Tampa artist Quinn Cale has twin inspirations for her work—childhood and technology.
For Gen Xers, these two things don’t exactly go together. But for Gen Z, colloquially referred to as “iPad kids,” technology brings comfort like a stuffed animal. At 32, Cale is somewhere in the middle. For this Apple Creative and artist entrepreneur, childhood nostalgia, technology and business merged in a different way.
Cale started painting in her teens because she didn’t have money to go out with friends.
“So, I had some paints, and I had some wood slats at my house, and I just started painting on those,” Cale told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
Technology entered her life later, when Cale took a sales position at Apple.
“A few years later, I started working at Apple, and one of my managers asked me what I did for fun,” Cale recounts. “I told him I had painted some wood slats, and he was like, ‘Oh, I’d buy those.’ I hadn’t really thought about selling them. It was just a fun side thing I did because I didn’t have anything else to do.”
In 2020 Cale applied to become, and became, an Apple Creative. Now, when she’s not making her own art, she’s teaching kids how to make art on iPads. The new job allowed Cale to explore her creativity while still working for Apple. The move has also inspired Cale to incorporate more technology into her art.
“A few years ago, I started working on augmented reality paintings,” Cale told CL. “So if you hold your phone up to the painting (there’s going to be a QR code associated with it), you’ll be able to see it move.”
Cale uses a Creative Cloud app called Adobe Aero because it doesn’t require any coding. You scan the painting with your iPad’s camera, and the app adds tracking markers. You then tap to pin areas where you’d like to add movement. From there, you can add items you’ve created in other Adobe programs and add triggers to make those items interactive. Ultimately, the artist has created two works of art—one analog and one digital.
Quinn has used the technology on three paintings thus far, all currently displayed at Café Hey. This month, she’ll incorporate Augmented Reality technology into an animated cat and mouse at The Main Grove St. Pete—her first mural for the Shine festival (stylized “SHINE”).
“I’m trying to keep it simple so it will function properly,” Cale told CL. “But the idea is that there’ll be a little QR code nearby, and you’ll be able to scan that, and you’ll see a little bit of movement.”
Cale’s Shine mural will be walking distance from the pier, so she expects a lot of families with children to see it. For this reason, Cale wanted to create something fun and cute that would inspire kids.
“I feel like most kids want to make art, but after a certain point it’s like you have to find a real career or something like that,” Cale told CL. “If they decide to go with science or technology, it’s still fun, but you don’t have to want to make video games or things like that. You can still make art and have it be technology-related.”
There’s no cover for the Shine Mural Festival happening across St. Petersburg from Nov. 8-17.
