Today we’d like to introduce you to Rasheeda Johnson

Hi Rasheeda, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

My journey as an artist started around 7 years old with a scholarship to Saturday Art classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. Though these classes were a safe haven for me with all I was experiencing in my family life, I never imagined I would grow up to be an artist. I actually never thought about it until moving to NYC at 19 to transfer to FIT since the narrative I was always fed growing up was “go-to-school-and-get-a-good-job”. 1997 was the first time I really saw people making a living as artists, and it became my subconscious mission to do the same.

After transferring to FIT, I was working and going to school 7 days per week to knock out my 2 year degree in 1 year and a summer session all while still trying to do all the fun things 19 year olds do in the city. This led to an extreme mental breakdown shortly after getting my AAS degree in ad design in December 1998. I went back to my mom’s house in South Jersey while I awaited the second half of my degree to start since the upper division program would not have started until fall of 1999; I was going to work in the casinos in AC until it was time to return to school. January 1999 I ended up in 72 hour hold for a sever manic episode that changed my life forever. Thankfully, I recovered from that episode and moved back to NYC in early 2000. My first job back in the city was waitressing at Dallas BBQ in the East Village; I loved that job and made so much money as an attractive, 22 year old waitress but knew I wanted more. I then found work as an office manager for a well known printing and graphics company and thought I would transition in to another department with the company. They worked with a lot of big ad agencies and retail companies producing their graphics and printed materials. I was taking part time classes again at FIT during that time, but once I really saw how the ad industry worked and how absolutely miserable the older people I worked with were, I decided to stop school altogether since I knew continuing an advertising degree would be a waste of time for me. I then worked many random creative as well as not so creative jobs over the next decade including: fur shop sales person in SoHo, indie record company office manager turned royalties administrator in the garment district, manager at a moving company in Brooklyn, I even worked at a hardware and tile shop in Hell’s Kitchen cutting keys for 3 days, but the owner’s breath stunk so bad that I couldn’t stand one more day with him talking in my face (I actually enjoyed cutting keys though). In 2006, I was living in downtown Brooklyn and out of work, people kept giving me this flyer about a free film program that I thought was a scam at first. The last time I was handed the flyer, I decided to call. I ended up doing the month long boot camp called the Made in NY Production Assistant Training Program that summer which changed the entire trajectory of my life. The program was implemented during Mayor Bloomberg’s administration; say what you want about him, but his administration set up a ton of free trainings that place folks in high paying jobs. I actually did 3 such programs. Anyway, I started out as a Production Assistant but knew early on that I wanted to get into wardrobe and art departments. I secured my first Wardobe Assistant gig that fall on a cute little indie film called Arranged (2007) that won a ton of film fest awards. I went on to do mostly wardrobe and some art department work in indie film for most of the next 10 years. I took a break in 2007-2008 to do window displays for H&M in Harlem, mainly because I needed medical benefits. It was during that job that a lady approached na about joining SGI Buddhism which was also a life changing moment.

Around 2012, I was itching to get out of NYC; I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this city, and that was a “hate” moment. I moved to Philadelphia and worked for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program where I taught art to youth who were either incarcerated or on house arrest. It was a music themed program where the students were also taught to DJ for half of each session. I also assisted one of the muralists there with a mural inside the youth detention center as well as a Shepard Fairey DJ themed mural on 13th St. This was the first time I’d thought of doing mural work since doing my first in high school insude of our sports training facility. The only other mural I’d done prior to Philly was at Morgan State University for a student organization called TTC. I was also still traveling to NYC during this time to work as a day player in film. 2015 ended up being a rough time for me in Philly and sometime around June of that year, I had my most recent manic episode which resulted in a stint at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Center City. By this time, I was no longer being forced to go but checked my own self in. Once I got out, I knew I needed to head back to NYC which I did by the end of that June.

Once back in NYC, I had no clue what to do, so I just focused on my mental health. I lived around the corner from NY Presbyterian Hospital and went there to find low cost mental health services, got some medication and went to therapy on a weekly basis. I’d also freelanced for a company called Paint Nite when in Philly and decided to call the main office to see if I could switch to NYC. They linked me with operators here, and I was finally able to make some money again. I also took a crappy, temporary retail job that I hated, but my mission was to stack money until I knew what I wanted to do. Around 2016, I started making art again. I wasn’t really looking to sell it but more for therapeutic reasons. That’s when I came up with the idea for my IG name to be Analog Art NYC though I didn’t know it would be an actual business in the future. After leaving the retail job, I found a free web goading course in the Bronx, applied and got in. It was a 3 month course that I was great at the first 2 months, but what was taught that last month was way too foreign for me to grasp. I’ve always considered myself an intelligent person, but this was definitely not my language! I decided to go back to retail displays and worked with a popular doll store from 2018-2021; the longest I’d ever been at a full time job. I loved the work I did there, but the pandemic changed everything from the business structure to people’s attitudes. I left in September 2021 for a higher paying display job in Long Island that ended up being the ghetto of retail and was at my wit’s end. I remember finding a mural painting job and teaching artist job (both freelance) and crying on the phone to my mom during a lunch break about whether I should leave the “security” of this trash job for freelance work. Her supportive answer prompted me to leave that job after only 6 months and I haven’t looked back.

My business has grown exponentially since March 2022, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the journey that led me here.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

Well, I’m sure my last answer is an indicator that this hasn’t been a smooth road. LOL. I felt like my entire life prior to March 2022 was extreme peaks and valleys with no middle ground or plateau. I will say that since I’ve been diligently working on my mental health since 2015 that I have found a lot more ease in my life in general.i also got really into manifestation about 4 years ago and actually am currently doing a 9 day manifestation workshop. Though we discuss things that I already know, to have a support system in this work is very helpful. The tools I’ve learned not only in my mental health therapy but also in there workshop have definitely helped create a sense of ease in ever area of my life. Quitting my full time job in 2022 has definitely made the road smoother as well though it was terrifying at first.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

I own a full service art making company called Analog Art NYC LLC. I specialize in murals and public art but also create portraits/fine art, and sculpture work. I’m most proud of the work I do bringing art education to youth and adults throughout NYC as a Teaching Artist. It not only allows me to give back to my community but also inspires me to keep going with this work. If one young person decides to pursue the arts as a career or entrepreneur, I feel I will have done what I was born to do. I also recently secured my NYC DOE vendor license and will be doing even more work with schools here. What sets me apart from others is my level of organization and calendar management skills. I often hear that many don’t like working with artists because they feel we can be not on point with things like deadlines. I prefer to work with a sense of urgency. Even thought art is my passion, it is also my business and I’m pretty good at balancing the two.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?

People can support me by engaging with my social media, sharing my work, giving me google reviews and referrals and also buying my work on my Shopify shop. As far as collaborations, I’m open to all collaborative ideas. Anyone can reach out to see if their vision aligns with mine for collaboration.

Pricing:

• Mural pricing is done by square footage. I think many thing we are simply making up arbitrary numbers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.linktree.com/analogartnycllc
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/analogartnyc?igsh=MXZpNjNlYWFhMHEwbQ==
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/analogartnyc?igsh=MXZpNjNlYWFhMHEwbQ==

Image Credits

All my images