The Unicorn Hunter's Guide to Finding Painters Who Work for Exposure (and Maybe a Bagel)

Posted by Adam Zobel | Mon, Aug 19, 2024

 The Unicorn Hunter's Guide to Finding Painters Who Work for Exposure (and Maybe a Bagel)

It start­ed with a sim­ple garage door repaint. 

Doug Aldeen, a long-time Boise native, was on the hunt for a paint­ing com­pa­ny that could take the project off his hands and do it right. All while not break­ing the bank, ideally.

We live in an uncer­tain econ­o­my,” Aldeen says. Yes, I want­ed the door to look good, but I also couldn’t pay for a pre­mi­um painter with jacked up prices.”

That’s when things got interesting. 

Aldeen’s daugh­ter, a high school junior, showed him a Tik­Tok video of a local painter shar­ing splashy, flashy videos of him­self paint­ing with unlike­ly objects: a rolled up t‑shirt, a broom, even a mod­i­fied leaf blower. 

I reached out to him and said that if he could do the job, I’d let him take all the pics he want­ed. I meant in addi­tion to pay­ing him, of course, but that’s the crazy thing… He sent me a pro­pos­al with no dol­lar fig­ure. Just num­bers of pho­tos and videos, plus I’m con­trac­tu­al­ly oblig­at­ed to share all of his videos for 3 months. I mean, okay?” 

Hue New Paint­ing arrived four days lat­er, armed with not only drop cloths and tape, but also four GoPros, stu­dio light­ing, and approx­i­mate­ly 13 gal­lons of matcha tea.

Maybe it was a con­tact high from all the avo­ca­do toast waft­ing through his win­dows, but Aldeen sud­den­ly felt inspired. He laid out a table of snacks: all gluten-free, dairy-free, and locally/​ethically sourced. Free range? Of course. He then hid inside his house and watched through the window. 

Over the next three hours, four more paint­ing com­pa­nies showed up, eying the snacks, then the house, then tak­ing explorato­ry self­ies. Each one arrived in either an antique VW or an elec­tric vehi­cle, dri­ven by beard­ed, tat­tooed painters on the hunt for likes. 

They come for the food and stay for the expo­sure,” Aldeen said, peer­ing through his blinds at a 42-year-old painter named Archer with a PhD in Invis­i­ble Habi­tats. It’s unre­al. There’s a cross­post­ing, hash­tag­ging fren­zy out there. And they just keep coming.”

The garage door took three weeks to paint, unfor­tu­nate­ly, but the results are unde­ni­able. I was a lit­tle wor­ried when it was con­vert­ed into a mur­al,” Aldeen said. But we got back on track when Old Skewl Aes­thet­ics paint­ed it a colo­nial gray.”

Since then, Aldeen has had much of his home paint­ed (and repaint­ed) by the local painters, espe­cial­ly since he received per­mis­sion to host a week­end farmer’s market.

I’m going to start doing this every spring,” Aldeen says with a smile. Maybe I’ll call it Matcha Madness.”

About Adam Zobel

Adam came to us with a background in teaching, writing, and a work history that included serving numerous small businesses (including assisting with content writing and marketing efforts). He was a natural fit, and enjoys connecting with our clients, creating unique content that reflects their culture and voice. We keep him busy! Adam handles blogging, email campaigns, website content creation, copywriting for print and promotional materials, social media, letters, mailers, and more. He also does a dynamo impression of Nicolas Cage, but you didn’t hear that from us. Adam lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two boys. He is also a 1st cousin of David’s wife!

     
   
       

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