I began illustrating, sketching and painting covers for recording company labels and concert halls, churches and corporate report covers in the 70s. My more notable sketches adorned gallery backdrops at the Institute of Contemporary Art-Boston for my late-70s concert series featuring Pulitzer and other award-winning composers in hallowed spaces. Twenty-five years later, when my literary, film and music clients at Colossal Concepts Management – www.colossalconcepts.org – began needing conceptual works for their monographs, special presentations and publications, I applied my painting and graphic arts skills to help set their works apart from commercial renderings. I am blessed, humbled to say, nearly all of my originals are, to date, sold or licensed, leased or assigned for use in documentary films or collections in eleven countries.
To put the fineart america gallery works in perspective, my varied career has always included venture philanthropy – using most of the profits from sales, leases, usage rights, etc., to give back to causes, charities, or experimental initiatives in the arts, health care, pet aid and assistance — whether it involves inventing an interdisciplinary arts centre in PA or directing an arts council, founding a music clearinghouse or co-founding charitable arts organizations and donor forum incubators in 7 states, heading up a small press or two, managing a modeling agency, running a management firm specializing in services to polymaths in the 7 arts, or inventing an operating foundation to study and help communities with arts-centered neighborhood and business district developments, touring and recording with music ensembles – including the Celebrity Chamber Players – a group I founded to support dozens of chamber music and sacred arts composers who need help developing festivals, and some Hal Leonard publishing subsidiaries, limited edition recordings and exhibition series. I get to write and edit books, compose music exclusively for SRI’s documentary division and for Giftbox Productions, and I get to help a dozen or so artists and philanthropists each year as a mentor, underwriter, co-sponsor, and/or as a contributor/organizer to their aid or relief funds – primarily through the sale or lease of artwork and prints. Fortunately, venture philanthropy works worldwide and makes a difference on many levels for nearly everyone’s benefit. And, as a venture philanthropy advocate, I have made lasting international connections, associations and friendships that would have been nearly impossible in strictly commercial environments. I especially thank Gran Prix du Disque winner and multiple Grammy nominee Fred Hersch, the Grammy nominated The New Black Eagle Jazz Band, Metropolitan Opera and Hollywood Walk of Fame’s Eleanor Steber, Grammy winner Gunther Schuller, MIT’s John Buttrick, Leonard Bernstein’s old assistant Peter Homans and a host of additional icons and celebrities for their help and encouragement.
With thousands of original works of art in print form and attached to many of my music compositions, with links to products and causes, my manager – Marilyn – has opted to sell a limited number of prints out of Thos. Illustration Studios solely through fineartamerica.com to benefit charities and to help artists and visionaries in all the 7 arts who are in need of aid or assistance. My venture philanthropy music, fine art and literary studios get to help worthy and edifying people and causes, institutions and families I have come to know and respect. It is honorable, humbling work, and I am grateful the studios, production company and management firm get to help where they can.
Website: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/marshall-thomas
