Hello, I would like to thank you for taking the time to visit my Etsy store. It really does mean a lot to me that you find my work worthy of your interest. I would like to share with you a brief story about me and my goals as an artist. First, my name is Brian Mitchell. For most of my life I’ve been an artist of some sort. I’ve spent the past 20+ years as a professional freelance graphic/web designer and more recently as the owner of this Etsy store, I call upLYFT.

As a professional designer for hire for a number of years. It’s been my passion to create anything and everything for my clients. While this is not a bad thing I felt it necessary to get back to my roots and create thing because I wanted to explore it personally. I am fortunate to be able to do what I love for money but there is more to life than just spending time earning money.

I’ve spend my recent time developing this Etsy store with such things that I personally find interesting. While this doesn’t always add up to sales it does allow me to explore various thoughts and ideas that I wish to share with you. In many ways it’s about self-discovery. This is how upLYFT came to be.

As I’m sure you are intuitively aware, as I am, there seems to be way too much negativity in our world today. It is reason I typically do not focus my creativity on negative things, such as politics. I personally want to focus on positive artwork. Unfortunately in our culture today it seem negativity sells better. Never-the-less, I continue to pursue more positive and thought-provoking concepts as sharing these with you is a means to end. And that end is create designs that make inspires people and makes them feel good. In other words, I’m not really worried about the money aspects with this store as I am the sharing of my thoughts and ideas.

It my seem contradictory to provide these thoughts and ideas in mass-media form but I realized I must present my more positive art along side the negative. The hope here is that it will balance some of the darkness out. So, yes many of my designs you will see on commercial items such as apparel, mugs and wall art.

In addition, to offering my artwork in commercial settings. I’ve also chosen to get back to my roots as a fine artist by creating more things like linocut prints, paintings, drawings and more. These of course are extremely time consuming compared to using the computer for design by in many ways it is well worth it.

Lastly, through my work as a graphic designer I’m on a constant look out for public domain vintage photographs and images that I can recycle and reuse to turn into new derivative works. I spend a huge amount of my free time scouring through digital archives around the world for these materials. I find this concept very interesting and very important. As I believe some of this art is worthy to live on and the best way to do that is to build upon what others have created before. It is in that way you could benefit from all my research as I sometimes provide them for you in the form of hardcopy prints and/or digital downloads.

Ultimately the goal of upLYFT will likely continue to evolve, as that’s common for artists to explore the world inside and outside of themselves. It is what makes art truly free because in the end there are no limitations to it other than what we put upon ourselves. So keep stopping back to see what I’m up to as often as you like. I sincerely, appreciate the time you gave me!