We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ana Fuentes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ana below.

Ana, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew I wanted to pursue some type of creative career after leaving high school. It was never instilled in me to follow through with becoming an artist because everyone’s main worry is always money and finances. Because of my academic success, my guidance counselors saw more potential in continuing to college to have a “solid” career. I was discouraged from taking electives like art and painting and focused on filling up my resume with Honors and AP classes instead. However, despite what I was learning in class, I waited for the moments we could take on projects needing to design and create for a presentation. I would even help out classmates do their projects just because I wanted to create my rendition of what was being asked rather than learning US history.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I would like to consider myself a creative through and through. I am a textile artist now, but I didn’t start my artistic career working with textiles nor do I exclude myself from other mediums or art forms. I love to dance and sing and appreciate professionals in those fields as well.

I got into working in textiles during my stint working retail with COACH. I let my coworkers know I was an artist part-time and some of them even gave me the idea to try painting on bags. One commission led to another and that led to my collaboration with the brand later on as an on-site artist, offering handpainted monogramming and custom bag collections. I think that’s one of my greatest accomplishments to this date and working alongside such a renowned luxury brand as one of my first collaborations!

Around the same time, I developed an appreciation for clothing design and textiles so I started looking into crochet which then led to embroidery. In 2022, I bought my first machine that helped me create embroidery works, and I have been working with the two mediums ever since.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One thing I love for people to know about me is that I deeply enjoy making things for others. I don’t like to think about the money behind my sales (that’s a bonus) but it’s a heartwarming moment for me when someone buys a work of mine that they can resonate with. Even with commissions, I make it my mission to make my clients happy with the design/work I do because I want to see peoples’ faces light up when they see something I created. :)

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Just like people have their own personalities, artists have their unique styles. Not everyone can draw “anything” and we have preferences on what we like to create, too. I’ve had a handful of instances where clients think “Oh, you’re an artist- so you can do x and y art styles”, and although we can, we can also make something 10 times better in our style and 100% original. Just get to know your artists and see who likes to do what or what jobs fit their realm of expertise.

Not to say we don’t love a challenge either! It’s just a matter of being open-minded and having conversations with your favorite artists to get to know them :)

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @anafvart
• Linkedin: anafvart
• Other: I am also a creative partner for Rozes Creatives, an artist team that offers all types of creative solutions throughout Chicago and beyond. You can find us at www.rozescreatives.com or @rozescreatives on Instagram.

Image Credits
VINCO – thevincocompany.com