We recently connected with Joshua Thorson and have shared our conversation below.

Joshua, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I grew up in a small town of 250 people in the middle of nowhere, Illinois. Before pursuing a college degree, I noticed a similarity in the way people lived. This similarity was approaching life with minimal change and living a fairly simple life.

I have always seen myself as an oddity. Whether you take that positively or negatively, it has been something that I wanted to build a brand off of. And an odd person can’t simply live a “normal” life.

Throughout my childhood, undergrad studies, and even in my present life, I have had a lot of cultural experiences. From having family, overseas, in Japan, to living in West Africa, to even just the various cities, that I have lived in in my “adult” life, I have seen and been around a lot of things that influenced my art and creative style today.

Now, to answer the question of this prompt…

My biggest risk that I have taken is pursuing a career in the creative field and not furthering my education through graduate school. I majored in speech and language pathology during my undergrad years and did not pay much attention to my creative endeavors, as they were pretty much nonexistent.

It was not until my semester abroad in Africa, that I decided to look into taking some art classes and completing and meeting minor requirements in fine arts.

I have been around art my whole life, practically living in my mother’s art studio for much of my childhood. Throughout school I excelled in creative projects and every art class and contest that I was a part of.

Up until high school, I was very involved in my art and my passion toward being an artist.

In college, I was lucky enough to be a student, but also a track athlete as well. With that, my time toward art and creative work was pushed to the back-burner. Okay, but let me take you back to the end of my undergraduate studies.

Two weeks before the end of my schooling, I approached my speech pathology advisor with news that I decided to not pursue graduate school and wanted to take a gap year and work on art. It it important to note that I was accepted to multiple schools that were at the top of my list.

I made this decision and took this risk because I wanted to be an artist and resurrect that creative that was lost at the beginning of my undergraduate studies.

This risk to focus on art and build a brand for myself was very difficult at first. Since my main focus was speech pathology it made it difficult to get jobs because my studies prepared me for graduate school and not for the workforce.

Despite all that, I preserved. I have had many amazing opportunities post-college. From getting salaried content creation jobs, working for Netflix, and just the overall growth that my “brand” has made over the last three years just feels so unreal.

With that, I say take that risk. Take that risk and push to be your best self.

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?

I got into the creative industry after I graduated college. I was offered a job to be a content creator and social media specialist, without knowing much about what a content creator was.

This job allowed me to learn how to properly operate camera equipment and learn the Adobe Suite software, all on a salaried payroll, which was very nice for being fresh out of college. While this was great, I was fired from this position for being “too creative”. I wish I could make this up, but it’s completely true.

After getting this news, I was thrown for a loop. What does “too creative” even mean? Regardless, it motivated me to be as creative as I can. With my last paycheck, I bought the camera that I still have to this day. Since then, I have pushed myself to learn new creative outlets to the best of my ability and grow the skills that I already have.

Since all this, I have shot hundreds of videos and photos, made countless designs, drawings, and art that is enjoyed by several people around the country.

Currently, I offer commission based services for design and art, but also shoot video and photo as well. For now, I strictly do all of my business and transactions on instagram, but I am currently in the process of developing a website to organize all of my creative endeavors.

I am very proud of the technical growth that I have made with my creativity. With that, one thing I want potential clients to know is that I will consider any idea, no matter how outrageous it is. If there’s one thing I pride myself in, it is that I will do anything, no matter how difficult the request it is.

If I can’t do it at first, I will figure it out.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist or a creative is the critical component that comes with being in the realm of art.

In my personal perspective, I have been receiving criticism toward my art my whole life. From when I was a child, to my teachers and professors growing up, and to the comments that I get from social media, it has really taught me a lot.

While, I personally am not initially in favor of critiques, but I believe even the harshest critiques, whether is toward my art or even toward the way that I approach life, has made me take a few steps backwards, which has helped me to reground myself a revaluate the ways in which I do or proceed with things.

With any criticism or negative comments, it is always important to look at the positives and grow from what people have to say about you.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

My view on NFTs are very open-minded. I say this because it is a trend that many creatives and artists are opting in for.

In the last year or so, I have become more knowledgeable with the cryptocurrency world, where I eventually see myself participating and minting my own NFTs. With that, I have not found my “niche” in the NFT world that pushes me to create. I really see a lot of recycled ideas within the NFT community, which is really pushing me to create something fresh and new that people have not seen.

I have no definitive timeline of when I will put out an NFT, but I would like to mint some of my artwork before the end of this year.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @joshuaryuju

Image Credits
I took all the images that were presented for my interview.