Creative Pep Talk
083 - You Never Arrive - Lisa Congdon Interview
(upbeat music) Hey y'all, just a quick heads up. The episode you're about to listen to is eight to 10 years old. Now, these episodes were intended to be evergreen, and I still believe there's a lot of good information in these early episodes, but I do wanna let you know that some of my ideas have evolved over time. Times have changed since we made these episodes, and ultimately, I'd like to think I've grown a lot as an artist and a human, and that these don't necessarily represent my best work, or the best of the podcast. If you're new around here, I suggest starting with the most recent episode, or at least go back to around 300, and move forward from there. Enjoy the episode. (upbeat music) - The greatest gift that the universe can give you is perspective. (upbeat music) - Hey everybody, you're listening to the Creative Peptalk Podcast. This show is about commercial art, making good money and making great art. I'm your host, Andy J. Miller. Illustration Age is our proud syndicate. You can find this show at illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. On SoundCloud and iTunes. (upbeat music) Today on the show, we have a serious treat. I almost said tweet, boom, yeah. We have a serious treat on the show. We have an interview with none other than the Lisa Congen. Lisa Congen is a illustrator and hand letterer. Her work is fantastic. She's extremely prolific. She has work all over the gambit in terms of painting, lettering, patterns, all kinds of jazz from all different spectrums of the creative market. And you know what? I was really, really, really hoping that I could get her on the podcast because she has a similar passion to me for helping others strike a balance between business and art and trying to help others navigate those tough waters. And I just have appreciated that for several years. It's been a thrill to kind of watch from afar. Her work just continues to grow in maturity, depth, interest. It gets more and more unique. And you can just see as she puts all of this time and energy into the sketchbooks and the development and the experiments and the personal projects that things just get more and more interesting. And it's been fascinating to watch her career kind of explode as she continues to do all these things and put her work out there. It's just been really interesting to watch from afar and read interviews and see all of that develop. And I was really interested to speak with her one-on-one about where she's at right now because I think she's in a really, really interesting spot. And we have a phenomenal conversation very of the moment, very personal, real talk as you may say. About where she is and how, what she's excited about right now and what the struggles are now and what advice she would have given herself a few years ago as she was climbing this mountain. So thank you Lisa for being on the show. You are a phenomenal human and I appreciate all the things you're doing. I love your work and I'm grateful to get to watch you develop as an artist online. If you don't know Lisa Congdon, go check out her work and go check out her personal projects and her blog where she writes about creativity and business. Lisa has worked for MoMA, just a little museum you may have heard of, Chronicle Books. She's done work with Harvard University. She's done just some really, really amazing things. Go check out the work. Go check out her book Art Inc that she did with Chronicle Books. It's about business and art, what the podcast is about. So that might be relevant to you. And she just has a lot of experience, knows her stuff, knows how to really make it in the creative world because she's thriving financially and she's figuring out that balance of creative fulfillment. I'm gonna see her at Icon this year, massively looking forward to that. We're media sponsors for Icon this year, so I will be there. It's gonna be a great time. If you're gonna be at Icon, hit me up on Twitter at AndyJPizza. Say hi, love to, I'm gonna try to interview a lot of people. Can't maybe get to everybody, but and I'd love to meet. So tweet to me there. Thank you guys for supporting the podcast. I hope you love this conversation as much as I loved having it. Here we go, Lisa Congdon. Miro is a collaborative virtual workspace that syncs in real time for you and your team so that you can innovate an idea into an outcome seamlessly. We talk a lot on this show about the idea of how creative research shows that playing with the problem is essential to innovation. Now, when I think of play, I don't think of documents and email. So if your team is often working remote, you need something more dynamic and collaborative. I think that Miro's mind maps and flow charts, where team members can edit and play in real time, has a lot more capacity for innovation and playing with the problem than traditional ways of collaborating over the internet. Whether you work in innovation, product design, engineering, UX, agile or IT, bring your teams to Miro's revolutionary innovation workspace and be faster from idea to outcome. Go to Miro.com to find out how that's M-I-R-O.com. I'm a believer in the idea of dressing for the job you want, not the job you have. And I have applied this to my creative practice too, which means if you want professional results, you need to present online like a pro. And that means going beyond social media and having a professional website that reflects your style and looks legit. I rebuilt my site this year with Squarespace's Fluid Engine and was so happy with how easily I could build my vision without coding that when they approached me to support the show, I jumped at the chance because I love and use this product. So, go check it out Squarespace.com/peptalk to test it out for yourself. And when you're ready to launch your site, use promo code PEPTALK, all one word, all caps for 10% off your first purchase. Thanks goes out to Squarespace for supporting the show and supporting creators all over the world. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) First of all, thank you for being on the show. Your work is fantastic. You have just, and I'm, I've been watching your kind of career unfold over the past couple of years. And I definitely, I don't see a lot of people that I'm really like blown away by their ability to A, B, as prolific as you are, to have as much kind of mastery in lots of different areas. Push yourself creatively. All of these things, just fascinating. And so, I'm just thrilled to have you on the show. So, thank you first of all for being here. - Thank you for having me, it's my pleasure. - Yeah. And, you know, the number one reason why I wanted you to come on the show is because I think I'm an artist who believes that you can be 100% business person and 100% artist without that being a conflict. And I know that I'm assuming since you wrote a book about that topic that you would agree with that. - Yes. - Yeah. - I do agree with that. I think that, go ahead. - No, you go, you go. This is, this is about you. - I was gonna say what, you know, what's interesting is that I do think that, last night I should preface this by saying, last night I'm giving the commencement address at MCAD this year in the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. - Yeah. - And I was thinking about what I wanted to say to the students. And I can only talk for like 15 minutes. So, it's not gonna be a long talk. - Yeah. - Apparently, I was told that they don't have a very long attention span. (laughs) - Kids these days. - Anyway, so I was, the message that I feel like, one of the messages that I've been, that it was really part of my book in our ink and one of the messages that I wanted to give to these students is that there really never has been a better time to be an artist. And part of that is because we've never had, artists have never had access to all of the business tools and resources, you know, or ways to promote their work and get their work into the world that exists now. And so, that makes being an artist and being a business person much easier. But there has been a lot of, you know, I think there's a lot of resistance, not necessarily among, you know, the next generation of artists. - Yeah. - But in old school artists, like part of your identity as an artist was to like starve and suffer. And that, you know, promoting your work or even referring to what you do as your brand was sort of like antithetical to the creative process. And I really think that's all kind of bullshit. So, the way that we can sustain our livings is to run a business in a smart way. And there are lots of different ways to do that, but I think it actually helps the arts instead of hindering it. - Yeah, and actually, I thought that I've had recently was that, you know, you've seen a lot of these designers and illustrators kind of shift gears at some point from being really focused on client work and getting new clients. And you see kind of a light bulb moment for a lot of people where they realize that those businesses that have the business acumen to take the work that the design and illustration that they're doing for them and go and make tons of money kind of on the back of that work. And you see people have this kind of entrepreneurial light bulb go off where it's like, actually, we're the people making the content. And so we have the, if we can figure out the business side, we can actually cut out the middleman from a lot of these different things. And I found that to be really interesting. Like, I feel like as I continue to grow my business, I think early on, the big time clients had a massive draw for me. And I still like doing that work, but somewhere along the way, I definitely kind of shifted to thinking, actually, I can kind of make a business myself or I can kind of deliver value straight to people. And it seems like, do you look at yourself as an entrepreneur? - Oh, definitely. I didn't necessarily always, but I do now. And I think what you're saying is true on a number of levels, like, you know, in the internet has created this space where a lot of the rules that used to exist about how you, what was okay and what wasn't okay in terms of how you were gonna do your designer illustration career, like you had to choose between being a fine artist or an illustrator, in the old days, you had to choose between being even an editorial illustrator versus a surface designer. You had to make all these choices, right? Like you couldn't mix, there was no cross contamination allowed that they all had, there's, you know, there's certain amount of prestige associated with certain ways of doing things. And also, in order to get your work into the world, you had to have an agent or somebody handling your work or promoting your work for you. There was, or you, you know, if you were a fine artist, you had to find the right gallery or land the right show. And now we're in this place where the playing field is really leveled, like there's this space where anyone, if you use it well, can promote their business and build their business and show the world what they do, which eliminates that sort of middleman. It also makes this direct relationship between client and illustrator more possible than it's ever been. And I'm with you, like I love that. And I love, I love having those relationships. And I had an agent for a long time. And I loved her. - That was the nice thing I was gonna ask you about it. - Yeah, I absolutely, I was with Lola Rogers who's amazing and very well known. And, but for me, it was like, we agreed actually in the end that I had built my own brand and it didn't make sense for me to be subsumed under her brand. A lot of the work that I was getting was coming directly to me. She was still getting me work, but I was getting enough on my own that like giving away a commission didn't really make sense. And of course now I have my own team that works in my studio and we have to make decisions about money and negotiations and all these things that should do for me. So that's a little bit challenged at times, but it also makes me feel really empowered. Like if I don't wanna take a job or if I wanted a job, but only if it's gonna pay me a certain amount of money because that's what it's worth to me, I don't have to explain that to anybody. I can just call the shots and do it or not do it. Well, when you have a rep or an agent, those conversations are sometimes difficult. - Yeah, actually something that I've been meaning to talk about representation for a while on the show, but I'm a little bit nervous because I wanna be respectful and I'm not an expert. I've had an agent before and I'm currently looking into some different relationships, but I think my biggest thing and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are, my biggest thought is that marketing has kind of dramatically changed what works and people pretty much don't want to be directly marketed to. And I think when it comes to art, people wanna discover things for themselves. And so do you think that the agent's role or an artist partnering with other people does that look different now than it did previously in the industry? - I think so. I only came into the industry when the change was happening. So I only have a slight bit of experience with the old school way of doing things at, but I think I'll have enough to say that, yeah, the old way, if you were an illustrator or a designer who wanted to work with clients, you would make a postcard and you would call people and you would try to get appointments and you would directly email people and a lot of that still happens and in some cases that can be really effective and that's a lot of times what the agent is doing. They're basically like pimping your, they're your pimp basically. And then when you don't have an agent, you have to pimp, you know, the responsibility you would be on you to pimp themselves. But nowadays, it's a little bit more passive. So what I really worked hard at doing was like building my online presence so that it would be hard for people not to discover me because you're right, what I didn't necessarily, and I love the way that you framed that because I hadn't really thought about it in that way, but it is really true that, you know, nowadays most art directors are scouring Instagram or even Etsy or, you know, Tumblr or, you know, whatever, Pinterest to find talent and making sure that your work shows up in all of those places is really important and so that people can discover you. So, and in a way it's kind of cool because it takes the pressure off of you to have to constantly be like doing this direct marketing of yourself, which really is, well, it still works for some people. It really is kind of the old fashioned way of doing things. - Yeah, actually, I'd love to talk more about that and I actually think I don't actually do any direct marketing. I have done a small amount throughout my career. I don't do any really now. And the way I kind of look at it is that although there are people that benefit from that and I actually think, especially the more old school established illustration markets like editorial and books, I think that they're still kind of, they kind of romanticize the whole industry and there's kind of still that kind of like art directors like to receive postcards, I don't know, it just seems the work still kind of work like that but the way I kind of view it is, you know, there's a, have you ever heard of like the 80/20 law? It's like a business thing, yeah. And just the idea that, you know, what 20% of effort is getting your 80% of results and I think, I just found that I would put a giant amount of time into direct marketing and pretty much not get anything out of it. Whereas if I just made the work that I wanted to be making and I figured out ways of getting it out there that, you know, maximizing my discoverability really paid off a lot more than, and I enjoyed it more 'cause I was actually making art. And the other, one of the number one reasons I wanted to have you on the show is that you're so prolific and active online and you have been since kind of you started. So what kind of things, so let's talk a little bit about this idea. You've done a lot of different personal projects online and they seem to be like the foundation of your careers, that kind of correct? - Yes. - Yes, yes. (laughing) - Yeah, go ahead. - Go ahead. - In 2010, I did my first personal project and at the time, there weren't a lot of personal projects on the internet yet. People were experimenting with things on Flickr a little bit, you know, taking a picture a day or drawing a day or whatever. Like there was a few of these things happening and that's kind of where I got the idea. And I had this idea that both that I wanted to do a daily project but that I wanted to do something that was related to but slightly outside of my regular art practice. So I'm a big collector of weird things and I decided to do this project where every day for the year of 2010, I was gonna photograph one or part of one of my collections and the way that I photographed and was overhead, like where things were arranged on a white background in a sort of grid, imagine a very grid. And I wasn't the first person to ever do this but I was the first person to sort of like popularize it. And I started this blog called "The Collection of Day" and how already a little bit of an internet following yet already, this was kind of right around the time I joined Twitter, I wasn't on Instagram yet if it even existed. But I had this blog and so I was posting these photos and it caught on pretty quickly. And so I started getting press about it. People were, it was resonating for people. And I had enough, I had to continue collecting weird things over the course of the year to make the project interesting and complete but I also started drawing some imaginary collections. So the great thing about the project is that I made the rules for what it should be and should be. And so I kind of worked it as it went along and then it ended up getting published into a book. And at one point earlier, you were referring to the Creative Morning's talk that I gave in 2011, which was about this project and so many things came from it since then. So for example, NOMA, he was one of my clients. - Which is just the cost. - Saw some of it, not necessarily of the, they saw images not necessarily of the stuff I'd done in 2010, but this idea of drawing and photographing things arranged on a grid, like drawing objects, it's so out there now, like it's everywhere, but I was doing it back then and I started to make a regular part of my art practice. Now, it's just sort of how I draw many, make many drawings, random collections of things too. They saw this work in my portfolio and they were like, oh, would you like to have access to the design collection of from Roma and draw collections of things? - Oh my gosh. - And I was like, okay. - You're like, no thanks, that sounds terrible. - Yeah, they turned it into notebooks and stuff, but then there was other things that happened, other clients and other things that happened as a result of that project. And then in 2000, so I took a break, and then in 2012 I did this project called 365 Days in Hand Lettering, that one was based on the fact that I felt like I wanted to be a hand murderer, but I had no experience. I didn't want to be a typographer, I didn't want to be a calligrapher, I wanted to just develop my own style of hand lettering. And so I did this public thing where like every day, and I wasn't very good at first, I was like just posting pictures of things that I was hand lettering. And over the course of the year, I developed a couple of different styles. And then I started sort of hand lettering quotations and poetry, and then chronicle books came to me and said, let's turn this into a book. And then a sequel happened several years later. And so a lot of these projects have led to other things. I did a project in 2013 with Maria Popova of Brain Pickings. We did this project called "The Reconstructionist." Well once a week, not every day. - Yeah. - It's a good shift. - I drew a portrait of a famous woman from history, and she wrote an essay. That could have become a book, we had lots of interest, but neither of us wanted to go there. And then this year I'm doing this new project, I haven't done one in a couple of years, and it's weekly, and it's called Experiment in Blue. And I'm making pieces of art that are made mostly using blue paint. I'm allowed to use a couple of other colors, but so I love these personal challenges. And they always push me creatively, but they always also lead to more interest in my work. And I've seen other people do similar things that have completely changed their careers. - Yeah, yeah. And I definitely, I feel like my career's kind of completely been built on personal projects. And it sounds like initially with the things organized neatly, that was kind of birthed out of just fun and interest. And then the, and it was maybe you said like loosely related to what you do. And then you did this, the project where you wanted to develop a specific skill. So there's like a very specific purpose for that. And I know from like reading interviews and different things that you, you're obviously have become a lot more busy and you've dedicated these giant parts of your life to making this work every day. And it sounds like it became to be a lot of work and a lot of commitment. And you said you have the new project, the blue project. And I'm wondering two things. Like one, as you were like getting ready to do this new project, what were the motivations and the criteria, how have they changed or what specific like things were motivating you? Yeah, it's interesting. I don't, this new project has zero to do with getting, well, not that any project I've ever done has been specifically for the purpose of getting work. Like in fact, I advise people against approaching projects that way. You actually, to do a daily or even a weekly project, you have to have some intrinsic motivation to either learn something or try something new or put something interesting into the world. If you do it purely for those other reasons, it's not going to go well. And people will see that. Yeah, and actually I did a project just for full disclosure. I did a project where I thought, you know what, I'd like to do book covers and I started doing like book cover designs from like books from the public domain. And I started doing, I'm like, you know what, I just don't want to do this. Like, yeah, it might like-- Well, and sometimes you don't discover that until you're in it and you're like, that's actually not as fun as I thought it was going to be. Yeah, I agree. So anyway, so my new project is really, interestingly-- I mean, I have more opportunity and work than I can handle most days. Like, I already have books and work booked out through 2017. Like, it's kind of nuts. And I'm always like liking to work with new clients and I take short-term projects. But I have a couple of long-term projects and stuff. So it's not like I have any necessity to necessarily learn something new or expose multiple people to my work. This particular project came out of this interesting shift that's happened in my career. So I started off 10 years ago. I was mostly a fine artist. I was like having shows in galleries. And I fell into illustration because some people were seeing my work online that used original pieces and were like, I want to reproduce that. Or could I hire you to do this illustration? And so I sort of-- I never aspired to be an illustrator, although I realized pretty quickly it wasn't much easier a way to make money than fine art. I mean, I am so impressed with fine artists who managed to build a full career around their work. It's a lot of work. Anyway, and not that illustration isn't, but it's just a lot of work in a sort of different way. But anyway, the pendulum had swung, and I wasn't making very much personal work anymore. Most of the work I was doing was commissioned. And I thought I had time for it. And so I did this residency in upstate New York last August. And the whole point of it was to make personal work and to sort of dive into figuring out what I-- my style was developing in all the commissioned work I was doing. And for sure, I was like-- it's not like I was an illustration factory or a robot was just turning out illustrations. I mean, I was learning and growing in that part of my career, but it wasn't making as much work just for me that I love to do. So on this residency, I started to do that again. And it was actually really challenging. I had a lot of anxiety because I was like, I don't even know what I like to draw anymore. I don't even know what I like to do if it's just left up to me and a client's not telling me what they want. And so I had a lot of inks, but I worked through it. And I decided one of the constraints I was going to put on myself to make it a little bit easier. This sounds backwards, but it actually works, was to use mostly blue paint so that sometimes we're overwhelmed by the choices that we have when we have time to just make whatever we want. And so I made this whole body of work while I was there, I had a show at the end. It was really an amazing experience. And I didn't want it to end after that three weeks. So I went back home, I got back into all the crazy deadlines that I had, we're stacking up after the residency. And I decided in the beginning of 2016 that I was going to continue this project, but make one piece a week for the entire year that used mostly blue paint. That's the only constraint. So while they all could potentially fit together in a show at the end of the year, they're in a book or something, they're all kind of different because it's called Experiments in Blue. Like I'm experimenting not just with the color blue and using blue in different ways, but with the subject matter and just making work that's fun for me. But of course, already, it's leading to things because that just happens. And so the motivation this time around was more like-- it was way more personal than any other-- it was kind of like more like my first project and less like the ones that I've done since then. So then it's been fun to farm only on week 14. That's really interesting. So it sounds like one of the things that I talk a lot about on the show is if you're a business, a commercial artist in any way that there's a pendulum or there's a tightrope where you are balancing creative fulfillment and then also thriving financially. So making money and making art that you're excited about. And it sounds like naturally, your project to project kind of shifts different ways where the lettering one was more like I'd like to do lettering and kind of go into that zone. And this one seems more like born from necessity of getting back into making art after being kind of-- were you burned out? Yeah, and I'm still burned out. I mean, I think what's going on for me right now is that-- I mean, this is the part of it that we don't really talk about very often. I always talk about that stuff on the show. That's why we should be friends. Because I don't talk about it too, which is the other side of success. People aspire to-- and I don't say this with all the humility in the world. People will comment on my Instagram, oh, you have the dream life, like you live in the dream. And I would admit that is true. I've worked-- I saw, excuse my French for the last-- Yeah, I know. --10 years, thank you. But I do-- but it's so overwhelming sometimes. And I say yes to way more stuff than I probably should. I'm really working on trying to have boundaries and say no to things because there's so much opportunity. And it's really stressful. And it's weird to complain about it publicly because most people would give their left foot to be in my position. But at the same time, I'm thinking about how to level off my career or even take it down a notch when a lot of people are still thinking about how to amp up. And I was there once. But there is a new-- you reach a new phase where it's like, how do I sort of-- now I've worked really hard. You don't want to necessarily rest on your laurels and stop promoting your work or stop having your work be relevant. Those are all really important. But how do you do that and ease into a flow that feels good? Because otherwise, you're just working all the time. There's a lot of burnout. And you don't make your best work when you're burned out either. So it's hard. And honestly, Andy, I have not figured it out yet. Oh, man. I feel like I could be a guinea pig in a laboratory right now. Well, that's good, actually, because the main thing that I wanted to talk about, other than those other main things that I wanted to talk about, is what's going on now? What's exciting to you now? What are you working through? Because I think that if people are really interested in knowing the deep details of all those projects and where you were at that time, I think that's been pretty cataloged. And there's lots of resources out there. You can go search Lisa and find all kinds of good information, great interviews. Even on my website, there's a whole page of interviews and writing, I'll put that in the show notes, even. But I think what's fascinating, as I'm watching in real time-- and I feel weird that I keep saying that. I'm not stalking you online. I just follow you online. I can see every once in a while. Or do you have an interview or something? But I'm just noticing I saw the great discontent and through my research and that interview. And you're going into new seasons where you have a team. How has that been? Because I think we're in a weird time where, in the past year for me, 2015 was super busy. And I got to this stage where I was chained to my desk. That's what I felt like. I have to stare at this computer all the freaking time. And I'm on deadline all the time. And I'm super stressed out. And as I'm trying to explore, I need help with this. And I need partnerships. And some of the old models don't seem to make as much sense. I'm fascinated by watching you create a team around your work, which is a pretty unique thing. I think you're probably not a lot of resources to tell you even how to do that. Because I don't think many people do that. Is that right? Well, I approached it in it. Yes, I don't think there's a lot of resources. I approached my hiring. So my wife, Clay, only works for me part-time now. She does all my contract negotiations and some of my marketing, but she's getting her real estate license because she's kind of like we also discovered. We tried her working for me full-time. And then we're like, we're married. This is really toxic. So she only works for me part-time. And she's going to also do her own thing, which will give us some separate lives. And then I end up hiring a studio manager. And I approached the studio manager really differently than I think a lot of people approach hiring an assistant. Yeah. I think most people think that artists' assistants are just younger versions of them, like people who are also aspiring to become an illustrator might have interest in learning from somebody. And I don't know if you know Wendy McNaughton. I do, yeah. But she's a really close friend of mine. And she had hired a new person right before I did. And so we were talking about it. And she's like, Lisa, what is it that you're looking for? Because if you're looking for somebody to organize, help you with writing and editing, organizing your time, really managing your business. You don't want another artist-- True. --not that there aren't artists out there who have those skills. Yeah, true. True. You don't want somebody whose next step in their career is to leave you and go do those things. You want somebody who enjoys doing those things and who wants to do those things as their job and who has that skill set. So I wrote this job description that basically, aside from it would be great if you knew Adobe Creative Suite. There was nothing on there about being an artist. It was mostly like, you are somebody who knows how to-- you are really organized. You take initiative. You know how-- and basically, I run my life in spreadsheets. So it was really important to me that the person could develop a workflow for me around each project and keep me on track because I have so many projects going at one time and all of my projects have multiple parts. And it was interesting. I put the job description out. I got 60 applications just from Instagram and my blog. And of those 60 people, most of them lived in Portland, which is where I live. And I had nine people who were so qualified in all of the ways that I was hoping, who I did phone interviews with. And I did in-person interviews with three people. And one of those people was Kristen, who is the woman I ended up hiring. And she comes with an MFA in publishing. And she's super organized. And while she's creative, she has no aspiration to be an artist. And so she really is this person who can do all the high level things like writing. And she can't draw for me, but she can do pretty much everything else. And she is so smart and so capable and still also willing to not work for as much as she deserves. I mean, I like to think I'm paying her decently, but she deserves even more. And so I feel like I finally have that person who's an ex who I'm not constantly having to micromanage or tell what to do. She is not willing to work to have her work for you. No, in fact, she makes my world-- I was talking about being burned out and stressed out. Andy, I am so much less burned out and stressed out than I was a year ago, because I had a similar year as you were describing last year. This year is much easier, even though I have a lot of work, because she does literally half of it for me. And I can trust her. And I can come into my basement and do an interview with you right now, and I'm not worried about being away from email. She just makes my life so easy and amazing. But I recognize that I have to pay her. And she's on payroll. And I had to set all that up. I mean, it's a huge responsibility. But it was like the best decision I ever made. And I feel like without her, I'm not sure I could keep this up. How long ago did you hire? So she's been with me since January. OK, cool. So only like three months, and she's already like, I was like, I told her the other day, you cannot die. You cannot have a baby, you cannot boo, cannot become seriously ill. You are not a left. Hey, in case you don't know, we have a monthly live virtual meet up every last Monday of the month with supporters of the show from Patreon and Substack. We have so much fun on these calls, and they are the warmest, most encouraging creatives that I have ever met. And we also talk real creative practice stuff. We have authors, illustrators, lettering artists, picture bookmakers, fine artists, musicians, and folks that work in video and film as well. And we have people that are just starting out, people super established in their creative careers, and everything in between. For the rest of this year, we're going to chat through our new Journey of the True fan series, exploring questions and ways to apply these ideas to your own creative practice so that you can leave 2024 stronger than you came in with more visibility, connection with your audience, and sales. Sign up to whichever suits you best at either patreon.com/creativepeptalk or antijpizza.substack.com. And I hope to see you at this month's meet up. It's holiday shopping time, y'all. It's time to freak out. Not because uncommon goods is here to make it easy. Listen, all I did was click the for her section on this site. And I instantly saw five things that I could get, Sophie, don't tell her, but I'm thinking either the National Park sweaters, the tea advent calendar. There's also just below that little bubble tea kit for my oldest. And then I saw one of these, the retro little viewfinder orange, real viewer things, but you can make it your own photos. OK, it might not make sense. Just you have to go check it out yourself. Here's a thing. I have seriously never seen so many good options for gifts online in one place. And unlike lots of other convenient options, shopping uncommon goods actually support small businesses. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com/peptalk. That's uncommongoods.com/peptalk for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer, uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Oh, man, that is awesome. And actually, I think one thing that I've seen in my own career is I think it's natural to want to collaborate with people that you have affinity for, or you're the same as early on in my career. I kept collaborating with people that were just very similar to me. And I found like, as I'm progressing, that it's actually a lot more beneficial to collaborate people that have opposite skill sets or they-- where they're bringing a totally different-- is she a very different personality type? Well, as artists go, I'm pretty left-brained. Like I'm fairly organized, but not nearly as much as she is. And it really-- her ability to organize my days and my projects. And she also does stuff that I hate doing, like cold emailing and calling people. Like I'm writing this book right now, and I'm interviewing some famous people. She does-- I do the interviewing, but she finds them for me. And all this stuff that would feel really nerve-wracking to me, she does. So there are things in her personality that she loves to do that I sort of don't like to do. So yes, we're really different. And we're similar enough that we like hanging out. We both are very chatty. So we end up wasting half the day talking. But we also complement each other because she's willing to do all the stuff that I hate. And she's not necessarily interested in learning how to draw or paint or become an-- I mean, she's fascinated by what I do, but it's not her life goal. So I don't feel this responsibility to teach her things. And she's a great self-starter. I mean, I can't say enough about the power of finding a good studio manager. And some people do have people do production work. And she does a little bit of Photoshop for me and some stuff in Illustrator when I'm strapped because she has some basic skills. In fact, sometimes I can't figure things out in Illustrator. And I'm like, Kristen, come help me figure this out, because she's also 20 years younger than I am. So her brain works differently when it comes to technology. Like, she intuits how to make things work that I can't figure out. So that's another benefit. That's really cool. And actually, I definitely want to encourage people out there to think about possible collaborations outside of our world. And I do think it's definitely problematic to think of hiring a lot of interns or people that end up getting hired or previous versions of you. And there's all kinds of like, that's not the best situation. One thing that I wanted to go back to is talking about, I feel like my career has been shifting a lot. And you're talking about how there was a season where you were trying to get your work out there. You were trying to get more opportunities. And if you could look back to that version of yourself, what do you think you, what would you say to that person? Like, what things, having seen the other side of the mountain, what things do you think you would have said things you were worried about, things you were working for, whatever? What were the main things that you would say, here's what you need to know right now about getting to where you're going? OK, well, the main thing that I realized in the last, say, three to five years when-- and my career really started to take off in the last three to five years-- Yeah. --was that you never arrived. Oh, that's so good. I want to unpack this. I think I thought for a period of time there that if I just got organized enough, or worked hard enough, or worked with this client, or that client, or did this thing, or that thing, or got this, you know, won this award, or whatever, that I would somehow be in this place where everything was magically, I don't know, easy, and flowing, and that I wouldn't have any worries, and that I would be super confident, and that I would, you know, and what I realized is that, like, I've really done a lot of the things I aspire to do back when I started. Like, I really have accomplished most of my goals. And I still feel like a nervous wreck most days. I still have a lot of anxiety. I still question whether my work is any good. I still get rejections. I still-- like, I didn't get it. I found out this morning I didn't get into American Illustration Annual this year. And, you know, I was bummed, but, like, whatever. Actually, I didn't get it. I only applied last year for the first time. Didn't get in, and I thought, man, that freaking sucks. And then, so this year, out of spite, I just didn't apply. You did it again? No, I didn't. Did you get in? No, I didn't. I just thought I'm not doing it. I'm done, because I would have a great history with awards and stuff. So I'm just a baby about it. You're too high. I've never won one, OK? I've applied before. I've never gotten-- anyway. Every couple of years, my wife will be like, you need to apply this year. And then I do, and now I'm like, screw that. But anyways, so, you know, I-- some things are different. Yeah, I have an employee now. I make a really good income. I, you know, I have less worry about money. I do have a lot of opportunity. I'm traveling all over the world this year a couple of times to give a talk. And, you know, I really-- things are great. That's not to say I haven't arrived in terms of, like, accomplishments. Like, you are a successful artist. That's true. Yeah, I get that. I feel that, for sure. But at the same time, I'm no less-- I think in terms of arriving, what I was talking about was, like, when I did all of those things, I was also going to feel an equal amount of calm. And that somehow, and confidence, and sort of everything was going to be really zen. And Samantha Hahn, do you know her? No, I don't. Do you know Samantha? She's a photo illustrator. And I was talking around the phone a few weeks ago. And she was, like, same exact thing. But she's thought that someday she would just, like-- and she's done all the things she set out to do. And she's like, I still, like, all I feel is kind of burned out, you know? And that's not to discourage young, aspiring illustrators who want to do what we're doing. That is just to say, like, you got to do it because you love it. And a few years ago, I was watching this documentary about Gerhart Richter. I talk about this a lot. But he's a really well-known fine artist, painter, his work is like in every museum in the world, in retrospectives, and whatever he's in his 80s now, I think. He's German or Austrian. Anyway, there's this documentary about him. And here's this guy is at the apex of his career, right? He's being filmed by these documentary filmmakers. And all you see is this guy who's, like, super insecure. You know, he makes a painting. He can't look at it for, like, three days because he thinks it's terrible. He goes to these big openings until he's super shy. He doesn't want to talk to people. And I was like, I had this big off-home moment when I watched this film for the first time. Like, oh, yeah, like, you never get to that place where it becomes easy. Yeah, it's a little easier. But you just, you never arrive. And if that's your goal, then you've got to do it through, like, meditation or another means. Like, you know, getting to this place in your career isn't going to somehow magically make you happy or feel fulfilled. It just might make you more stressed out if anything. - Yeah, totally, totally true. - So you feel yourself, like, I have to take us and more work and I think I thought that somehow my life was going to become this magical thing if I just accomplished all these things. And that just didn't happen. Like, now I have new goals and few things I'm aspiring to and you just, you never arrive. - Yeah. - Life is a journey because it's not about arriving. - I do think, you know, one of the things for me is, like, I was just talking to a guy, I was kind of giving him a personal pep talk about his creative career was just kind of starting and he had this opportunity and he was just massively stressed out about it, about, you know, sending the perfect email and all the, you know, reply and just navigating it perfectly, not to ruin that opportunity. And I just found myself saying that, you know, I can only think of, like, one or two things in my career that were really game changers and even those, had they not happened, I might not have changed that much. I might have made a little bit less money for the past two years, but nothing like super dramatic. And I think it caused me to think in my day to day that, you know, every little deadline and all these things, even though I'm, I don't know, I have this, my dad and my stepmom are both from corporate America. And so I have this like corporate burden of like, you must be on time. You might, like every, these are the very serious things. And I take them really seriously and I want to run a business that is legit. But, you know, I have kids and I'm married and they're more important to me. And I think that one of the things that I've tried to glean from that is just that, you know, all these things that you're stressed out about, day to day, like just do your best and then and don't let them consume you because then you can't enjoy it. And so what parts of it now are thrilling or really enjoyable in a tangible way? - You know, every day, like I had a year like you last year where, you know, I was stressed out, deadline driven and the whole thing. And this year I decided that I was going to wake up every day even though I have a busy schedule and I was going to like approach everything with joy. And joy is a sort of like cheesy word, but like to me, it really embodies how I want to live my life. Like I want to be a joyful person. I want to experience my friendships and my relationships and my life and my work with joy. And part of that is like being grateful for what you have and not taking yourself too seriously. Like you said, like, you know, you do a job, might not go perfectly, but you move on to the next one. But really savoring those moments, like when I get to sit down at my drawing table and create something from scratch, even if I'm being art directed, like I do have a lot of creativity. You know, I get to experience a lot of like creative moments every day, like how am I going to approach this problem that this client has or I'm working on a lot of my own books right now. So that's great too, 'cause I get to like make the rules for what I do. And you know, I'm really into podcasts and music and I just love those moments where I get to like listen to something interesting or some music that I love and I'm drawing or painting and I'm creating this thing that I get to put into the world. And to me, there's just like that's what gets me out of bed every morning, despite the stress, despite the deadlines, despite the occasional client battles over whether this should be this color or that color, you know, like really I, that's magical. And I came into this career pretty late in life. And so I have an experience like going to a desk job every day for 18 years and I'm telling you like, or maybe 16 years, it's boring as hell. I mean, I think there are ways the desk jobs can be creative but like what I get to do now is and I get to change lives in a way, you know, it's so funny. I used to work in the nonprofit world and I was working in education and public education and I was very passionate about the organization that I worked for and we were really progressive and we were making changes and when I left there to become a full-time artist, I was like, how am I gonna get back to the world now? I couldn't imagine and now I get to do it every day just with my art or inspiring people or writing books that people can learn from because that's also really important to me that I'm part of something bigger than myself and that I can give back and share and be generous. That also motivates me. So, yeah, living a joy, I guess. - Yeah, I love that and actually, something I've been leaning into a lot and I've been pushing others to do this is, I actually spent the past couple of years trying to get into some markets and that I think my motivation was really searching for affirmation of like, I'm worthy as an artist or I can, I'll be able to assign my name to these types of accomplishments and that will say that I had a body of work or I don't know, some other, I don't know if it's ego driven or whatever it is but I had a realization over the past couple months that really, if I lean into this stuff where the process is kind of euphoric for me that not only did those things tend to work out a lot better, I also, I tend to make work that is received in such a better way. When I'm doing that work that is like bringing me joy and so the thing for me is that I've been pushing people to go into and I teach, so I've been pushing my students, I teach a class and I do the podcast and all that to like lean into and notice, when are you feeling most in joy? When are you most in that kind of euphoric place and lean into doing the things, the processes that are those things and don't be led so much by the end result or the affirmation or whatever it is and I don't know. - Or even comparing yourself to other people and what you think you should be doing because then maybe an illustrator you admire works in this particular genre, works with these kinds of clients. Like I talk a lot about, you know, sealing your own ship or carving your own path and that, you know, if we all did what the other person did or if we all sort of worked in these particular ways, it would be boring, right? I love how diverse the illustration world is and that we're all doing different things and I think that's what resonates most for people who follow the work of illustrators is when that illustrator's like doing that thing that they love because that's what comes across more than, oh, I did, sometimes I'll work with a prestigious client and I'll like post a picture on Instagram and people don't care, it's all about whatever. - Yeah, if the picture's cool, it's great, but that's what they really respond to is like, if you've made something interesting or something that they can relate to, not whether, you know, who you worked with or the kind of thing it was, really in the end, I feel like my value or my sense of worth or value is so much, becomes so much richer when I'm doing the stuff that I love and putting that out there instead of thinking about what I should be doing or what I could be doing. - Yeah, sometimes I think-- - You know, and then beginning in my career that was harder too. - Yeah, yeah, sorry, did you have more? - That's okay. - Okay. - I was gonna say in the beginning of my career that was harder because I still hadn't figured out what I love to do, so you're kind of like always toggling between figuring out where, you know, finding your voice and figuring out who you are as an artist and then also figuring out like what parts of the industry is does my work gonna fit best and that requires experimentation and learning and-- - Yeah, definitely think, that's another thing that I think, you know, I like the idea. I know that there's always this push and then there's pushback and all that, you know, in culture and everything. And I think we're on the wave of pushing back against the do what you love thing to a degree. But, you know, I subscribe to the idea of pushing into the things that are naturally your strengths and interests and all that. But I do think you made a good point about like early on, you really have to just try a lot of things before you've lived much of your life. You need to like actually, you don't even know what you like at the beginning or what you love and you kind of discover things as you try different things. - It's true and yeah, exactly. And you don't, you know, you have to say yes to every opportunity even if it pays then you're, you know, whatever. And you gotta like, if people are like, well, how do you know what illustration market your work is really gonna fit into? And I'm like, you don't. - Yep. - You know, for some people, they graduate from school and their portfolio is so tight already that they really, you know, they instantly fit into a category and start having success immediately. But those situations are rare. I mean, for the most part, you have to work for years to sort of figure out where your niche is and it may not be what you expected. - Yeah, I think actually the other thing that has been a struggle for me recently is that, so this, the podcast for me and talking, it's really like a weird thing like has been, has become kind of a medium for me that I have been, the momentum of like using my voice as an art, as an artist, has become, is kind of snowballing and it's really bizarre. And I think podcasting in general is, it's, I don't know, it's just kind of like, it has like a momentum of its own and I love doing it. I'm really, I get in that like euphoric place when I'm creating podcasts and all this stuff. It's just ridiculous. But I think a challenge for me was like, I think we always wanna do what seemed amazing to us rather than what is like, what's true to us and sometimes what's amazing to other people that we do feels super just regular to us, like natural and we have a hard time seeing the value of it. And I think for me, I kept thinking like kids books or you know, working for the New York Times or whatever it was, like these things were these pillars of artistry and therefore were worth my time and energy. And I've had a real difficult time seeing like podcasts for me feel so much more natural and, but there's such a new medium that they don't have that romance about it. But, and I'm guessing, you know, 'cause you do a lot of, I feel like new things with the blog and these projects and all that that there's a degree where you're just having to make it up as you go along 'cause there's not precedence. (upbeat music) - The two things, it's kind of a two-part question of one, what are you really excited about? Like, I think one of the things that keeps artists going is like curiosity or like, you think you're discovering something new or either that or what do you think's working now or changing in the way that people are perceiving things or receiving it? So you could go either way there. - Like, my own work or just in general? - Just general, I mean like, what is, what's the thing that is still lingering on your mind when you end for the day or you have to, you know, the thing that you're excited about or something that feels fresh? (upbeat music) - Oh gosh, you finally stumped you. - And actually I thought, man, before I almost wanted to give you like a heads up that I was gonna ask you this because I thought it might be hard to come up with on the spot, but you know, are there, one of the things actually that I noticed on your blog was this thing about curating your existence online and how-- - Oh, yeah, yeah. - Okay, yeah, I can talk about that, yeah. - Let's do that. - That's a great thing for prompting me. Yeah, that is one thing that's been on my mind. So I wrote this blog post a week before last and I actually need to write a follow up to it 'cause I promised that at the end of this blog post. But I've been thinking a lot about this idea of basically curating, especially in places like Instagram, your online existence. And I noticed that a lot of artists and designers do it. We only post photos that are sort of perfectly lit and nicely styled. The more followers you have, the less of a tendency you have to post messy pictures or things from your real life. And when I joined Instagram, that's all I posted was pictures of my dog and my cat. I didn't even post very many pictures of my work and now my Instagram account is my professional account. So I take it super seriously. I want people to have a really positive experience with my art and I only post twice a day, that kind of thing. And I notice a lot of other people do it too. And I said, well, what does this say about me? What does this say about being an artist or a designer? What is this communicating to maybe younger generations of people who are looking at, or just people in general who are looking at what we do? Are we sort of only trying to give the impression that our lives are sort of clean and perfect and that the art making process is clean and perfect. And I do curate my Instagram feed now for very specific reasons that I need privacy. I don't post a lot of personal photos 'cause now I have 104,000 followers. And they're all reasons that make sense to me. I want my photos to all be things that people are gonna enjoy looking at. And I talked about how every morning I have to clean cat vomit up off the floor. And I don't think because of that 'cause no one wants to see that. Like I try to post what I think people are gonna want to see. But that only gives a one perspective on my life. And I'm a much more complex person than my Instagram feed will have you experience. And people will still say to me, I feel like I know you. And when they meet me and post, I think, no, you don't know me at all. What I'm showing you is like this really small microcosm, not just of my life, but of my art practice and my experiences as an artist. And that's I think part of why my blog is important 'cause it gives me another venue, probably like for you, your podcast, to talk about the real shit that goes on every day. That your visual imagery might not show. - Yep. - And so it's a huge response to this blog post. People were like, yes, I think about this all the time too. Some people were like, I reject that out of hand. Some people were like, I'm caught up in it too. I don't know what to think about it. And then I promised to kind of come to some conclusion about whether it was good or bad. - Yeah. - Or better at some future date. And I haven't written a blog post yet, but. - Have you made a conclusion about it? - No, I haven't, but I'm, no, and I think that's why I haven't written the next iteration. And I think I need to have an opinion. And maybe the opinion is it depends how you look at it or I think ultimately my opinion is that it's harmful. - Yeah. - And I'm not still not sure what to do about that. Because a lot of people back and said, yeah, your photos are really beautiful and everything, but I still, we still experience you as a real person because of what you write underneath the photos. And so I feel like sometimes my voice as a human being kind of helps counterbalance the prettiness of my pictures. A lot of people said, yeah, your feet is super curated but not compared to some people's which are really sterile. - Yeah. - But those are the people who have a lot of followers because people like to see clean, beautiful, like they want to see what they don't have that also makes them mad often. Like when you're constantly looking at Facebook or Instagram and all you're seeing are people's accomplishments or their beautiful photos, it can also make you feel really crappy about yourself. Like I had to go off Facebook this morning because like half my illustrator friends got into American illustrations I didn't, so I'm like, yeah, look at the same one. - Yeah, essentially. - And so, because half release sort of compare itself to other people and it's hard. Like I do think how much we curate is potentially harmful because it's not telling the whole story and it's not being super truthful. But I still don't know what to do about it because I kind of like my nicely lit curated Instagram feed. - Yeah, I don't know what to do. And I don't, I really don't have an answer for that. I think obviously, you know, I think it's a complex issue. But I, the one thing that I kind of have told my students that has been a good differentiation for me is I think there's a difference between, so you're not talking about faking it 'til you make it because you have a career and all that jazz, but I think early on you hear that like fake it 'til you make it idea. And I think there's, I feel like any of these things you can kind of look at them from different directions. And for me, what I try to tell my students as they're making their websites and doing their online stuff is think of it less like faking it and think of it more like dressing for the job you want and not the one that you have. And so, you know, I think that there's a degree of that that's totally fine. Like you're aspiring to more and all that. And then I do think it's gotten complex with weaving in your personality and your personal life with your business. And it sounds like as you've like created more of a business around this, do you think you're gonna see a shift in the way that you identify with your art or have you seen a shift in that? Like, is there a difference between you and your art? - I think my art is a really strong reflection of my personality. So, and I think that comes through for sure. And so I actually feel very connected to my work. And I do feel like my work is, I don't feel like I've dumbed down my work or that my work is in any way. I mean, occasionally I'll do an illustration job where I'm being art directed to death and it doesn't end up feeling like me at all. And that's just part of being an illustrator. - Yeah, we all have to do that. - Or a designer, right? It's just the way it is, but for the most part, I try to infuse my personality and my passions and my interests and my colors and my markings and to everything that I do so that, you know, and I do a lot of different things and I work in a lot of different mediums. Sometimes I feel a little schizophrenic, but I do feel like my goal is always to keep it authentic to me and to work on things. Like I've turned down jobs because I just am like, I can't do a job for this cleaning company or this product that I would never use or, but for the most part, I take jobs that feel like a good fit for me and I do work that feels like me have developed a distinct style and all of that, so that is helpful. But again, it's like after years and years of practice and working on it that I've come to this place and I think like the people, you know, your students, they're in this place where like, it's super exciting 'cause the world is their oyster, they could do anything, but that's also really overwhelming and you gotta try all these different things and ultimately, you know, when I teach, I say you gotta develop an identifiable look and feel to your artwork and that's why people are gonna hire you and part of the curation that we do online is to help with that. Giving people a distinct idea of who we are and what we're about and sometimes it feels a little whitewashed, but it's kind of what you have to do to market your business and it's just, it's like nothing is perfect or clean really, but the extent to which you can, you know, sort of represent your brand, whatever that is, in a way that feels consistent and recognizable, the better you're gonna do. - Yep. - That's just how it works. - It sounds like to me that you have and I feel like you've developed a healthy version of thinking of how you have a private life and then you also have a business to run and there's differences there and I do think you need to work out, everyone has to work it out for themselves of like what they're comfortable with and how that manifests and all that. One thing, one last thing that I wanted to ask you, we talked a lot about insecurities and just different emotional things that you have to work through as your indifferent stages as an artist. And actually, I think a lot of, you hear a lot of artists talk about fear and imposter syndrome and all this kind of jazz and I think on a day-to-day basis, I would have assumed that I don't actually struggle with that until recently, I've just noticed that sometimes some emotional bout of wrestling with my work will actually throw off half of my day because I will get into this weird corner of wishing I had that or thinking my work sucks because of X, Y, and Z. As you've been doing this for a while now, what have you learned any tricks that have helped you get out of that funk or tackle those days and do you still have those days? - Yeah, I think I mentioned that earlier, that like, yeah, I have days and moments where, I had one, two days ago, I was like, my work sucks, I was like, why am I even doing this? I should just quit, you know? And it's part of the creative process, like that's what I meant also, like you think you're gonna arrive at this place where everything becomes easy and blows out of you just, but it doesn't. It's still, everything is kind of a struggle, but it would be boring if it wasn't. So yes, I still experience those things and with age, I have become much more resilient because I think the greatest gift that the universe can give you is perspective and the way you get perspective is through going through hard stuff, getting through it, surviving it, and then when you go through it again, you're like, oh, I got through this already, I'm gonna get through it again this time and then the next time. So I think perspective really helps me. And again, it's the only, you can only develop it with age. So, you know, things do in some ways get easier. I also just try to remember that I'm a human being and that I'm not the only one who gets jealous or frustrated or envious or feels like, a jerk, that these are parts of the human experience that everyone experiences. If I'm feeling it, somebody else is feeling it too. So that like, oneness with humanity helps me. And then I just sort of like brush myself off and I try to focus on my own journey and my own path, which hasn't failed me yet. Like it's different than other peoples and I haven't gotten everything I've wanted and I haven't worked with every dream client, you know, bloody blob, but it's, but it's going pretty well. And so I'm just gonna keep doing my thing and focus on, you know, what I get at, the positive stuff I get out of that. - And one of the things that you said-- - And that always helps. - Yeah, one of the things that I think is really important that you said was something that I try to remember that's really helped me is that, you know, when I was in college, I had to work at Subway and I always liked talking about that because I was a sandwich artist before I was an artist and I hated that job. And I think a lot of why I hated it was it was so boring and so easy in terms of challenge. And I try to remember as when I'm really going through it and it's really emotional or it's really, there's lots of conflict that that's why it's not boring and that's why it feels meaningful. And so I think that that's a good point that you just, as you're going through it, remember that, you know, I've heard it said like, if you watched a movie and there was no conflict, it would be totally boring. And so to remember that those moments of triumph that mean a lot to you, that feel fantastic and why you do it are only fueled by all of the crap. And so I think that that definitely helps me. And that's a good point. And I think sort of like because we have the perspective, we sort of understand that 'cause we've been through enough in life. But there's this quote by Sigmund Freud and it's something like, someday all the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful. And it's true, right? Like, can't you look back to your 20s, like some you went through and you're like, man, that made this happen or I became a better person or that helped me develop this friendship with this person or that situation that was so heartbreaking to me actually helped me grow in this way. And again, only years in perspective will help you understand that. And it's true and it's like that's, if we never went through hard things or we never felt insecure or we never questioned our work, we would be boring people. - And there'd be no pain. - There'd be no pain. - There'd be no there there. - Yeah, exactly. So you don't want to live in this struggle. You don't want to stay in the struggle. But you got to work through it and have a positive attitude. But it's essential. - Yeah. And actually, I feel like I'm someone who, I've had moments in my career that have literally brought me to tears that I'm so like, man, like, oh, this is awesome. And I worked really hard for this. And I'm always, I always know those moments of real feelings of triumphing through something. I know that that is all of that great feeling and accomplishment is fueled by all the struggles and all the things before. - Yes. - And I think I got to the point where I'm a little bit sick about it to where I have whenever I'm like, up against something really challenging, there's a tiny part, it's small, but there's a tiny part of me that's like, this is going to feel so good when I finally get to the other side. But it's that perspective. - In the middle of a really hard illustration job right now, I mean, it's massive, super fast turnaround. I'm doing book interiors and cover for another author. And I'm telling you the cover. I'm just like, I'm on like my fourth round of changes. We can't, it's all digital, it's all in Illustrator. So there's like, there's so much back and forth about color, which you can change so easily in Illustrator, right? So there's no, you know, if I had just painted it, they would have been like, fine, I'll move on. Yeah, we're done. And I'm just like, I'm about to stab myself in the head. At the same time, I know that when this book is done, it's going to be so beautiful. And I'm going to be so like relieved that it's over and proud of it. So that's why-- - That's happy that you got it perfect. And, you know, you know, put a time in. - That's right. So that's why I'm just like muddling through with the art director right now to get it there. You know, it sucks. - I feel you on that. All right, I think that that's probably the full deal. I had an awesome time talking to you and-- - Yeah, this was great. - I super appreciate it. This was fantastic. I think that it's great to get a perspective from someone that is in your position in their career. And I think that it hopefully for those that are still kind of in hustle mode, it will help them have some peace and help them to have the perspective to enjoy it as it's going. That's one of the things when I look back early on, I wish I would have enjoyed it. Even the times when money was tight and all that just enjoy it while you're doing it. - Because when you're starting out, you do have much more freedom because you are making more personal work, you're trying to build your portfolio. And I always tell students, 'cause I lecture in classes a lot, you enjoy this time because in 10 years, you're not gonna have any of it, you know? And it really is a special time, you know, that period of time when you're growing your business. - Yep. - Thank you, and I love your work. - Okay. - And I've seen, it just seems like it continues to get more mature and like the swimming stuff that you've been doing, the swimming book and all that just, it's just really awesome to watch your work grow and the career and all that. So, and you know, I've learned a lot through everything that you've done. And I hope that this next year is fantastic for you. - Thank you, Andy. It was a pleasure talking to you. - And I can't wait to see what I found this year. - Yes, all right. I will, I'm-- - Walking up. - Yeah. (upbeat music) - Man, that was so good. Thank you again so much, Lisa. That was fantastic. You are super generous with your time and sharing your story as an artist. And I know that it's gonna make a big difference for people. And just, you know, it's just awesome to have a such a candid conversation. I got so much from it. And I'm sure all of you are going to as well. So again, go check out Lisa's work and go thank her for being so generous and so helpful. Guys, thank you for backing the show on Patreon. Thank you for the crazy amount of iTunes reviews that you give me every week. Thank you for spreading the word of creative pep talk. The growth of the show has been pretty nuts this year. Every week it starts to kind of jump up in a considerable way. You guys are so awesome. When you guys share the show, it just means a lot to me. And, you know, a lot of you say that you share it with your friends and your coworkers and all that good stuff. And thank you so much. Thanks for the support and the love. I hope that you get tons from this. I hope that this helps you strike a balance between making good money and making great art. Thanks guys. Thanks to illustration age, our syndicate. You can find the show on illustrationage.com/creativepeptalk. Thanks to Yoni Wolf, the lead singer of Y for letting us use his music as our theme music. Thanks to Nate Utesh, my man, and an illustrator designer, cool dude guy who is just fantastic. Thank you for letting me use your band Metavari's music for the podcast. It's perfect for the podcast and it's great work music. Go check that out, guys. Guys, I've got so much awesome stuff planned for creative pep talk this year. It's ridiculous. I cannot wait to get it to you. And until then, if you have to go back and listen to old episodes, if you have to do whatever it takes to stay peped up and speak to you guys. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - I did consider Barney a friend and he's still a friend to this day. The idea of Barney is something that I want to live up to. You know, I love you. You love me. I call it the purple mantra. Barney taught me how to be a man. Generation Barney, a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) From Academy Award-winning actor, Matthew McConaughey's soulful and humorous picture book to New York Times bestselling author, Kristen Hannah's "The Women", moms don't have time to read books, is an author interview podcast unlike any other. In 30 minutes or less, each episode of this chart-topping and webby award-winning show dives deep beneath the cover, fostering friendship and camaraderie, support and curiosity, connection and compassion. Hosted by me, Zibi Owens, author, book store owner and head of what the LA Times called the Zibiverse, moms don't have time to read books, has something for everyone, whether you're a mom like me or simply a busy reader. So don't miss out. Follow moms don't have time to read books, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now. New episodes are released every weekday, bringing books to life. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)