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Folio Academy all started when
. . . . Well, way back in 1989 Will Terry and his side kick, and now
co-founder, Wayne Andreason shared a studio space in college at BYU
where they embarked on the journey into the world of Art. They had
decided once and for all that they could make a living in this crazy
world as artists. They were soon best friends and would often
assist one another with schooling and other needs. They used to take
walks in the nearby mountains to discuss, brainstorm, chat and clear
their minds. How hard can it be to clear an empty space? They called
these local mountain trails their “conference room”. Art school was an oxymoron to those two knuckleheads. Art is fun and exciting and school is painful and boring. But what else can you do? It’s the system we live in, right? It is rumored that Will Terry was voted most likely to fail as an illustrator. In fact he was placed on provisional, or probation, status in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program his junior year for demonstrating a lack of promise, not ambition but ability. Wayne Andreason who was slum lording his way through college was allegedly voted most likely to succeed, but not as an artist or illustrator. After four years of studying History, Math, Physical Science, Biology, English, and oh yes, Art, these two colleagues went their separate ways to make their meager livings as illustrators. But they remained good friends, even though Will moved to DC and later to California. Wayne landed a sweet and secure career, working in house as an artist, illustrator and animator for a great company called the Waterford Institute, while Will worked his easel off, paying his dues in the freelance world. Will’s outstanding ability to create beautifully coordinated, bright color schemes, and his unstoppable determination, eventually landed him all kinds of success. While he was freelancing and illustrating for national ad campaigns for companies like Sprint, Pizza Hut, M&M Mars, Fed Ex, Master Card and Citibank as well as publications of Time, Money, Wall Street Journal, Mac World, Arizona Highways, Seventeen and Better Homes and Gardens, Will was finding "spare time" to develop his Children’s book style. Will’s life’s goal was to become a children’s book illustrator, and to date, he has illustrated over 25 children’s books with great publishers like Scholastic, Random House, Leap Frog, Houghton Mifflin, Dial, Albert Whitman, and Simon Schuster. He has also been asked to consult several of his old college professors and many students and budding artists on how to get a freelance career going, and other business aspects of the art field. Ironically, this struggling artist has returned to teach Illustration, Painting, Children’s Book Art, Art Business Practices and other subjects at UVU, and at that same BYU where he was nearly rejected for lack of potential. “Anyone can be a successful artist if they are willing to learn, pay the price and stick to it.” Meanwhile Wayne Andreason, was “working for the man” and slum lording on the side. After twelve years of a good thing, he got laid off at the Waterford Institute and took his two week’s severance pay and retired. Since he and Will were still good friends, when Wayne became unemployed, and therefore “worthless”, (sarcasm intended) he was able to cry on Will’s shoulder. And Will seemed to care. Wayne soon found success in the real-estate world, and moved his whole family to Italy for a year and a half just to live out a life’s goal. Soon after returning to his home in Utah, his good, and probably best friend, (and probably only friend) Will Terry moved to Utah from sunny California. (Don’t ask, I guess he likes the mountains and the cold, and the crappy drivers) Will, his wife and three sons bought a beautiful home in Cedar Hills just twenty minutes from Wayne’s home in Edgemont. It was time to get back in the old “conference room”. On a few of these conference hikes, they talked about working together on something. They started several ventures, including day trading, selling feminine products, (but we don’t mention that around them) and they were even the Master distributors for a 4-X MLM. But Art is what they love so they kept coming back to art related ideas, like promoting 100 GOOD illustrators, or creating a small children’s book publishing company, or a Dutch oven take out family restaurant. It’s a culinary art. Will is always teaching some of the same courses over and over at the local Universities and he got this lazy, I mean crazy idea that he might record a few art lessons on video so he could play that for the class and relax on that day. Well Will can’t do a mediocre job as he is an artist, so he makes a few wonderful little videos that the students just love. So one day in the “board room”, Will is telling Wayne about a couple of cool videos. Then he said, “If I put these on line, my students can watch them if they may have missed something in class.” Will is always trying to make his classes the best. Then Wayne said “I bet there are a lot of people out there that could benefit from some videos like yours.” So they decided to make a few more and see if they could sell any. Will’s rogue, world traveling, brother in-law Tom, who happens to be a computer programmer/genius, just happened to be crashing at Will’s home. Tom offered to put a few of these out there on the internet, fully automated and set it all up so Will wouldn’t have to think. Sure enough, people liked it. So back to the boardroom. Wayne found the money and they were going to teach the world to draw, paint, sculpt and everything, one video lesson at a time, all by themselves, with the help of the internet. They soon discovered, with the help of everyone they knew, that they weren’t the best artists at every subject. So they started inviting other professional artists and instructors to join them in their venture to help anyone in the world learn art, and at an affordable rate. They brought Ryan Haldeman, of amber media on board as the video specialist, filmographer and editor. He has proved invaluable, and they have been producing quality art lesson videos ever since for the website. July 20, 2011 they were able to “throw the switch” and there FolioAcademy.com went live. There have been a few growing pains along the way but they are problem solvers and the demand is there. They have been able to afford a nice website, built by Tom the rambling programmer and designed by Johnny Hall and Wayne. (Mostly Johnny, Wayne is an artist, not a designer. Designers need something in the left side of their skull) Folio Academy is still green and growing. Will and Wayne plan on adding content, and much more so stick around, and Thank You for your support, All the best, from all of us to all of you, Folio Academy |