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

Hi China, thanks for joining us today. One thing we always find fascinating is how differently entrepreneurs think about revenue growth and cost reductions – both can be powerful ways to improve profitability. What do you spend more of your time and energy on?

At this point in my business, I’m more focused on growing revenue. The reason for this is because I feel it’s more productive and profitable than focusing on cutting costs. As a business grows there naturally will be more costs, but the increase in profit offsets the cost. For example, in my industry I have costs related to attending art fairs, if I was too concerned with cutting costs than I would not enter into Art Fairs and I would not make any profit. I think there is a fine balance though and it’s important to budget and not get carried away, otherwise you may not end up with any profit.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I create linocut block prints inspired by nature and wildlife. There’s something special about being surrounded by nature and feeling that connection is really grounding. My goal is to express these feelings through my art by depicting the unique shapes and colors found within it. My idea for a linocut often evolves over the course of a few weeks, sometimes months and sometimes even a single day. I may wake up one morning and feel super inspired to carve an armadillo and finish it that day, or I may mull over an idea for a print over a month often changing the conception. I think that’s the beauty of art, there really are no rules and it’s important to make things that bring you joy. My hope is that the joy I feel through my artwork carries over into the world. I try not to take my art too seriously, because I believe that art should be about creative expression and if people connect with it, then that’s cool. When I went to art school, I ironically did not feel free to create what I really wanted to, but I think that experience was important because I learned the foundation for drawing, how to see light and color. After graduation I found myself exploring my style more and trying different mediums, that’s when I took a class in printmaking at City College of San Francisco. I felt really inspired by working around other printmakers and felt less pressure to produce artwork for a grade since I was taking the classes for no credits. After completing my coursework there, I went on to pursue this path on my own for the next 10 years and here I am today still carving and sharing my own creations with the world. It’s a really gratifying career and my dream, so I’m happy I get to live it every day.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started my art business, I thought that I wanted to pursue digital illustration and surface pattern design. I was doing a lot of cold emailing to clients and building my portfolio during this time. But the constant rejection and not hearing back from art directors was discouraging. I decided to switch up my medium around this time, I remembered how I found joy in making linocuts, so I went back to doing that just to see what would come of it, after finishing a few projects I posted some pieces online and joined some art markets, I was finally getting acceptances, positive feedback and even sales!
I think this gave me the push and motivation to keep going and so I changed my path to what was working, bringing me joy and bringing in more revenue. I still circle back to pattern design and I find that I sometimes use patterns in my linocut work.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Showing my art in public at places like Art fairs and pop ups has been the most effective way for me to grow my clientele. I always offer to subscribe interested collectors to my mailing list so I can keep in touch with updates in my artistic journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chinadoesart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chinamakesart