Artist Finances Her ‘Real’ Work by Painting Ties

Carol Kredenser Goldmark earned a master’s degree in art from Columbia University, so you might wonder why she spends so much of her time painting neckties.

“I’m waiting to be discovered” is her simple answer. “I’m what’s called an emerging artist,” she said.

But behind those statements is the automobile accident that nearly claimed her life four years ago. It “made me focus, made me realize what was most important to me. Besides my family, it was art,” she said.

In fact, Goldmark said, “the accident made me understand . . . that my art was a life-and-death issue that I didn’t realize until I came home from the hospital and saw it on the easel. In a way, the accident was a blessing.”

Goldmark, 47, a sporadic artist for 30 years, also discovered that “time is passing quickly. Art was always important,” she said, “but I tended to put it aside to take care of other things.”

So two years ago, the mother of two sons and wife of Rabbi Larry Goldmark of Temple Beth Ohr in La Mirada moved from her cramped art workroom in their Buena Park home to a rented art studio snuggled between a couple of car repair shops in Fullerton.

She set out to make a name for herself in the art world and began painting eight hours a day, five days a week. She says her paintings illustrate “forms from the natural world,” which include clouds, flowers and plants.

“I’m trying to show that the cycle of life is fleeting,” said Goldmark, daughter of noted Boston artist Nathan Kredenser.

But, as it is with many “struggling” artists, the rent on the art studio had to be paid.

“I needed to make money, and after teaching art for 30 years, I didn’t want to go back to that, so I started to sell my painted ties,” said Goldmark, who uses live flowers as models for the floral ties, which are for both men and women.

The tie business surfaced accidentally.

“Two years ago, I needed something fabulous to wear at an important art show, so I painted flowers on one of my husband’s solid-color silk ties and wore it,” she recalled.

It was an immediate hit.

“That night, several people asked where I got the tie, and when I told them, they wanted to know how they could buy one,” she said. “It started to take off fast.”

Last week, her ties were featured at a special showing at Nordstrom in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. The store bought three dozen of them.

“I’d like the ties to be successful, but I don’t want them to be so successful that it stands in the way of my real goal,” Goldmark said.

That goal is recognition from a major fine arts gallery and, most of all, to be exhibited.

But until then, Goldmark will push ahead with her hand-painted silk ties made with acrylics and fabric paint.

“The ties are natural extensions of my other work on canvas and paper,” she said.

She also plans to market other accessories, such as painted evening bags, hats, shoes, blouses and jackets.

Despite the growing demand for her novel work on cloth, “I wouldn’t like it to get too big,” she said. “I have other goals that are more important to me.”

After winning an all-expenses-paid, seven-day vacation for two to anywhere in the world by raising $5,000 for the March of Dimes in last year’s WalkAmerica in Orange County, Premier Homes Inc., of Corona, decided to donate it back.

The Orange County chapter of the March of Dimes then gave it to 19-year-old Eric Swanson, born with a spinal defect, who has been a March of Dimes volunteer for the past eight years, talking about his defect to others who are physically challenged.

Swanson, of Yorba Linda, decided to spend the week in Orlando, Fla., and give the other ticket to his mother, Jean Anderson, also of Yorba Linda.

Acknowledgments--Newport Beach resident Thomas W. Knapp, founder and owner of Club Sportswear Inc. in Irvine, was named Outstanding Alumnus of the Year by the USC Entrepreneur Program. Knapp graduated from USC in 1986 but founded the business while an undergraduate with $2,000 he saved from summer jobs.