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

Alright, Apo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I left the 9-5 world back in December of 2018 for a brief break, or so I thought, and right then made a bold promise to myself: I had to paint one painting per week every week of 2019, and share it on social media. I had a single painting commissioned by Crypto.com Arena (then known as the STAPLES Center, of course) soon after. That order then turned into a couple more, then a dozen, and then another… We are now at almost 50 pieces they have either gifted performing artists on their show nights, or are currently displaying at the arena (many have been signed by the portrait subjects as well).

While I had many other commissions happening both before and after those special pieces, it was my growth with the iconic Crypto.com Arena that allowed me to pursue painting full time since then. Bonus: they have an amazing team running it who make everything go so smoothly.

Apo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m an explorer by nature, and with that I’ve been blessed with an obsessive curiosity that only comes out when I’m interested in a subject. I put myself through the hurdles that I believe are necessary for me to reach certain levels of performance each and every time I work on a project. I dig in every single day to try to bring my work one step further than it was before waking up that day. I learn every day, and what I set as my target: I usually destroy.

I currently spray paint stenciled canvases, and often use firearms (in a safe environment with experience) to explode spray paint cans onto the stenciled canvases to create my artwork. I came up with this method many years ago, and while I documented it for learning reasons at the time and didn’t post them, I finally started to share those clips online during the past couple of years, and have received a lot of interest for the work created using this method. I’m a grandson to Armenian genocide survivors, and I was born in Baghdad, Iraq because of that – and spent a few years in the 2003 Iraq War as a teenager before finally moving to the U.S. What I see in firearms not many others are able to see, and that uniqueness brings out a different flavor from the artwork, in my opinion.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The most common misunderstanding from non-creatives, or even creatives who don’t actively practice, is the process. The process starts with feeling a certain emotion and waiting as the mind shuffles through millions of thoughts. It eventually stops on one, sometimes two, and you have to decide if that idea is natural and fits the energy of the emotion. The process feels like I’m hanging out of a window of a speeding train as I try to grab a thought bubble sitting at a train station we’re not stopping at – and often finding out that there is no bubble there and I have to wait and do it all again at the next station.
After that creative side, there’s the creation side – where you not only have to learn the basics of presentation in your work, but also practicing steps until perfecting them. Trying color patterns. Trial and error day after day. Setting up a process to save 15 seconds here, 30 seconds there, to eventually being able to have a tight ship and a great plan to execute. Where do I put the spray can after spraying a layer? If I don’t put it back where it belongs, after two sessions it will cost me an extra 30 minutes to an hour to clean up. Can I afford said wasted time 8 times a week? Absolutely not.
Now think of how you got to see the actual work: Marketing. The creative has spent so much time, energy, and money on slowly growing an audience and potential clients. It didn’t just go viral, it required hours of preparation for that presentation.
When a creative is able to produce an outstanding result for you, that doesn’t “just happen.” They make it happen.

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

Our online profiles are extensions of ourselves. How we present ourselves represent who we would like to be. In 2019, I made a promise to myself to paint and post one painting per week throughout the entire year. That thought not only gave me the biggest gains in skills because of the amount of practice it forced on me, but it brought work from major companies because of it, and with it, substantial social media growth.
My advice, and this is only if you’re already getting traction:
Don’t go for fake – advertise instead. Technically, money is involved in both, but with advertising you know they are real people who can and may potentially become clients. Learn about A/B Testing and try multiple methods like different writing styles, images, and audiences for months and months until you slowly narrow it all down to a process you can trust. It’s worth it in the long run.
My advice, if you’re not getting engagement on your page yet:
Create. Keep creating, choose hashtags wisely, interact with others respectfully and without expectations, and once eyes start looking at your work, they will judge if it’s worth staying or leaving. If you get 1,000 profile visits but only 2 follow you – you might need to reevaluate your page and content. Be honest with yourself, and always learn to do better and better. IT’S SO WORTH THE REACTIONS!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.apoavedissian.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apoavedissian

Image Credits
Apo Avedissian