Today we’d like to introduce you to Mesmerize
Hi Mesmerize, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Mateo and I (Clay) have been friends since high school, and have been making art and producing events together in Austin since about 2009. We started our production company Independent Event Creatives (IEC) in 2018 to get out of the freelancing industry and start taking our own client work and producing our own activations. Mesmerize started shortly after as a free art event series we hosted to showcase new works and our capabilities as producers.
In 2020 after the pandemic shutdown, we pivoted our operations to a ticketed immersive art experience titled “Enter the Multiverse,” that was open from September 2020-June 2021. We saw over 18,000 guests during this initial pop-up and learned an entirely new way to engage with our community while supporting our own livelihoods.
Our current exhibit, “Living Dream” is open weekly from Wednesday-Friday and has already seen around 9,000 guests in our first few months. We love creating immersive environments and new interactive artworks, and are so grateful the community has been enjoying our newest experience.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh definitely not. We are both artists by nature and don’t have any business training. So the biggest challenge has always been learning how to run a business while you’re running a business. We have to constantly remind ourselves that we’ve actually done a pretty good job all things considered.
We had several other attempts of starting production companies in our early 20s and had to learn the hard way that working as a team can be very difficult at times. Over the years Mateo and I just realized we work very well together and resolve conflict in a reasonable and effective way, so we eventually decided to start small with just the two of us until we figured it out. Our businesses are both technically still just the two of us but now we are much more effective when it comes to collaborating with others.
Mesmerize is lead by the two of us, but it takes a great team to bring the magic to life. We worked with around 50 artists & volunteers from Austin to create “Living Dream”
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Professionally, our specialty is that we both have worked in dozens of different industries, and have very versatile backgrounds giving us a wide range of skills to bring to the table. Some people are specialists, like a painter or programmer or floralist, and others are big picture people who can put the puzzle together and manage all of the pieces. I am more of the big picture person, and Mateo is more of a technical specialist, but as a team, our combined skills & experiences give us both a solid foundational understanding of many different specializations.
Creatively, our professional skills are very handy when it comes to making art. It allows us to treat projects with a similar mindset, and work with others in a fun and effective way. A lot of artists are specialized in one medium, but as experience designers and installation artists, this tends to require the use of many mediums so our event production background is a great fit for these kinds of projects.
This versatile background paired with our own desire to create exciting new works allows us to consider all potential variables for projects, clearly communicate needs to others, and address issues and troubleshoot situations firsthand.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Lead with curiosity and an eager attitude. Be confident in your ideas but open to new ones.
Learn to delegate. Unless you’re trying to prove to yourself that you can do everything on your own, then understand you don’t have to and your results will be much better in the end. (most of the time lol)
Don’t think too much, don’t be afraid of failure. Just do the work and keep getting better at what you do through trial & error. It’s hard to write a good song before you write a bad song, and this attitude can apply to anything.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help, but also be certain about the roles within a project–make them as clear as possible.
Most importantly, learn to love the process. No matter what you’re doing, if the goal is only the potential outcome, then this tends to leave you unfulfilled. But if you love doing the work, the process, then you never stop growing, you learn to adapt in the moment, and no matter what the outcome is, you’ll at least enjoy the time you spent getting there.
Pricing:
- General Admission Tickets = $20
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thisismesmerize.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisismesmerize
Image Credits
Jacob Weber
Mateo Gutierrez, Inne Aguilar, Eva Tarantino, Zach Perl, Christine Grasso
