We were lucky to catch up with Annie Lewis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Annie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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’ve finally been able to earn a living as an artist, but the process was, as I’m sure it is for many people, slow and arduous. I had a pretty distinct moment of clarity in my mid-twenties, during which I decided that visual art is what I’m best at and what I wanted to pursue as a career. At the time I was working as a teacher at an after-school program and delivering food for company called Favor to make ends meet. I didn’t have any idea what a career in the arts would look like. I just started drawing all the time, trying to find my “style” and asking around for commission work from friends. I followed any Youtube and Podcast shows that featured artists making a living from their work and listened to them on repeat as I drove to work at my teaching job.

About 3 years later, I landed a job through a friend as a concept artist and prop painter at a new installation in Ohio called “Otherworld”. It was a temporary job, but at the time it felt like a huge breakthrough. In the early Summer of 2018, I crossed the country from Austin to Columbus with a group of artist friends to work on the project. I’m very grateful for the opportunity I had there, but the most surprising thing was that the project itself didn’t advance my career the way I thought it would. It turned out I didn’t enjoy working for a client very much, but prop painting gave me long hours to think about what I did, in fact, want to paint.

As Fall rolled around, I decided to participate in the 30-day online art challenge “Inktober”, where you make an ink drawing every day (or every other day, in my case) based on a prompt. In my case, I illustrated figures from mythology and folklore that I really wanted to research, using ink as if it were watercolor to create smokey, mysterious ink paintings of goddesses, witches, and mythological creatures. I spent all my weekends painting and woke up hours early before work to get my pieces finished so I could post them to social media. I didn’t do this because I had to – I didn’t have many followers at the time – I had just chosen something that sounded fun! And it struck a chord with people. All of a sudden, I had strangers commenting how much they enjoyed seeing my work and reading the research I’d done on the figures I was painting. I got a wave of followers out of seemingly nowhere, and for the first time felt like I had created a real community that was following my work.

When the job ended and I moved back to Austin, I was able to slowly create a business selling my original paintings and prints of my work online, and later in person at shows like the Oddities and Curiosities Expo. I even ran a successful Kickstarter for a deck of cards with my illustrations – all based on the series that I had started just for me, never imagining the response it would get. Looking back, I think one of my takeaways from this experience is that people can tell when you’re creating art from a place of pure authenticity and freedom, and it resonates.

Annie, 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?

I am an independent artist who loves to paint moody ink and charcoal paintings inspired by mythology and the occult. My pieces are meant to pull the viewer into a mysterious world full of macabre creatures and mythical figures. I especially enjoy finding the stories of powerful women who refused to be obscured by the passing centuries. I’m most proud of creating the self-published “Witches of Legend” oracle deck, for which I illustrated 34 witches and goddesses and wrote a guidebook filled with the mythology and folklore behind my subjects.

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

When I first started out as an artist, I imagined that I would be wrong not to take advantage of any opportunity presented to me. I took on every commission offered, no matter what it paid, and did as much volunteer work as I could, thinking the exposure would be good for my fledgling art business. As it turned out, taking on so much work meant I would inevitably finish late with what certainly wasn’t my best work, meaning I neither made money nor had good work to show for my time. It was a hard lesson to learn about myself, but figuring out how to say ‘no’ to certain projects was vital to growing my business.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Early in my career I was lucky enough to stumble upon Muddy Colors, an online blog with tons of helpful tips for entrepreneurial artists. The creative process can be emotional and vulnerable, and pairing it with a successful business plan is no easy task. I think reading about other artists struggling with the business of art and ultimately finding balance was extremely helpful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.annabellelewis.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alewis.art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annabellelewisart

Image Credits
Hangry Boyz Nocturnal Photography (first photo, all other images are mine)