About Mande Calhoun Art

As a peace-seeking painter living on Johns Island, SC, my journey has taken an unconventional path. During my time in art school, I encountered resistance for my nontraditional methods—critiques like, “you aren’t doing that right” and “don’t mix that with that.” This led me to step away from painting and embrace digital art, where I built a creative career for the next decade. As a Creative Director in digital agencies, I honed my artistic vision in the digital space, but over time, I began to yearn for something more tangible, something free from screens. That longing pulled me back to painting, inspired by a love of nature and the search for inner peace. I found myself experimenting again, but this time, I felt liberated from the traditional rules. Over the years, I nurtured this hobby into a small business, Mande Calhoun Art, LLC. Through partnerships with [Minted.com](http://minted.com/), Juniper Print Shop, and others, my work has been featured on platforms like Apartment Therapy, HGTV, and Vogue. My process is raw and intuitive. I paint on hand-ripped scraps of paper, often mixing materials like pastels, watercolors, acrylics, and even unconventional elements like sand and tea. My background in digital art gives me the ability to scan, scale, crop, and transform these fragments into larger, impactful pieces. I create on the floor, usually with loud music in the background, finding joy in the process as much as in the outcome. Read their story