Starving artists? Not if Trader Joe's can help it.

Not that I ever tried it, but I do know that being a purist "in the arts" is a tough way to make a living. Writer, poet, singer, actor, sculptor, painter, dancer. Whatever floats your creative boat is unlikely to make you rich or famous. 

Some get to keep at it because their spouse or parents are willing and able to support their habit. 

Some forge careers that are creative-adjacent. They churn out marketing materials when they'd rather be writing the Great American Novel. (Been there, done that.) They keep their day job and participate in community theater. They're Sunday singers-in-the-choir. Sunday painters.

Most "creatives" that I know consider the arts their hobby or a retirement career, OR they juggle a lot of balls to keep their creative life going (adjunct professor, anyone?).

But some artists, as it turns out, get to be artists if they work for Trader Joe's. 

You probably know the idiosyncratic chain for its eccentric snacks and peppy cashiers, but that festive atmosphere extends to the stores’ interior design, too: Each of the 500-plus outposts has custom, handmade signage, all created by staff artists. Your grocery store is their art gallery. (Source: Washington Post)

This is the art work that greets you when you enter the TJ's nearest to me, which is in Boston's Back Bay. You can't miss it, as when you enter this Trader Joe's, you need to take the escalator (de-escalator?) down a flight to get to the store, which is subterranean.

Maybe if I shopped there more frequently, this artwork would have grown invisible to me. But I only stop in every once in a while and I always notice it. And always get a kick out of the baseball theme. This is Red Sox territory, and the Back Bay store isn't that far from Fenway Park - maybe a ten minute walk.

What I hadn't known was that one of their employees created it.

Zoe Terrell is the artist in residence at the store in Athens, Georgia. 

As what Trader Joe’s calls a “crew member with sign making talent” (we’ll just call them sign artists), Terrell, 40, spends much of her workday at the Athens, Ga., store wielding a paint pen in a backroom studio. She makes signs to promote products with puns like “Hot Grill Summer” and creative drawings such as the Powerpuff Girls reimagined as vegetables. She paints murals that represent the local area, University of Georgia sports teams or the surrounding rural landscape. 

The pay may not be great. As far as I can tell, sign-making doesn't earn you much of a premium over whatever Trader Joe's pays entry level cashiers.  (In Massachusetts, that's $17.39 per hour.) And the sign artists, when they're not arting, work as shelf stockers and cashiers. Still:

...for many, it’s the stable art job they never thought they’d have.

“I always tell everybody, it’s probably the best entry-level artist position that has a steady paycheck, good benefits and everything,” says Dan Kaufeldt, a 35-year-old sign artist in Sacramento, who has been with the company for 16 years...

Kaufeldt left art school because it was too expensive, but working at Trader Joe’s was a welcome, if unexpected, alternative: “Where else can I just sit down and draw all day?”

Probably not many other places. While so much commercial art has been digitized, it might seem absurd that Trader Joe’s still pays people to hand-draw cartoons of dancing potatoes to sell a new type of chips. 

But it's all in keeping with Trader Joe's friendly and personal brand, which extends to letting the artists do their thing. 

So the artists aren't just asked to draw a dancing potato. They're given a lot of creative leeway. Trader Joe's doesn't want all their stores to look a like. That's part of their appeal. You want bland nothingness? Go to Walmart. You want to feel that you're in a place that's got more personality, where you get a sense of the neighborhood? Shop at Trader Joe's. (And even though TJ's appeals to an audience that overlaps quite a bit with Whole Foods', the TJ prices are generally cheaper than those at Whole Wallet.)

Working as a sign artist lets artists be artists while earning a living, however minimum-wagey and minimal that living might be. They can hone their craft and, with a little luck and a little pluck, branch out to working other gigs.

Anyway, next time I'm in Trader Joe's, I'll have to pay more attention to the in-store, occasional signage, not just to the entryway. Who knows, maybe the cashier will be the person who created them, and I'll be able to relay my compliments to the artist.

Meanwhile, Trader Joe's employees get a discount on their groceries. So if you're one of their sign-makers, you won't have to worry about being a starving artist.