We’re excited to introduce you to the always intriguing and insightful Avery Cuevas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Avery below.

Avery, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

Yes, I am happy as an artist, although I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a “regular” job. I often joke that if this art thing doesn’t work out, I could become a professional organizer.

Besides that, I haven’t seriously pondered on Plan B’s or what my non-art interests and strengths were during my childhood to adolescent years. I fortunately haven’t needed to, and had the luxury of always knowing deep down what I wanted and was meant to do with my life.

Now that I am a young adult and at this point in my life, I’ve come to better understand the perspective of people who chose not to “chase their dreams,” for the sake of having their hobbies stay their hobbies. I find myself more open to the fantasy of pivoting and pursuing a career where I get to foster dogs, for example, so that I can have art back as my sacred free time.

An unexpected obstacle that I’ve had to take on and I never thought would be a possibility, is falling out of love with art (to an extent). My accumulated experiences with hustling in art school, my passion shifting into my work, and acquiring burnout, which I feel I am still recovering from, have all taken a toll on my identity and have driven me to redefine my relationship with my craft. As art became my busy work, I slowly drifted away from my ritual of sitting at my desk for 6 hours straight filling up my sketchbook for fun. This used to devastate me, but now I understand that it was valid of me to not use art as the break I needed from art.

Maybe this transition was as natural, necessary, and bound, as the numerous other ways I have evolved into the person I am presently, and I should just trust the process…

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi 👋🏼 my name is Avery! I am a graphic artist and designer, who was born in Houston, Texas like Beyoncé, and raised/still lives in Queens, NYC like Spider-Man.

My specialties are in illustration, graphic design, and creating a unity of the two. My work strikes a balance between digital and hand-drawn ways of creation. Non-art things that currently also spark joy for me are collecting a family of teas, practicing new juggling tricks, replaying Pokémon Diamond on my purple 3DS, and treasuring my lovely dog/sister, Blizzard.

My artistic journey began when I was a toddler, and since then my natural gravitation towards the visual arts has guided me throughout my life. A childhood sprinkled with many art classes and even more sketchbooks inspired me to pursue an art-focused education in high school and university. And now I’m here, graduated with my BFA and slowly, but surely, on my way with my artistic career. I am very grateful and proud to be where I am now.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

In my view, in order for society to best support artists, creatives, and a thriving creative ecosystem, they need to truly appreciate us and respect our contributions.

Just the other day, I was in a group conversation about the climate activists who are protesting by attacking paintings in Europe, when someone voiced that they were willing to sacrifice these museum masterpieces in favor of climate justice. However, he lost me when he had the nerve to say, “Does art even have any monetary value? Like does it put food on the table?”

There is irony in how creative work is praised and profited off of, while the artistic minds behind them were at some point hit with discouragement, judgment, and shame for their “unrealistic” choice in career path. The rise of capitalism, overconsumption mentalities, and the rapid ease technological advancements bring, have brainwashed society to prefer and become more comfortable with cheaper, quicker, and lower quality possessions.

Society needs to pay artists for what we are worth and not take us for granted. I recommend reaching for real artists and artisans as the first option, over popular shortcuts like artificial intelligence and amazon. Also, I am aware that my take is saturated with generalizations, but this is just me venting about frustrations that I and most likely countless other creatives have bottled up inside.

It is easy to debate the inherent value of art and to say we don’t need it, only until you actually imagine a world without it…

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

The lesson I am currently in the process of unlearning is breaking away from my perfectionist tendencies. Although these tendencies began with a good drive and passionate work ethic, it has snowballed into habitual unhealthy mindsets and have gradually worsened with the natural progression of school, work, and general adulting.

While attending university one Tuesday, I stayed behind to have a brief chat with my Type Design instructor (shoutout to Justin Colt of The Collected Works). I think I initially just had a question on our current assignment, but something within me prompted me to ask him for help and about his take on how to tackle perfectionism.

The answer he gave me was that you can strive for perfectionism, but is it really WORTH IT, at the end of the day? He unraveled his personal experiences of past friends who decided to chase this unattainable standard but at the cost of later becoming workaholics, not getting enough sleep, becoming addicted to things… You can try to be “perfect” maybe, but at what cost?

Our short but enlightening conversation has stuck with me til this day and made me realize: No, it’s not worth it. Life is too short to burn myself out and hurt my health in the long run, to be only subjectively better or worse than my peers. Although I still struggle with it, I am a work in progress. Now I am more mindful when I do put unnecessary pressures on myself and actively remind myself to breathe. One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2024 and onwards is to “be more at peace with imperfections.”

Contact Info:

• Website: averycuevas.com
• Instagram: @by.aves
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/averycuevas