The first portrait Mary Harris ever sold was at age 13. A parent of one of her cheerleading teammates requested a drawing of her daughter, initially charging Harris $40. But after seeing the finished portraits, the mother gave Harris an additional $100.
“‘It was just too good for me to take for 40 bucks,’” Harris recalled her friend’s mother saying. That’s when the “saleswoman” in Harris came out and she began asking if anyone else wanted portraits.
From a young age, Harris, founder of Mary Harris Originals, Inc., was surrounded by art. With her father being a musician and her mother being an artist, she began drawing around age three and had her first church choir solo at age five. Originally, she and her mother used to focus on color theory by painting landscapes. Portrait painting, Harris’s specialty, is something she learned outside of art class.
When painting portraits, Harris hopes to memorialize her subjects. On her website, she notes that she likes to paint portraits of people whose stories “beg to be told.”
“There are people here that I come across, I may paint them and no one may know their name in 200 years,” Harris said. “But now you have documentation — a record of their life and their story and personally that’s what I’m doing in each painting.”
Harris left New Jersey and came to Los Angeles in 2014, but she still sells paintings on both coasts. She launched her business, Mary Harris Originals, Inc. in 2015. Her artistic brand specializes in event creation, networking and product development with the aim of uplifting artists and bringing them together.
One event Harris hosts focuses primarily on uplifting struggling artists. She hosts Hollywood Enchanted Nights, where she selects around two to eight artists and teaches them the fundamentals of art business including how to an event or how to do presale for art shows.
“I created that [event] so we can all come together and actually bring in revenue and successfully have art sold before people get there,” Harris said.
Hollywood Enchanted Nights is an annual event that takes place in different locations around California with the exception of last year due to the pandemic. Hollywood Enchanted Nights allows undiscovered artists to collaborate and learn from each other so they have the necessary skills to grow their own art businesses going forward.
One of Harris’s favorite collaborations was with Joshua Mock, founder of Dam Good Coffee. Mock partnered with Harris to open the Mary Harris Art Gallery at his previous location, Little Amsterdam Coffee Shop in Mid City. When Harris and Mock met in Nov. 2018, Mock said he felt that Harris had “good energy.”
Mock and Harris bonded over being artists and discussed working together in the future, but the gallery did not open until about eight months later. Time passed and the two lost touch but eventually Mock began renting the space for events again. Sitting outside his business one day, Mock saw a car stop in front of the coffee shop.
“[Mary] poked her head out the window and said, ‘Yo, I’ve been looking for you,’” Mock said.
“I’ve been looking for you too,” Mock replied.
A week later, Harris used Little Amsterdam Cafe as an event space for her birthday party. To her, the location will always have her heart. Before Mock owned the space, it belonged to Harris’ godfather, who is also an artist. Mock proposed working on an art gallery together, and Harris agreed, only if she could have her logo in the window. They worked for three months before the gallery opened.
Although Little Amsterdam Cafe and the Mary Harris Gallery are no longer in operation, Mock said that whenever he wants permanent art in his “places” he always will reach out to Mary.
“She did the first mural of me at the old coffee shop on the stage and she drew a big face of me with the chains and all sorts of this crazy stuff,” Mock said. “I’m just loyal to her as she is to me, so anything I could put out there and showcase what she does I just do it.”
Harris’ support network expands beyond her friends. Although Darina Williams, Harris’s cousin, isn’t “into the art world” she still has an appreciation for the work that Harris has done. Williams describes Harris’s art as “very renaissance, very personal.” She feels that Harris adds a personal heartfelt touch to every piece she paints.
Harris said that she feels like a true artist now that her family is fully supportive of her art. Her favorite painting is one of her Aunt Lynn and Uncle Val, who wanted to be treated like a client rather than a family member.
“I think for me this piece has definitely made me feel like I’ve made it as an artist, as a professional,” she said. “Every moment painting this was special to me.”