My first experience with your work was Noonie’s Masterpiece. I love that book! I also just noticed that you signed my copy – I bought it at Reform School on a trip to L.A. in 2011. :) Tell me how you got started in your professional illustration career. Did you go to art school? How long have you been a professional illustrator?
Thank you Melanie! I loved working on Noonie’s Masterpiece. Written by Lisa Railsback, every page was illustrated–it was a graphic novel for ages 9-12. Noonie offers this great advice to artists: “a brilliant artist must try not to be afraid.”
I’ve been drawing my whole life. As a child, I was always engaged in something creative whether drawing or doing drama or modern dance. I graduated from the University of California. It was a very liberal arts education: language, literature, film, science. My major was art which (at the time) consisted of drawing, printmaking, and photography.
After school I moved to Oakland/Berkeley and I was supporting myself working at restaurants, while I took modern dance classes and attended a very cool workshop called Fiberworks. I was painting these large silk fabric pieces and immersing myself in fiber related art. I liked that there wasn’t any division between craft and art. This has remained my philosophy – to try to break down these barriers – I just don’t see creative engagement that way. I was raised in a very progressive family and one of the takeaways has been to always question hierarchies.
After a bit, I moved back to Los Angeles and started learning about graphic design. You could say I’m a self-taught designer. I freelanced for a variety of agencies and design studios, learning along the way and leaving when I felt I’d learned all I could. I kept refining what I was doing and eventually went out on my own and freelanced from my home studio. I started working for a lot of the record companies in L.A. I enjoyed the work – the design was freer and more illustrative, or I was pushing in that direction, and that led to getting a combination of design and illustrative work. I had a son, became very interested in children’s books and wrote and illustrated my own – which got published! I thought I’d finally found the thing I was going to spend my life doing. Except that’s not how it worked out.
How long were you illustrating before you felt like you had developed your own style? Can you describe what that process was like?
I don’t know if I’ve ever had a singular style. I like to experiment and try different things. Of course eventually what happens is you have a body of work and clients refer to specific pieces for jobs they’re hiring you to do. I always ask which pieces of mine they liked because at times I had a number of different things going on and otherwise I’d have no idea! When my son was in elementary school, I started doing posters for events at his school, volunteering my time. I created a whole new style that way, because I was just playing and no one was paying me and I had such an appreciative audience in the school kids and parents. That’s a great way to do things.
It’s almost like creating several different personas, allowing yourself lots of room to be a number of different versions of yourself.
That work got me a lot of paying jobs, eventually.
When and how did you go about signing with an illustration agent? Is it something you did early on or had you been handling more of the business side of your illustration work for a while first?
I was ten years into working as a designer/illustrator before I even thought about getting an agent. My work was almost all local, coming out of Los Angeles. When I signed on with an agent (Lilla Rogers Studio) that changed completely. I’ve been with them for around fifteen years (time flies!). It wasn’t something I planned (I plan very little). I don’t think I even knew what an agent did at the time. But it was a tough personal time for me and I needed to up my game, so I sent them a little package of work. Sometimes the most challenging times push you in directions you wouldn’t have considered (or risked). That’s the gift of the challenge.
What is the best advice you have for new illustrators who are looking for work?
Do the work you love, the work you’d loved to be hired for. My career evolved before social media. Now, there are so many ways to share work you’re excited about, work you’ve done.
This is a passion marathon, being an artist – in whatever way you define it.
Whether you’re the flavor of the minute or not, the important thing is to keep going, keep evolving. When something is fallow, you find other areas that interest or excite you. Everything feeds everything else.
What are you working on now?
Commercially, I’m in the midst of a big project for a chocolate company that’s coming out in 2017. And I’m always working on my own work – paintings, cut paper collages, whatever form that is taking. I’m heading to a residency at the Golden Foundation (the folks who make Golden Paint) in New Berlin, NY for the month of March. I’m very excited about that!
Thank you so much, Sarajo! I really hope I get to meet you in person sometime.
Have a great weekend, friends! Read the rest of the Illustrator Interview series here. xoxo
Thank you for supporting my art and sharing my work.
Sign up here for my art newsletter/blog to learn about new work and see what inspires me.
Purchase original paintings or fine art prints.