"Golden Boy" by Leanne Cadden

The $5 road to success
A promising local artist jump-starts her career through UVic’s entrepreneurship program

by Maria Lironi

His shoulders are massive and humped. He carries his head so low his pointed beard almost touches the ground. He’s huge, hairy and majestic; beauty and power personified in pastel. He’s Golden Boy the bison and the co-op project for UVic commerce student Leanne Cadden.

Cadden’s realistic painting of the bison, along with her other fine art and paintings, will be part of her 2002 business co-op project — a debut solo art show taking place on June 8 at the Crystal Gardens. She’s already racked up $17,000 in pre-show sales and has sold out at the three previous art shows in which she participated. Selling out at this show will put $140,000 in her pocket.

You’ve got to hand it to Cadden. While other artists are having trouble paying the rent, she’s making a living at her craft. She’s in this enviable position, in part, because of the UVic entrepreneurship program.

Although Cadden already had her own studio when she started the program, her career got a huge boost last spring when she took part in the business faculty’s annual Peter Thomas Innovation Project, named for the founder of the Century 21 Real Estate franchise in Canada and current president of Thomas Pride Developments in Arizona.

As part of the project, students are each given a dollar, and in teams of five, are tasked with starting a venture and running it for 10 days. They must search for a viable opportunity, market their product or service, and produce their profits at the end of the project. Cadden teamed up with four other business students — Dan Audet, Cam Shiyuk, Kevin Ablett and Ed Boney — to form “The Group of Five.”

“The project was great,” recalls Cadden. “I had four guys hitting the pavement everyday, marketing my work and my Web site. Originally, we’d planned to sell an $8,000 eight-foot, 3-D tree to a high-tech firm. After five days it was clear that no firm had that sort of spare cash to spend without getting an okay from someone higher up, which didn’t fit within our 10-day timeline. The tree was only in the design stage which also brought resistance from the firms. So we changed our strategy to sell commissioned paintings.”

The Group of Five garnered quite a few clients during those 10 days. For example, Canfor asked them to paint a watercolour of three restored locomotives. Clarica commissioned a painting of a house. And a Calgary businessman asked for a fishing collage. The most challenging part for the group was the time limit of 10 days. Even though the paintings sold for far less than the tree, many companies needed to seek approval for expenditures on artwork, often from headquarters located outside Victoria.

In the end, Cadden’s team won the competition, parlaying their five dollars of capital into $3,160 in just 10 days.

“Although I had already started my business, the connections I made really put me in an ideal position,” says Cadden. “For one thing, winning the project put me in the eyes of Peter Thomas, who has really been an incredible mentor to me. It also put me in the eyes of the public and helped expand my portfolio.”

For more information about Cadden’s work and her upcoming show visit <www.leannarto.com>.