We recently connected with Victoria Warren and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Victoria, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My mother is a strong woman. She’s always been very smart and wise. Other than being a loving provider, those two characteristics always stood out to me the most in her. So, when my mom talks to me or gives me advice, I take it to heart. My mom always raised my siblings and I to be true to ourselves and to wisely listen to our hearts because the heart is treacherous and at times we can’t even know it. If it feels wrong, then it is. Even if it comes from the heart. So when I was in college pursuing a degree in health and fitness, my mom saw that I was not really happy with my journey. With me smiling every day and going through the motions, my mom’s wisdom told her that something was not right. My mom has always known me to be a creative person and to be outright with my creativity. So, I think deep down she knew that I’d always want to pursue a career in art. But my mom raised us to always look at the bigger picture. And knowing me, of course she knew I’d take that and run with the idea of wanting, or better yet, needing to pursue a career that would pay the bills. My mom sat me down and asked me what was I doing with my college career. Of course I said something like, “I’m going to school to get a good job.” My mom has never been the kind of mother to push us into a life that we did not want. She always encouraged us to do what made us happy. As long as we did what was right in God’s eyes, we needed to be sure that the decisions we made would make us happy as well. She encouraged me to go into the film program. I told her I was afraid to do it. “What if I can’t get a job in my field when I graduate?”. I kept panicking about the sheer thought of taking such a risk. My mom just smiled and looked me in my eyes and told me, “if you’re scared to do this then you know it’s something you have to do.” And she was right. I keep a lot of thing in my heart that my mom has told me since infancy, but that piece of advice has gotten me to the place I am right now. My journey has not been without struggles, but because of my mother, I have a unique story to tell. A story full of successes and failures, lessons and disappointments, and everything else under the sun. I will always be grateful to my mother for pushing me to be the creative I am today.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hiya friendssss! I’m Victoria. Most people call me Vic, Tori, or V. I’m an artist from Florida but based in Atlanta, Georgia. My comfort zone is digital Art, photography, videography, and styling. But of course, I ain’t afraid to get my hands dirty and get out of my comfort zone for the sake of art lol. I run two separate businesses, for now! (Insert wink emoji here, haha) My film, photography, videography company is called “by tc prdctions” and my art business is called “another grl artist”. I’m known for leaving out letters for the sake of securing instagram accounts lol. Although I always look for the opportunity to plug my media work, I’d like to put on my Artist hat for this article!

The birth of “another grl artist”:

As most artists origin stories go, I grew up with my hands in everything art. Painting and sketching were my absolute favorite! While in college, I did commission artwork after many of my classmates saw some of the paintings I was doing in my art class. That’s kind of where my art selling journey began! After college I decided to focus more on my film projects and began shooting more and using my art as set decor. Once Covid shut down America, photo and video work slowed down for me as it did for many of my creative friends, so I decided to get an iPad Pro with the pen and see if I could draw digitally. Turns out I could lol. I started to upload my amateur drawing on my personal page and so many people wanted in on the action! I decided to work at it to get better and then I took a poll and the voters told me to start an art page! I was torn on a and so I decided to go the ambiguous or literal route and choose a comically sarcastic name. Thus , another grl artist was born!

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think non creatives struggle with the idea that creatives are non ambitious people who took the east route in life. Or sometimes non creatives may think it’s easy to do what we do. How hard is it to draw a picture or take a photo or edit a video? I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum.

It’s common to think those things, but I’m here to say that being an artist, whether being a full time or part time artist, is never easy. Constantly being asked questions or hearing statements like, “how’s the art phase going?”, “how your little business going?”, “do you plan on getting a real job?”, “you know there’s job fair going on next week”, etc is frustrating and heart breaking. I and many artists alike would like to let everyone know that it is possible to be a successful artist. Being an artist can be a career move. And with the right amount of drive, an artist can take over the scene and become a successful person just like that. And having the support of our non creative peers and loved ones can help that artist be all they can be.

Another thing to remember is that we are humans too. It’s not always chill and hippie like in our lives. We deal with depression, anxiety, and everything else in between. Support from non creatives, genuine or otherwise can really help artists to really do what they believe in! Please consider supporting any artist you know, especially if they are motivated, passionate artists who do the work and do not take the short cut. We are always trying to prove ourselves to our non creative peers when we could use that energy to believe in what we’re doing to succeed in this world. Imagine what we could do with the support of non creatives.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I went with the organic route when building my social media, I don’t have a lot of followers or anything, but what I do have is a community of friends and supporters who enjoy my posts and engage with each other! I’d much rather have a community of people who wholeheartedly believe in me and my artwork than having a huge following of disengaged people. If I could give any advice to artists who want to build their social media, I’d say build a community rather than a following. I may not have many followers, but the followers I do have were gained in a matter of days. And consistency would have made my numbers sky rocket even more. I’d also say working on a good schedule that would allow you to be more consistent would also help with building a community. I know I can be inconsistent when working on commissions. But what I do now to combat that issue is take a break from time to time to work on content for social media so that when I am working on a drawing for a client I can still post. For example, I may take a week or two off from posting and work on about ten to twenty drawings so that when I come back from my break to take commissions, I can still post while I am working on a paid piece. The key to growth is to know the audience you want to attract, try to come up with a nice vibe for you page, (aesthetics aren’t everything, but if you want to to attract a chill audience then you may want to post chill content. In other words, have a social media niche) try to remain consistent, and engage with your audience. Engagement is key! Consistency is a must! Interaction with your audience consistently will gain you the community that you want! Create fun things to do in your story! Do giveaways! Create fun ways for your followers to get incentives if they share your page! Interested people will follow and they can get excited for what you have in store.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @anothergrlartist

Image Credits
All images were drawn by myself. I do not own the rights to the original images which were pulled from Pinterest or instagram.