nothing they can't pull off," says Dan Heath, vice president of marketing for Austin-based Thinkwell Corp., an electronic publisher of college textbooks, which commissioned Blue Genie to design its Brainmobile. "They do murals, floats, relief paintings, sculptures, animatronics — if you can think it up, they can make it."

The Brainmobile is a 15-foot tall brain that was sculpted then cast in fiberglass to fit on the back of a Nissan pickup truck. Not only did the firm design and execute the project, Blue Genie also handled the final touches, such as painting and installation.

"The Brainmobile was Thinkwell's answer to the Wienermobile," say Heath, referring to Oscar Mayer Foods Corp.'s hot dog-shaped vehicle. "We wanted a promotion to spread our message to college students in a disarming way. It's just impossible not to be amused by it."

In fact, Thinkwell executives spoke with a professor in Los Angeles who sought them out at a conference after seeing the Brainmobile on a highway in Arizona.

Blue Genie recently moved from a 5,000-square-foot studio to its current location off East Seventh and plans to hire more full-time employees. Currently, the company employs six people full time; Blue Genie also uses subcontractors and part-time employees.

In terms of strategy, most of Blue Genie's business has been generated mostly in Austin — and mostly by word of mouth. However, the owners expect the recent launch of the firm's Web site to change that.

"It's a prime source of our business," Skagen says. "We want to expand beyond Austin, and the Web site is part of it."

Collins says: "A marketing strategy has eluded us to this point, but we're at the point where we need to get more aggressive. Every time we put a piece of art out there, we're promoting our name."

And this year's Trail of Lights has Blue Genie's name all over it. The City of Austin commissioned the company to produce four new displays, including one for Austin Energy that carries a "Home for the Holidays" theme. It's a 16-foot backdrop of a house on a winter day, complete with a family of fully dimensional bears and an 8-foot Christmas tree. Everything's on a rotating carousel.

"Not everyone gets to do these things, so it's very rewarding for us," Collins says.

The firm is reaping financial rewards, too. Annual revenue since the company's inception in 1999 is $300,000; projections for next year are $500,000 or more.

To help bring consistency to Blue Genie's revenue, the company plans to develop a product line, rather than doing work on a project-by-project basis.

"We're looking to do more one-of-a-kind products and market them aggressively," Collins says. "We want to focus on shapes that we really respond to and enhance that in the market."

Although Blue Genie is known for its Styrofoam sculptures, the owners want to tap into other media, such as concrete and fiberglass. They also are looking to get into the convention center decoration market and the film market.

"What we specialize in is quality art," Younger says. "If you look at applied art, it's not that good. We want to get into as many diverse markets as we can."