Twenty-eight year old Geraan Garland sees opportunity the way he sees paint prior to putting it on canvas – a world of potential simply waiting to be mixed with creativity, blended with technique, and finessed with patience and determination.
Few of our Artist + Entrepreneur feature subjects have so embodied the balance of creativity and commerce as the jack-of-all-trades, Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale alumnus.
With bookings several months in advance for his bridal henna tattoos; extensive corporate and family clientele for his child face painting services; local business gigs for his spray paint designs; heavy clout amongst the young local crowd for his ink tattoos and an inflatable water trampoline and float business, Garland is the definition of the creative entrepreneur.
As a child attending primary school in Providenciales, the South Caicos descendant expressed a passion for creative expression early on. As a 19-year-old attending art school in Florida, Garland always had his sketch books with him.
When he walked into a gas station and met a tattoo artist one day, Garland made a pitch to the artist to teach him to tattoo.
“I went to his house the next day and showed him some of my sketches. Soon enough I was sketching the tattoo designs for him and bringing friends from college to his place for me to practice on,” Garland says.
With enterprising artistic skills and two years of tattooing experience under his belt, Garland returned home.
It started out with just tattoos. When that little business grew, Garland got a light bulb idea to invest the profits into another business venture after observing banana boat rides at the beach.
“I did the numbers in my head and thought, wow, inflatable products can really do well so I decided to invest in them… but not banana boats,” Garland says of the precursor to his wildly successful company, Paradise Floats.
If you’ve experienced or privately booked water trampolines that turn the ocean into an outdoor gymnasium or ridden giant inflatable animals of the flamingo, swan, and unicorn varieties, you’ve probably booked from Garland’s Paradise Floats.
Even with his early success, Garland is still just sketching the outline of his future.
“I want to open an art company that gives talented artists the opportunity to be booked for jobs and sell their work, you know?” Garland’s eyes light up as he speaks of the goals he clearly intends to bring to fruition. In the hushed voice of someone who has made an investment they prefer to show and not tell he reveals, “I’m working on (something big) but… you’ll see.”
With his talent for seeing potential prior to painting the final picture for others to enjoy, Geraan Garland’s plans invoke the mantra that seeing is indeed believing.
With his talent for seeing potential prior to painting the final picture for others to enjoy, Geraan Garland’s plans invoke the mantra that seeing is indeed believing.
Image & story by Dominique Rolle/Caya Hico Media
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