A new line of work

Hello friends! It’s been a minute on here. That’s because I started a new job last fall and I’ve been absorbed in it ever since. If you know me personally, you probably know I have worked in digital spaces, specifically in content marketing and social media for quite awhile. But last year, I decided to take a break from it, for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that I was feeing burnt out. Working in social spaces can do that to a person. Even though most people I worked for assumed what I did was simple and easy (“hey, I have a Facebook page too!), it’s kinda not. Especially when you want to be good at it.

And so on to a new chapter in my career. I’ve decided to take a break from the office jobs and those corporate social channels to go back to my first creative love: painting. Back to making things with my hands and not through a device. Back to building something using brushes and paper and pigments. Oh my.

I began painting in the fall with a pet portrait for my cousin Tara who asked me to paint her pup FIVE YEARS AGO! I decided to finally bring out the watercolours because I was at the let’s-get-those-things-done-that-we’ve-put-off-for-way-too-long stage of the pandemic. You remember that one, right? It lasted about a hot minute. Well, the painting thing actually stuck. I found joy in it again. I think it’s because I could devote hours of time to it without feeling guilty of ignoring my family. It’s now my 9 to 5 job. Literally. I start at 9, I go to 5, then I’m done. I don’t work weekends (for the most part) and I’m home for dinner on time (hehe). And right now, those hours are flying by.

Handcrafted = gratifying work

Last weekend, I was reading Seth Rogen’s exceptional GQ interview and when he started to talk about his work a light went off as to why I’m finding my new line of work so satisfying. Much more than I used to. From the article:

More and more, lately, Seth Rogen has been pondering how he produces nothing of any weight or mass. This isn’t self-criticism – he means it literally. Films, he thinks, are a weird product that way. Because after everything – after the script and the budget and the acting and editing and the press and the premiere – what are you left with, really? That’s what he wants to know.

“You can’t touch or feel them,” he says. “They occupy no space. They’re now just ones and zeroes… You know what I mean?”

I felt that to my core. I’m no great filmmaker, except for some rando-dinosaur Lego movie trailer I once made for a contest, but most of what I’ve created in my career is just ones and zeroes. And not lasting ones and zeroes either, because my work was primarily for social channels, which gets the attention span of about half a second… a full second if you’re nasty.

So, when I read on and Seth talked about his pottery:

“I just found it incredibly gratifying to create things that you could touch and interact with.”

I felt like “hellz yeah, I get that, it’s something you can touch, mold with your head AND your hands and far away from a keyboard. It’s so damn satisfying.

And now that I’m doing this full time, I’m surprised at how steady I am with it. Like, don’t get me wrong, the salary is definitely NOT the same, but I am busy full time with commissions or painting things I think people would want to buy. That’s probably the best skill I brought over from my content marketing career with me. Create for the user, not yourself.

So, if you see my artwork feeds, you’ll see so many different kind of paintings. From pop-culture nerdiness to pet portraits to continuous line art to retro weirdness. There’s still stuff I paint just for me, but if you got an idea, I’m game to give it a try for you. Also, I have no wall space in our home anymore, so I really can’t paint for me.

And with that, here is a bunch of art that sprang from a friend asking me for a simple line art piece, which has now evolved into my latest obsession:

Continuous line drawings (with watercolour!)

Get at me if you want some art stuff

So, again, give me a shout if you want something custom made. Or message me for prints or visit my Etsy Store if you see something you like. ✌️