Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashley Holder. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ashley , appreciate you joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

Being an Artist in this day and age can mean so many different things. However, between NFTS, Ai “art”, previous centuries’ definitions of Artists, and the stereotype of the “starving artist”, there’s usually no room for comic illustrators or advertising Illustrators who love to see their art on products. It’s true that Artists shouldn’t be put into a box because creativity is fluid. Yet, if I tell someone of an older generation I’m an Artist, they usually assume I’m a painter with a studio downtown, prepping for gallery shows. When I attempt to explain my digital work to them, I’m then told, “I MUST get into NFTs”, or how unimpressed they are because “the computer did the work for me.” If I mention my work to anyone my junior, they assume I work as a full-time Artist.

Alas, I’ve been drawing since I could pick up a crayon. My parents were told I had promise when I was about six years old. I did not get into digital as a medium until I had no choice while obtaining my illustration degree at SCAD Savannah Campus. I was one of those who did not like change. Now look where we are.

Ashley , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Though my name is Ashley Holder, those who know me as an Artist may call me “Aqua” more so. My brand online is “Aqua Ink Graphics” (frankly, because “illustrations” is just too long of a word).

All my life, I’ve identified with art. As a child, I was captivated by the idea that cartoons stemmed from drawings. The scholastic book fairs were a highlight for me because it was my chance to purchase “How to Draw” books. Being that it was the time of Disney’s “Renaissance” Era, I would collect the VHS cases belonging to my favorite films and apply the steps from the drawing books to whatever I wanted to draw. It was the only thing that would make me focus. “Start with the circles. Now draw lines to line up the eyes, mouth, etc.” Not realizing I’d then learned the basics of the Hampton Head drawing method. I still use it to this day. The perfectionist in me loves being able to line up my figures and poses with basic shapes and finishing with infinite amounts of detail to hyper-fixate on.

So why “Aqua”? The first films to stand out to me were Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Splash. Mermaids stood out to me. With that in mind, my family would later decide to vacation at the “Atlantis Resort” in the Bahamas around the early 2000s. I was entranced. My love for aquatic life began. Ironically, it wouldn’t be until after my college days that I learned how to channel my inner child’s interest into my art. Most artists love drawing the female figure. There’s so much fun drawing the curves, a pouty lip, detailed voluminous hair, and details in a scale pattern with dramatic flukes and fins. I could do it all day long.

Doing my art hasn’t been a smooth journey, and balancing everyday demands has been a constant struggle. I recall my time working at a Miami-based resort’s Kids’ Club. I had gotten tired of only being able to draw at night as it wasn’t and still isn’t a full-time vocation for me. At the time, I had gained experience working with children at the daycare. Since my art was focused on what my inner child wanted, I thought to further be what I would’ve loved to see at that time. I discovered an existing online mermaid community and said, “I’m going to do that.” I’m going to create a “Mersona” with a brand, entertain kids while educating them on marine biology, and allow them to see anyone can be a mermaid. My name was Mermaid Aqua, Head of “Mermaid Magic Parties.” I swam in pools in mermaid attire, handed out digitally drawn coloring sheets of my character, and played games with the kids. Sadly, I would only get to do it a few times, as it was before Disney’s Live Action rendition. No one really wanted a black mermaid. I even had a Haitian mother on the phone say to me, “I would hire you in a heartbeat, but my nine-year-old daughter wants Ariel.” It was very frustrating.

Just as I thought about giving up, I chose to channel that frustration and energy into creating my own story of diverse mermaids since Disney didn’t have any at that time. Originally meant to be a children’s book, the “Beach Babes” were born, and Mermaid Aqua was laid to rest with her sequin-covered tail in my closet. As you can see on my website and social media nowadays, Beach Babes transformed into a comic rather than a children’s book. Having never done sequential art before, it certainly has been a learning curve, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve since kept in touch with the mermaid community that others are getting to know via Netflix’s MerPeople. Through my new ventures, I’ve also met an online community of comic creators. They introduced me to the webcomic community, taught me how to self-publish as an online creator, how to illustrate as a sequential artist rather than a commercial one, and how to illustrate backgrounds for world-building and a storytelling tool, etc. Aqua still lives on in me while I’m in a creative space, but my “Beach Babes” have become my children in a way. All 13 characters share a piece of my characteristics or bits of others I’ve met along the way. The focus has been having a diverse group of young adults, a pinch of marine biology facts, and non-princess-type mersonas for each one to feed into the sci-fi vibes. Supposedly, by the time my drawing style gets added to the mix, it’s been described as very 90s by readers so far, in a nostalgic way.

My goal is to continue bringing the Beach Babes to life in the comic while also creating commercial products for them. I currently have a 26-page Coloring Book of the characters as their mersonas, simple bookmarks, and stickers. However, I dream about so much more for them.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Back in 2016-2017, when the “Beach Babes” were born, I had finally created the beginning of a story for them. By 2020, I had enough written down to announce my coloring book, and the actual comic would follow in three years’ time. “May 2023”, I would say. Why May 2023? May is my birthday month, but also the month of mermaids. “Mermay” has become a month-long art theme on social media, starting with Animator and Character Designer, Tom Bancroft. In addition, 2023 would give me three years to flesh out my story and illustrate most of it, being that I still had a day job. It is a day job that gives flexibility since I work with my family’s business, but we are a business-oriented family. So, being I’m the Artist in that family, there is conflict and compromise we still are figuring out.

Of course, life never goes according to plan. My learning curve with having a first comic had been doing me a disservice when it came to scheduling, time management, and drawing speed. Doing something for the first time always takes longer. Unfortunately at that time the day job was no longer becoming just a day job.  Yet May 2023 comes and I had been so proud to advertise my pride & joy. The day job became a fulltime stressful one with new tasks to learn. I’m turning 33 that first week. The stress was so powerful it manifested into physical pain. “Pop!” After a late night of finishing my third episode of the “Beach Babes” webtoon upload
, drawing on the iPad in bed, I’d woken up to a locked tailbone and rotated hip. At the time I thought it was my turning 33 at the time that did me in.

We all recall what also came to say hello in May 2023… Disney’s Live Action film,The Little Mermaid. Here, I had three years to jump ahead of the diverse mermaids’ story, and Disney now commercialized it with a vengeance. A top story for its controversial cast. I felt my “Beach Babes” were no longer trendsetters but now part of a trend. Amongst the Halle Bailey Ariel, Avatar: The Way of Water, and others soon to come.

I’m still currently persevering through physical therapy and chiropractic care, juggling day job responsibilities with a more stern voice, and finding that time for the things I feel I was meant to do. So many ideas for merchandise and so many parts of the “Beach Babes” story left to tell. As we speak, I’m in the middle of moving a heat press into the “Aqua Ink Graphics” office, which I share as a part of my family’s business office. I keep telling myself, “You only fail if you quit.” My “children” can’t have a life if I don’t create it for them. No one can see the story that plays in my mind unless I create it. I have to keep going.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I suppose this will be answering a couple of questions. To advocate for artists, there unequivocally needs to be more done to regulate AI “art” and easier ways for Artists to protect their creations legally. Like everything else, a useful tool can always be used in a way that hurts others.

I never dreamed with the birth of AI that, someone would find a creative use for it before a more pragmatic one. Creative writing, digital illustration, and even acting are already not very respected fields in comparison to other professions. Now threatened by a prompt app fed stolen artwork to make people believe if they don’t need to learn a craft to create, then those who’ve learned the craft are no longer necessary.

There is still room for us. The future is a scary place, but I always look to history. A trending question has been, “Why don’t artists succeed like they used to in previous centuries?” In previous centuries,  no one was there stealing others’ artwork off the internet, one of our most useful yet powerful tools. In the modern capitalist economy where society hungers for “instant”, there’s no room to be paid a liveable wage for a luxury craft. Art is a luxury, and I wish we could find a way to make it not so. During the pandemic, it was creative jobs that kept peoples’ sanity afloat. Video games, binge-worthy shows, animated features your kids watched. All creative jobs led to those things, but can we see how much compensation they received? The industry needs to evolve with the economy, and our minds do too.

Contact Info:

• Website: Aquainkgraphics.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/mermaidaquaink
• Other: Tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@beachbabescomic Beach Babes Instagram: instagram.com/BeachBabesComic

Image Credits
Image of 3 mermaids in a pool [Left to Right @mermaid_lindsey (instagram), Raina Mermaid @HFXMermaid (instagram) and me. Image of me with blonde woman [ @hannahMermaid (instagram]. Illustration of brunette in striped bathing suit: Beach Babe “Claire.” Illustration of Indigenous guy in dark tshirt: Beach Babe “Stinger.” Illustratration of two mermaids with the Beach Babes Logo: Beach Babe Reese (pink) and Beach Babe: Zoe (Red/Orange), etc.