We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Cassaday. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.

Alright, Ashley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

As an educator of 8 years, I have seen many ups and downs in today’s educational climate. However, there is one thing that every kid needs to succeed, a safe space not only to utilize creative thinking, but also embrace the inevitable mistakes that come along with it.

I know it sounds biased being an art teacher, but I feel our kids are losing so many opportunities to grow in ways that exceed our expectations. Yes, we have rigid, factual subjects like math and science, but how can we think of new, creative implementation strategies to teach students how to grasp concepts beyond answering a question right or wrong on a test?

For example, when I teach art to my students, their grades have nothing to do with how “skilled” they are. Do some students excel artistically at a higher level than others? Absolutely. However the key component I aim for all of my students to learn comes from one word, grit.

When a student messes up a painting or project, no matter how mad they get at me, or how much they beg me for another sheet of paper, I don’t allow them to throw it away. Instead I challenge them. They made a mistake. Okay, so how can we make something out of a spilled watercolor stain? How can we think out of the box so at the end of the day, we still have a fantastic piece of art?

This same principal of perseverance, also applies to more standardized subjects. Take rocketry for example. You made a building blunder, the rocket fell apart, etc. So, do you throw away hours of work? No, you re analyze the structure and try again. You keep trying until that rocket can launch hundreds of feet in the air and make a safe landing back to earth.

Making mistakes is what life is all about, whether on a personal or professional level. The main thing that matters though, is how are you going to grow from them?

It is so important that we teach kids how to reframe failures as opportunities. Because in life, no matter how much you mess up, you’re going to be okay. You’re going to still be standing, and the world will be waiting on you to make your next choice.

Ashley, 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 a digital artist and educator from North Texas with a concentration in fantasy illustration. Starting out my creative journey with dreams of working in video games and movies, I realized as I got older that paving my way independently was the route for me.

I have always had a love for fictional themes, especially romantic concepts like fairies and fantasy. So a lot of my work centers around the juxtaposition between beautiful creatures, and the dark allure of the stories they may tell.

Since I graduated college, I take the occasional freelance project and teach design at the grade school level. But one of my biggest passions is attending shows locally and across the US, where I share and sell my work, and connect with my audience in person.

While I of course sell prints of my pieces, I absolutely love coming up with new merchandise ideas. It’s fun to discover and create new ways people can enjoy my work beyond a print on their wall, and since I started this journey, it has grown from art prints to playmats, blankets, journals, and more.

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

One of the hardest things I had to learn, is that my “dream” career, was not my true dream at all. When we are young, bright eyed, and ready to take on the world, we paint a picture for how we expect our lives to pan out. We’ll be at this job, in this city, with this partner, etc.

But life unfortunately isn’t like that. When I graduated from college, I had this mindset. I believed that I would land a dream job at Disney, or a AAA gaming company as a concept artist, and my life would roll out in front of me like a red carpet. But when I didn’t get those jobs, and I was faced with the reality that my expectations weren’t met, it was a very, VERY hard pill to swallow.

However, there was a silver lining to this. As I got older, realized what my true artistic voice was, and focused less on what the societal art standard said to me, I learned to pave my own path. I became an illustrator that had my own ambitions, that could pave the way for what I wanted to do and create, it freed me immensely.

Moral is, the things you are meant to do come very easily, especially if you are working hard and being authentic to yourself, so don’t feel down when a dream gig gets passed up. Rejection is usually protection.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I am fortunate to have always had a full time job on top of being an independent artist. A lot of aspiring artists believe that if you aren’t working as an artist full time, you can’t have that label. That is so far from the truth.

I genuinely love to teach, so being able to teach graphic arts, a subject I love, and make the money to support my business, it kills two birds with one stone.

As I attended more shows, and sold more product, the key is to not take all your profits and squander it away. It’s important that for any startup business to invest your profits back into yourself, and let your nest egg grow. As time goes on, this allowed me to expand from selling just prints (low cost, high profit items) to things that were a higher investment, like journals and blankets.

It takes spending money to make money, but be wise in how you take the dive financially. Growing your profits organically is the least risky way to get started, and also if it all pays off, can be the biggest financial payout you can get from your creative career.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ashleycassaday.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ashleycassadayart
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ashley_cassaday