I heard an episode of Andy J. Pizza's podcast the other day that talks about obsessions.
About embracing obsessions and finding our inner genius.
This stuck with me more than I expected and to this day I am thinking about it.
To better understand my ideas, I decided to write a letter here.
As an artist, I often want to explore different things, different themes, different materials, different colors... And lately I've been trying everything to diversify, to get out of the sameness (sometimes disguised as boredom).
There were countless illustrations without much meaning, just for the sake of exploring, experimenting.
This podcast episode added to my current frustrations made me think: why not go back to the same old thing? Is this bad?
Nowadays, one of the most effective ways to share our work is through the Internet, more specifically through social media. I have my personal work, but to actually live as an artist, pay bills, food, cat food, what matters is money. On social media I make myself present and invite companies to hire me.
Instagram changed my obsessions. That's it.
In the beginning, when I was entering the world of drawings, I did everything, mainly I drew from observation and copying. Over time, I came to understand what I liked to do the most, how I liked to represent things, and for some reason, I became obsessed with cacti.
Maybe my mother and her thousand and one cacti have had a slight influence on this, but it's true that everything I drew had a cactus. I even made a collective zine about it!
In my poetic adolescent mind, the cactus represented me: strong, resilient, with thorns. (Yes, I had that phase of avoiding getting attached to people because of the fear of letting me down.)
It became a theme, many people knew me as "the cactus girl". A big brand even plagiarized a print of my t-shirt (who knows, knows)!
All that to say: I loved cacti and wasn't afraid to show it.
I didn't have any silly thoughts that sometimes knock on the door these days: "Will people get tired of this?", "How will I be able to get clients with this illustration?", "Does this fit in the portfolio?"...
As I monetized my art, my vision was moving much more towards the market than inside me. But calm down, I don't think this is necessarily negative! It made my art my career and I am very grateful.
But after hearing that word again, obsession, I started to think about it. Why not go back to the same old things?
Instagram made me obsess over numbers, likes, strangers, approval.
I want to get back to my healthy obsessions.
With that in mind, I began to fearlessly explore one of my obsessions: Cats.
I made a series of illustrations and plan to continue!
Can you believe I've been asked why I don't draw dogs? As if I don't like dogs!
It's just that there's something about cats that fascinates me. In addition to having 4 creatures living with me, each one very different from the other, I love studying their movements and behaviors. The way the tail looks, the positions they sleep, the types of fur and how I can represent that in digital painting, and so on...
So wait for a lot of cats in the ig feed, because now I'm going to do what I want!
I will embrace what I love.
Cool links:
- The episode of the Creative Pep Talk
- A post of my Behance with "Women with animals" illustrations compiled
