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

Hi Jackie, thanks for joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I am currently living from my art full time for the last 3-4 years during these strange political times.

Day one: I was a 21 year old just graduated from college. I worked for Panera for a few years living off of their near expired meats and sandwiches that had been made wrong. They were gonna throw it all out and I was a hungry young person.

I didn’t even realize at that time but that Greenpeace would’ve saved my life. Sure, my culture played a big role in my journey and really wanting to be heard through art, but it was because of a creative resistance art training at Greenpeace when i was 23 that really changed my life.

It was the first time i was exposed to art as a radical tool that played a vital role in creating change.

From then, I took it to heart and really start utilizing art for change. Years later, after meeting my husband on the frontlines of Standing Rock, ND, during the NODAPL occupation, we started a family and knew it was time to start an arts business. It was a huge learning curve but it was 2020 and lockdown was happening. With businesses closing left and right, a lot of small business supplement programs came about and we really utilized the financial opportunities to open the doors to FishBear Studios.

Major things I would recommend is start with outlining what you want to do with your art. Writing our business took us about 3 months to write but it really outlined our goals and put a lot of our dreams into perspective and importantly, a timeline.

Gosh, I could go on but it really comes down to how dedicated you are to your craft, and yourself. No one else is gonna do the work for you.

Jackie, 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?

I am a Yurok/Washoe/Surigaonon artist from Klamath and Crescent City California in the northern area.
I’ve always loved creating and admiring art.

When my husband and I were getting ready to welcome our daughter during peak COVID era of 2020, we decided to go all in and lock in on our art business. We went from a small kitchen table in the corner of our living room to applying to all of the small business funding opportunities that were coming out. We got a lot of rejections, but with the few that we were able to receive, we opened the doors to our family art studio, Fishbear Studios.

A lot of the process was making mistakes and asking for help when we did run into walls. Thankfully for us we had a lot of community backing us and offering us a lot of support in the ways of reading our applications, going over our structure and providing feedback that we could use in our work.

I’m just real thankful that we as a family are able to support our home through our art.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

It’s really hard to unlearn the pain of those close to you telling you that ‘art isn’t a real job’ because it really installs in you and your art the ‘imposter syndrome’ which I still go through here and there but much less than in my 20s.

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

I really wish I knew how to write about my art and passions a lot earlier. In my younger years, I just thought of how I could make art but not really know how to talk about it. Writing about your work really gets ya further, especially when it comes to applying for grants.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.FishBearstudios.com
• Instagram: @jackiefawn @fishbearstudios

Image Credits

I don’t really name my art since it’s hard for me to track art titles. But yeah. These are the ones I’d love to use. C: