We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Leonie Jonk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Leonie , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful life than getting the opportunity to add colour to the world in the way that I do. But what makes me the most grateful is the way I can manage my own schedule and life in a way that suits the me of that day. I used to work as a designer but after a really bad burnout I found myself with chronic fatigue problems. That means every day can be different, one day I can have a full working day while I might only be able to focus for half an hour the next day. Or not at all. I’m so grateful that what little energy I have can go towards creating something that not only gives me energy, but also gives it to the people who enjoy my work. Whether that’s commissioned art or when people buy my products. Lately I’ve been craving to create work that hold more depth and storytelling and I can’t wait to explore that further.

I couldn’t imagine working a regular job anymore due to my disability, but most of the time I don’t crave it either. The only exception is the feeling of working in a team. It can get pretty lonely working as the only member of my business. Luckily I’ve found a wonderful community of artists online and I could really recommend any other creatives to do the same! It makes all the difference on those hard and lonely days.

Leonie , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Sometimes I feel like I tumbled into my current career while other days it feels like I returned to a part of me that had been missing for a long time. While I spent my teenage years drawing and coming up with stories, I never pursued it as a career and for all of my twenties I didn’t so much as touch a pencil. But after some years working as a UI designer I ended up with a burnout that was so bad, I couldn’t even watch tv anymore. Everything was too much. The only thing that didn’t seem to hurt was when I pulled out my art supplies and started playing around with them. It was like the world fell away and I was where I needed to be. I’ve been creating ever since.

Now I get the greatest kick out of creating something that makes someone else smile. My work is incredibly varied, one month I’ll be creating products based on my work, the next I’ll mostly be doing commissioned art, or working on emotive paintings for an exposition and since last year I’ve been pursuing publishing my work in things like literary magazines. There are so many different options to explore as an artist but one bit remains my favorite out of everything. When you’ve touched someone and brightened up their day or make them feel comforted. There is nothing else like that.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’ve been building my creative business for almost 7 years now and most of that was a struggle. Not because I didn’t want it hard enough or anything like that, but because I kept running into my own limits. And that can be crushing. It took a long time for me to learn that I could do amazing things, while still maintaining a healthy relationship to my body. And I do still get it wrong quite often haha. But while we may get thrown off course sometimes, we can recover and return to what we were doing. Just because it takes us more time sometimes, doesn’t means it’s a failure or that we should quite. While I can’t imagine doing anything different right now, there were many months where I thought about throwing in the towel. Every market that didn’t do well. Every time I saw a friend succeed in ways I could only dream of. Every disastrous launch and every lonely breakdown. It feels like the past years have been littered with failure. But every time we get back up again and we know a little bit more. And things will go just a little bit easier the next time. And the one after that. The only trick is to keep going.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I don’t have an enormous following on social media and that’s exactly why I picked this question. Because while my numbers are quite low, I do have a very close & loyal social media following. Enough that I’ve managed to have 3 successful kickstarter campaigns and create 3 collections from them. What I want to share with you is that it’s not about the amount of followers you have. People who follow you just for empty entertainment are fine, but they won’t help you achieve your goals. What has helped me is creating a closer connection to my followers. I share about the struggles of my life openly. I share about creating my art, but also just my day to day life. Not in my feeds, but in stories and the occasional video. That can range from how difficult it can be to have to rest a million times a day (boring!), or how debilitating a flare can be, to the joys of enjoying life and the successes in my business. You’ll notice that I’m sharing a lot of personal stuff and that’s fully intentional. As creatives, our lives are fuel for our craft & sharing that with your audience will allow them to not only connect better to you, but also to your art. And that’s a really important step towards finding the superfans that can help support your creative business. They’re out there, I promise you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.artbyleoniejonk.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/artbyleoniejonk/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/leonie-jonk-0646077
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@leoniejonk