EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: Zero to Superhero

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A lengthy career is sure to have plenty of ups and downs. Our Extraordinary Person of the Week has had some colorful ups and downs. WWAY’S Daniel Seamans introduces you to a man who went from zero….to Superhero!

Inside Tom Fleming’s office you’ll find a realistic fantasy.

“Everything on the wall here,” Tom Fleming told Daniel Seamans, “these are all comic covers, trading cards that I’ve done for Marvel comic, DC Comics, World of Warcraft, Magic the Gathering.”

He has a colorful resume. “I thought I was going to go out and light the world on fire,” Tom said of his start in the world of art. He did light the world on fire, but it took a lot of work. The young artist needed a spark and through determination he found it.

You could even say Tom’s fire got some help from water. “I was a waterbed salesman for a while, but it worked out very well because the clientele, it wasn’t like a business packed with customers,” he said. “So I sat at a desk doing my illustrations for Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t pay what this aspiring artist yearned for. He would find himself wrestling with his career. Almost literally.

“I went from selling hotdogs, waterbeds, and I actually flipped pizzas for a awhile,” Tom said of his jobs to get the bills paid. “Aate a lot of pizza,” he laughed. “And then got the job overnight at the World Wrestling Federation.”

Such a move would set the artist up with the right moves.

“That was a piece I did for WWF(referring to a picture on the wall) that was supposed to to be blown up to 6.5 feet by 13 feet and hung in headquarters in Stanford, Connecticut and by the time I finished 38 portraits in the painting, half of them left for the competition.”

The World Wrestling Federation would become the World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE.

Tom would turn the page to the comic book world.
He showed off his growing resume but felt it was more like a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” scenario.
“Two weeks later, I get a call,” he said, “they want me to do the Superman trading card for the DC Master trading card series.”

Talk about zero to SUPERHERO! “It was superman, I went from not ever doing anything professional in the comic book world to the biggest character out there.”

Then…yet another superhero moment. He would unmask a passion for fine arts.

“This is the one nominated for the Chesley Award. It won multiple awards,” Tom said of the impressive piece of work.

The image also appears on Tom’s latest adventure. He just rolled out his work on yoga mats in a living art form. “The ‘Elevation’ series includes seven stunning, unique collaborative abstract designs correlating to the seven higher chakra meditative states,” Tom said of the new venture.  “A second yoga mat series within the Living Art collection, the ‘Empowerment’ series, offers stunning renditions of the award winning Spirit and Life and Mind, Body and Soul watercolor paintings,” he continued.

From the pages we read to the entertainment we watch, Tom Fleming, you’ve gone from zero to Superhero. And that is one of the many reasons you are….Extraordinary.

Tom said one of his main goals with his new venture is to reach out to the yoga studios, instructors and yoga community in Wilmington to collaborate and work together.
You can find more information on Chakra Art and Design here. 
You can find more information about his illustrative work here.