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

Hannah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I’ve taken quite a few risks in my life in service of carving out a space for my art practice, with the most recent risk taken this past year. At the beginning of 2024, I was living in Los Angeles and working at a temp job I absolutely hated. I’ve never liked on-site work with a super regimented schedule, I’ve never felt good working in a big corporate building with no natural light. No one goes outside! Some don’t take lunch breaks! I create my best artwork when I have ample time and space to myself, and when I can connect to nature, and between the hours at work and the long commute, there just wasn’t time to create, and my inspiration felt squashed.

My entire adult life, I’ve been trying to find work that I enjoy and work that allows for more freedom and flexibility so that I have space for creativity to flow. I kept repeating a cycle of beginning a job for the paycheck, growing anxious and stressed within the role, losing the desire to create art, quitting the job to pursue art full-time, which always led back to me running out of money and having to take another job; the LA temp position was just the most recent iteration of that cycle. Every time I quit a job to pursue art I was taking a risk, but I never felt like any of those risks landed me the life I desired long-term. This year, I feel I have finally taken a risk that will lead me to living out a fulfilled life that has room for both art and a steady paycheck.

After much consideration, I decided to leave the temp job (right as they offered me a full-time salaried position) and leave my apartment in LA to spend the summer working towards a new goal: to take classes and a certification course and become a Bookkeeper. I had done some basic bookkeeping freelance on and off since 2022, and found that I really enjoyed it, so this year I decided to take it more seriously. I took a leap of faith and joined a house sitters website, where I strung together a few months’ worth of house and pet sits in Northern California. With the burden of rent off my back, I was able to focus on the classes and getting my certification. I picked up some remote entry-level bookkeeping work to keep me afloat. Money was tight during this time, and I didn’t know what would happen after the house sits and classes were over, but I had a deep sense I was heading in the right direction and that the risk would pay off. During the summer months, I integrated as best I could into the communities I was house sitting in, and through this was able to show and sell my visual art work at an art walk, an auction, and a maker pop-up at a local farm stand.

Fast-forward to this moment, at the end of 2024: the classes are complete, I’ve passed my certification exam, I’ve made a lot of new art work, and I’ve just landed a job bookkeeping for a small, women-owned accounting business. Though I am not yet able to own my own bookkeeping business (I still have a lot to learn), this is a huge step in the right direction. The goal is to one day work for myself and set my rates and hours, which means I can have time for my art practice every week or every day if I choose. For the first time in my professional life, I like my job and I feel positively about the future of my career path. I don’t feel like I have to choose a steady paycheck over my creative practice anymore, and I feel like the cycle has been broken.

There were some folks along the way that questioned why I was making such a drastic change and blowing up my life, and at times I questioned it too. It’s so hard to try something different and leave certain comforts behind, and many of us are not in a position to do so. I understand that being childless, pet-less, having no large health issues, and having relatively low monthly expenses aided me in taking this risk and finding success with it. This leap of faith wouldn’t be a fit for everyone, but for me it felt right to pursue it, even when I received skepticism and/or negative feedback about my choice. This is a life that works for me, and I am so proud of myself for taking this risk in order to forge a new path.

Hannah, 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?

My primary focus in art is making cyanotypes. For those who are unfamiliar, a cyanotype is a camera-less photographic technique that uses the sun (UV light) to create beautiful blue prints. In 2019, I was at an artist retreat for a month, and about halfway through the retreat I was feeling stuck with the projects I was working on. I rooted around in the supply closet to see if I could find something that sparked interest, and I found Potassium Ferricyanide and Ferric Ammonium Citrate, which are the two chemicals needed to create cyanotypes. I asked my fellow artists if anyone had cyanotyped before, and was given a crash course in the basics of printing and then sent on my way. I became enamored with this medium, and I spent the remainder of my time at the retreat making cyanotypes and experimenting with different exposure times, materials to print on, and objects to print on the surfaces I chemically treated.

It’s been over 5 years since that retreat, and my love of cyanotype has only grown. It’s always a lesson in patience and curbing disappointment if something doesn’t turn out, and it’s always fun to see the finished product after all of the preparations and work. I tend to use pressed plants/flowers and hand-cut stencils to create my designs, but recently I have gotten into using photo negatives to print blue versions of film photos I have taken. There is so much more for me to learn and do, and I am excited to experiment with cyanotyping on new surfaces and to try different toning techniques to get a finished product that isn’t blue.

The body of work I currently have celebrates the body and the home, highlights the healing power of nature, and showcases the organic shapes and textures of plants outside my front door. I mostly cyanotype on muslin (fabric), which can be framed and hung, but I also dabble in cyanotyping denim jeans, music paper, and wood. I sell at maker fairs and small artist pop-ups, and I have an Etsy store and an artist website where my cyanotypes can be purchased. It’s been wonderful to share my art with the public, and I hope to continue to do so!

Etsy: https://hannahdonovanart.etsy.com
Website: https://www.hannahdonovanart.com/

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I think the unconscious goal that began driving my creative journey was to express thought or feeling that felt integral to my personhood but was difficult to fully describe or explain. The desire to be deeply understood fuels me to create, whether that’s a poem, a photo book, or a cyanotype. As I’ve discovered this about myself, I’ve found that another goal of my art is to make others feel understood. Some very profound moments of my life have come from reading something or viewing something that makes me feel completely seen, and those moments happened for me because someone else decided to create a piece of art and share it. I’ve realized that I don’t have to be the best craftsperson, the best writer, etc. to impact another’s life, I just have to make something that is truthful to my experience and be willing to share it. I love to create for myself, but I also create with the hope that someone connects with what I have made in a positive way and feels seen and understood.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

This isn’t so much a comment about a specific resource, but I wish I had learned earlier on to look for opportunities to sell and show my art within my local community: to ask if the farm stand who carries local cards is interested in carrying mine, to ask other artists in the community about maker fairs and art walks that have low artist fees, to go into cafes that align with my artistic aesthetic and ask if they ever showcase artists on their walls. These statements for some people will not be new or revolutionary information, but for me it took a lot of time to lean into community resources.

When I first tried to sell my art and establish myself as an artist, I applied to big, well-known art shows and galleries that aesthetically were so different from what I was doing, and I was always disappointed when I didn’t get in. I also applied to many big maker fairs, and if I ever was accepted I could never justify the high fees for booth space, so I always ended up declining. I then decided to turn my attention to a local level. At first, I was too shy to put myself out there to a shop owner to ask if they would be interested in carrying my work. But slowly I started to break out of my shell: I found shops where my art seemed right at home and asked if they wanted to carry my cards and wall decor, I discovered small maker fairs and art walks in my town through Google and Instagram searches, many of them with no booth fees, and I connected with a local art college and small galleries to see if they ever did open calls. Because I sought out opportunities on a local level, I have made some wonderful connections and have done many things that I previously would not have imagined for myself. Shifting my attention to focus on local resources has been very positive, so I encourage other artists to do the same!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hannahdonovanart.com/
• Other: Etsy: https://hannahdonovanart.etsy.com