We recently connected with Bonita Williams and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Bonita, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
If I could go back in time I would definitely say I wish I started my creative career sooner. When I say I started if I’m being honest I feel like I started when I was like six but of course at six you don’t even know what exists as far as making something into a career like maybe just watching cartoons knowing if you can draw and have a story line cartoons go on TV. But Id say I realized and have been consistent in creativity Since 2021. I start just doing things in 2017 with out really knowing the direction to go just doing random thing that seemed like they made sense to things I saw on the internet to be creative. What starting sooner would’ve Looked like for me would be creating more artistic things for fun that are skills to have as a multimedia artist,selling art commission work, and just embodying what it looks as far as clothes to be an artist. The reason being is because nearly everything I do now I did when I was younger but didn’t know what I was doingI used to resell shoes in high school even was a vendor at this shoe selling event .Before I drew more in middle school and pretty well and then being told about graphic design in like seventh grade I knew about it but never started it .Making YouTube videos I had a YouTube channel in middle school did a few vlogs like back when people used to jerk and stuff like the dance jerking but to know exactly what could turn into as an artist. Overall about Just being consistent in creating whatever as an artist and finding a way to make money even though people don’t like to hear that being said. Even still just increasing being known in my community for what I enjoy doing and watching my self grow over the years as an artist where ever I moved to would have been amazing because actualizing dreams into reality at an early age is a wonderful thing.
Bonita, 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?
How I got into this industry was because these are my interest that I’ve always loved. I knew that if I wanted to have a career in something it needs to be something I enjoyed doing. And with anything that you love doing and you wanna make a career out of it you can’t have career without a business. Something that a mentor told me Nate butt who owns open mind emporium told me was that you always need to have merchandise . Selling merchandise is a business so you gotta have a way to make money to have a business. So therefore anything you love to do and you wanted to grow you got to have discipline and becoming better and better at it. At some point we all struggle at just improving when we want something to happen for us .but one thing is for certain nothing changes if nothing change,so if it’s something you want to see happens for yourself whatever it may be you have to keep going and working at it every day and sometimes you gotta take a break too but you just keep going to make it something into a reality. Most importantlyI really believe everything u love to has some kinda place in the world. Right now the products and service I provide is I am selling stickers,prints,original artwork on canvas .Services I provide are graphdesign, drawings, paintings,murals,videography which includes editing and filming .if you would like any artwork that I’ve made whether it something u saw or that you seen I’ve created in my prints stickers or others products into something like say a calendar that I have done for a client before I’d be more than happy to make it for you. Problems I help solve for clients is brain storming sometimes I have clients that would like to hire me for things but they need help with putting an image to something they’re in visioning . So I start out brainstorming all the ideas out and then as the artist I have a lot of all the stuff in my head already so just put it down to paper .what sets apart from other people is that things that I imagine are different with someone else would imagine and work ethic.I bring a different ideas out that you wouldn’t normally see in a timely manner. My best work that I’m extremely proud of is a mural I help create for a children hospital that I got to promote in the local news in Texas. I really want anyone who finds out about me to know is that I truly love what I do and take it seriously and it’s about the art and creating exactly what they want and pushing my self to create something extraordinary in personal creations as well
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
There was a pivot in my career two times .when I was able help create drawings from childrens into art work for a mural for an important children hospital for the city or Temple Texas .while also featured on the news to talk about it. After that moment which was presented to me so randomly while just listening to the radio with my grandmother after moving from Arizona. I knew that opportunity happen no matter where you are. Then another time which was more like a realization after seeing kids asking people in a parking lot ask people if they’d want to make donations for their basketball team .I knew I also had the courage to do the same thing when there are moments where I feel I’m not selling art as much as I should that ended up leading me to even more commissions.
: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
The goal and mission is to reach a point where I know after everything I create there will be more to come after that. As a creative people assume it’s hard to find work and I know that’s not true so I work to the best of my ability to expose myself to new ways of thinking and boundaries to make whatever I do go as far as i imagine it to go and gain more clients and opportunity.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @beezybeeswork
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC72u5KX2rv9sjPar6nzHs1g
Image Credits
@okaybonita