We recently connected with Arthaya Nootecharas and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Arthaya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.
I am fortunate to have had many amazing bosses, mentors, and leaders, and it is very hard to just pick one. All of them have gifted me knowledge and skills in all different ways. I feel most, including my mother and family, are leaders that led me to who and how I am today. My mother and family supported my decision to pursue an art career regardless of how they ideally wanted me to go into a medical field; they believed in me.
My boss, and a good friend, Joey Early, was so knowledgeable about coffee; he used to be a roaster. He would tell me about coffee and how to dial an espresso machine so I could pull the best espresso shot. He taught me a lot of skills behind the coffee bar. He is also an artist, and with that, he saw that in me and pushed me back into creative field work. That had led me into a local bike building/bike painting company in Boulder, Colorado. There, I worked with Aaron Barcheck, the guy who believed I could do it and he sure let me carve my way to be the best bike painter I can be. He put me through pressure, but I felt like he knew I could succeed. In some way, I think that is how I learn best. His father, Rick Barcheck, is an amazing artist as well, a painter, a drawer, a maker. I always feel like he is my mentor who always encourages me to keep doing my own art, to find outlets when I feel stuck. Some words he told me about being an artist is that, “we do our best when we are at the rock bottom.” That sentence stuck with me until today and I think about it very often.
Having people who believe in me, regardless of who they are, really made a big impact on me of who I am. It made me feel confident that I can and will always find a way to get over any obstacles, challenges, and rise up to meet any goals that I want to succeed.
Arthaya, 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 call myself an artist, even though I don’t get to do that full time; yet. I have always been into making things, drawing things since I was young. My goal zeroed in on being “an artist” even before I knew what having a job meant. All I remember when anybody asked me when I was a kid of what I would like to be when I grow up, my answer was, “I want to be an artist.” I went through school, started off with an architecture major, since I was afraid that my family wouldn’t approve of me wanting to go into a Fine Arts major. The Architecture program was in the same umbrella as a Fine Arts program at the University of Oregon at the time; might still be. However a year later, I ended up switching into a Fine Arts major and didn’t stop until I finished my Master degree from University of Colorado at Boulder. I then moved to New York City, in hope of building my career as an artist. That, however fell short, but I did gain a lot of good life experience, skill sets from all sorts of jobs I had while living there, and even more grit than what I have already got growing up in another city; Bangkok, Thailand. I moved back to Colorado, started doing art fabrication work along with picking up a barista job. A couple years went by and I found myself in a cycling industry, which I also fell in love with the job I was doing. Unfortunately, my body was not cooperating and I thought maybe it was the time for me to move on and find something new. I work in a different field now, still making things and learning other skills. In the back of my mind, I am always finding ways to go back and do creative things I love. I do illustration work on the side for fun, drawings here and there, stickers,…learning how to play drums; it’s been my dream instrument to learn my whole life.
I think most people know me for my line works, detailed but simple drawings. Most of my illustrations are black line drawings but I like to play with colors for my sticker designs. I did a handful of pet drawings. I love drawing old cars, race cars, motorcycles, structural objects, architecture… I guess part of studying architecture stuck with me in some ways, I have deep appreciation in architecture and history of it.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Not sure If these books impacted my management and entrepreneurial thinking but I have been circling back and rereading books I read in graduate school, and one after, because I still kept them and these couple in particular have pulled me to reread them again. I have always been interested in psychology as well and I wish I was not so stubborn and listen to my professors when they told me that I should go take some psychology classes. Below are some books that I have been slowly rereading:
-The Poetics of Space (1958) by Gaston Bachelard
-On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (1984 by Susan Stewart
-Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2000) by Rebecca Solnit
-Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art: Memory (2012) Edited by Ian Farr
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I strongly feel that the way artists’ feel, any form of artists, is different. They feel so deeply and so strongly; that sense is heightened somehow. They see things with softer eyes, but with sharp optimism. I love that we, as an artist, have to find ways to express every ounce of what we feel because maybe words cannot describe it all completely. And If they can, they have to come out a certain way, a poetic way that can only be successfully communicated and understood when it is spoken/read/written in a very particular thought out way. I love that about being an artist, it is so rewarding when you can feel a lot. It is a gift!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: ACNootStudio
- Other: https://acnootstudio.etsy.com
Image Credits
James Batty