You can have your art and wear it too. Young artist, Andrea Tobin, is merging fashion with painted art in a unique way — turning paintings on canvases into stylish designer bags one can take with them everywhere.  The desire to never be separated from her art is in part what inspired Tobin to take on this creative venture.

“I’d come home from work and just paint, paint, paint,” she said. “I found myself — at the end of the night or the next day — really bummed that I had to leave the paintings,” and so Tobin found a creative way to carry her art with her.

Born and raised in San Diego, Tobin moved to New York to attend Columbia University, and while she always created through drawings and  water colors, the 28-year-old designer never took an art class. She is full of raw talent which she brushes on to every canvas. In 2005, what started out as an after-work past time grew into a full-blown entrepreneurial adventure, a handbag brand dubbed Marla Cielo.

The brand’s name, Tobin says, represents an alter-ego.

“Shes a passionate, creative thinker that dedicates her life to the promotion of fashion as art.  Marla cielo isn’t a real person, but she’s very real in many ways, her persona is comprised of real life experiences and a lot of imagination.”

Watch the video below to learn a little more. (Still photos from Marla Cielo website)

Paint Art and Wear It from Christine Chika Moses on Vimeo.

The switch from corporate to self-made entrepreneur has not been an easy journey for Tobin, but she is determined to do it.

“I decided, probably the first day I made a bag, to make the switch, and I have been working toward it ever since,” said Tobin who still has one foot in the corporate world of advertising research. She says she is eager to soon invest all her time and efforts in her true passion — creating Marla Cielo handbags.

Tobin is enterprising, finding funds to support her business on niche investment site, Kickstarter, and marketing the handbags she creates in her Manhattan apartment on the Marla Cielo website. Her range of unique handbags and clutches are priced $148 and up. Her success, she says, is the result of striking a balance between “passion and product.”

“I knew I had to marry passion with product that people would really love, while keeping that unique artistic side to it as well. Because I want people to really love that about them too. I am not going to make a leather hobo — not going to happen.”