What began on a lark has turned into a full-fledged business for Jeremy Selzer and Cory Rowe of Phan Gear Prints.

“It really just started off as a fun, ‘Could we pull off doing concert posters?’ It started merely as a fan-art sort of thing — hence the name,” Rowe said.

Getting their start in 2017, they began in their homes before moving operations to commercial space at Fairfield Manor. 

You have likely seen their work across town as they’ve worked with Visit Fort Wayne to produce prints of city locations and organizations like the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, zoo,  and Lakeside Park. They also produce concert posters, working a lot with the local band Debutants.

Now they’re situated in the affectionately named Warehouse Row on East Brackenridge Street and preparing for their first art show with Tim Baron on Friday, April 19, from 4-8 p.m.

“Now we can have our own art shows,” Rowe said of the space they moved into in February and held an open house on March 3. “I’m pretty entrenched with the local art scene with more of a focus on illustration and graphic design. Tim was a natural fit because he’s similar to what we do.”

Forming an identity

Kicking off the gallery space at Phan Gear is a man familiar to area pop-up shows. And outside of Fort Wayne, he may be even more well-known for his skateboard decks, which have been featured on Tony Hawk and Jason Ellis’ podcast, Hawk vs. Wolf. In fact, Baron has created decks for a number of skateboard companies, including Creature, H-Street, Super 8, Plan B, and Hawk’s Birdhouse.

“What’s been awesome is so many of my heroes growing up, I’ve had a chance to work with,” Baron said.

“My entire junior high and high school identity was based off of Tony Hawk and his haircut.”

Saying he’s been drawing since he was able to pick up a pencil — “I have some drawings that mom saved when I was maybe 2½, 3 years old” — being a jock was not really in the cards.

“I was not good at sports, and I felt the weight of that when I was in like fifth grade,” he said. “But that’s when I started skating. My next-door neighbor had a skateboard, and I had only seen one on Back to the Future or just in passing. But he actually had one and every time I’d go over there, I’d ride it up and down his driveway. There was just something about it that beckoned me to it.”

Soon after, he got his first skateboarding magazine, Thrasher.

“There was all this dope music in there like Anthrax and Megadeth and Misfits,” Baron said. “It just opened the next dimension for me creatively. Skateboarding also helped provide an identity for me.”

First rule of pursuing a dream

As skateboarding became an identity, it was not gonna pay the bills, so he got a job as a graphic designer with an insurance company.

“It was as exciting as it sounds,” he said.

Spending 20 years in that role, Baron was able to create some of his own work, albeit outside office hours.

“I would stay up way past my bedtime making cool stuff when I’d get home,” he said. “Just because I had to produce, I had to make cool art. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I just had to make rad stuff.”

As he found himself in a rudderless position, he came across David Fincher’s 1998 film Fight Club, starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. Adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about a guy who makes a drastic change after finding himself going through the motions of office life, the movie served as a wakeup call for the 40-year-old Baron.

“I had never seen that movie before, and it absolutely blew my mind,” he said. “It was exactly where I was at in terms of, ‘This is your life and it’s ending one minute at time.’ I was like, ‘I am not going to die designing forms for an insurance company.’ The clock starting ticking the night I watched Fight Club. Four years later, I was able to make the jump. I had been building the side stuff and opportunities kept growing.”

You can find Baron’s work on his website, tim-baronart.com. There, you will find nostalgia that speaks to any young man in his 40s and early 50s: He-Man, Alien, They Live, Halloween, and odes to punk rock.

“Those memories are all very visceral to me,” he said. “Going out on Halloween and wearing those super-uncomfortable Ben Cooper vinyl costumes. It was just so awesome, and those memories are very much alive for me. Those all kind of burrowed their way into my creative DNA and the kind of the art I joyfully produce now.”

Designing skate decks

His journey into skate decks came about thanks to his old friend Nick Weaver, owner of Rise Skateboard Shop on Spy Run Avenue. 

“He needed some designs for boards,” Baron said. “We ended up talking and struck up a bartering deal and I did two board graphics for him. I was just so proud of them. I was so proud to finally have my artwork on a skateboard. It was such an honor.”

The job fulfilled a dream of his that dates back to seeing Vernon Courtland Johnson’s artwork on the boards of Powell Peralta.

“When I first saw those, I was probably in sixth grade,” he said. “Those graphics just stuck in my head. They were the raddest graphics I could ever see. They just blew my mind.”

The skeletons he used for the Rise boards were an homage to Johnson’s style, and soon after he was making boards for many more companies. 

While working with the folks at what is now Slam City Skatepark, co-owner Daniel Butler was friends with Fort Wayne native Mark Widmann, who was with Santa Cruz Skateboards at the time. That led to Baron creating decks for Creature, a subsidiary of Santa Cruz. From there, things really took off.

“When you’re in a niche like skateboarding, when you do something, I think people start recognizing your name, your work — recognizing the look and feel of your work,” he said.

Valued guidance

Another person that’s played a large role in Baron’s career is Phan Gear’s Rowe.

“He introduced me to Etsy and what he was doing in terms of Phan Gear Prints and the posters,” Baron said. “The dude was kind of like my Obi-Wan Kenobi in terms of just showing me how it’s done. I started slowly producing posters, and he eventually began printing them. So, he’s my printer for all my posters and he’s who I refer people to.”

With Rowe showing him the ins and outs of social media, Baron’s presence has grown. Along with posting his work, he also offers tutorials and advice to other artists who may be starting out.

“I think artists just naturally undervalue their work,” Baron said. “I think social media played a huge role. I started my Instagram page like 10 years ago. I don’t have Kim Kardashian numbers or anything like that, but I have good chunk of people who really like what I do.”

And you can see what he does and purchase some of his work April 19 at Phan Gear. Whether you’re in the market for posters, stickers, skate decks, or even toys that have been seen on ABC’s The Goldbergs, it will be there.

Along with checking out Baron’s work, it could also be your first chance to check out Phan Gear, which is bringing some creativity to the area just southeast of downtown.

“The hope is that we want to be known for what we do, but also be a social place in Fort Wayne,” Rowe said. “My landlord is really supportive and kind of wants there to be some culture there.”

And Rowe and Selzer, who also operates his tattoo shop in the space, hope they can provide a different kind of art gallery.

“Our vision of an art show is more of a mix,” Rowe said. “It’s going to be more like art prints laid out on tables that are more affordable. There are not going to be this high-end — there’s going to be skate decks and that sort of thing — but it’s mostly going to be art prints, stickers, magnets, and toys he’s collaborated on with other companies. 

“At Phan Gear Prints, music is really our thing and concert posters. So, there will be cool music,” he added. “That’s what we’re trying to create: a social mingle mixed with a one-night pop-up.”