We were lucky to catch up with Clar Angkasa recently and have shared our conversation below.

Clar, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve been working on a passion project for the past 5 years. Stories of the Islands is a middle grade graphic novel collection of reimagined Indonesian folktales with a feminist twist, and it is finally being published on October 31st, available to preorder anywhere books are sold in the U.S.

I started this book as an independent study project when I was still a student at Rhode Island School of Design. I tend to want to do so many things at once so I used this project as an opportunity to combine my multiple interests: comics, folktales, Indonesian culture, and female empowerment. I wanted to rewrite the stories I grew up with in a way that I wish they’d been told to me when I was young. I wanted to use my art to challenge the concept that a woman is limited to what society expects of them, a narrative that is present in a lot of fairy tales. I wanted to expose younger generations to a different kind of narrative, one where female characters are more than just the love interest or damsel in distress or evil stepsister.

Never did my sleep-deprived-art-student self imagine this project would ever progress beyond just another unfinished school project, let alone be granted the opportunity to bring this project to life and onto bookshelves in actual bookstores.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a Brooklyn-based Indonesian author-illustrator and animator with a passion for visual storytelling. I was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia before moving to the U.S. to pursue a career in the arts. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in 2019 with a BFA in Illustration, I moved to New York in search of ways to stay in the country as an artist. Driven by a love for narrative art, My work ranges from illustrations inspired by fairytales to short animated cartoons to comics about mental health.

At the moment I work as a fulltime author-illustrator. I have my debut graphic novel, Stories of the Islands, coming out soon, and I’m working on my next graphic novel as well as other book pitches. I occasionally take on freelance illustration and animation jobs and once in a while I participate in local art fairs and exhibitions where I sell a range of printed work paired with a variety of merchandise such as stickers, pins, and patches. Outside of work but still art-related, I host a bimonthly comic reading and animation show in Brooklyn called Gutter. Named after the often overlooked space between panels in a comic, Gutter provides an accessible space for local comic creators and animators to share their work and connect with like-minded people.

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

The biggest thing I’ve had to unlearn lately is the need to strive for perfection. The most difficult part of a project is the last stretch, not because of the amount of work, but the pressure to make it look as flawless and “complete” as possible. Towards the end of finishing my graphic novel, I realized that no amount of passes or edits was enough for me to feel satisfied with the results. I was never able to label it as a completed project. There was always something to fix or tweak. Every time I looked at the pages, there was always a flaw that pushed the end line further and further away. No matter how good things looked, there was always some way to make it “better”. Eventually I learned that I needed to change my goal from “perfect” to being “good enough”. As a perfectionist, no amount of editing or reworking will ever bring me to a point where I’ll be completely satisfied so the biggest challenge I face in my work is accepting that it will never be perfect.

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

The most rewarding aspect of my creative process is the benefits for my mental health. A large part of my art is inspired by the need to tell a story and the inability to fully articulate myself with words. Sometimes I find my head to be a little too chaotic, and the only way to impose some order on the chaos is to lay things out visually and communicate in images. In some ways, my art is my coping mechanism. When I come across conversations that are difficult to have or situations that are tough to face, I draw. When I’m in need of an escape, I draw. Being able to express myself through my work and sharing it with others lifts a lot of the burden I feel, especially knowing that through my art, I’m a little closer to being understood by the people around me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.clarangkasa.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarangkasa
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/clar-angkasa-484910113