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

Hi Cierra, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

From my earliest school memories, I’ve always loved creating art. I loved the drawings I got to do in 2nd grade journaling, art class was my favorite time of day, and I was always proud to give my drawings to my parents. But when I was younger, I only thought that professionally I could be an art teacher because that’s the only adult creatives that I interacted with. It’s still a professional career I’m quite open to due to so many fond memories! However, I remember in 8th grade specifically, I had a writing teacher who tasked the class with researching what we each wanted to do as future careers. She knew I loved art and introduced the idea of art school to me. She also got me in touch with someone who was currently in art school for animation, and after the interview I had my sights set! From childhood to adulthood, I’ve loved cartoons and it absolutely blew my mind that I could potentially go to school to learn how to make them! Therefore, I researched SCAD in 8th grade, toured the university freshman year of high school, and attended the Savannah campus to graduate with a BFA in animation in 2019. I’ve been working professionally as a Background Artist in the animation industry since 2020.

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

I’m Cierra Ramsey and I’m a professional Illustrator and Background Artist in the 2D animation industry. In my role, I’m designing and painting the environments and scenery within animation that help support characters and further the stories being told. Simply put, you can’t have a cartoon character that’s a forest adventurer running around in a white void. He obviously needs to be in a forest, and it’s a background artist’s job to draw said forest and ultimately make spaces feel “lived in”. Of course, it’s a bit more complex than just drawing a pretty picture though, we have to contend with different camera angles, continuity, perspective, color, lighting, and set style guides so everything can be cohesive and believable to viewers.

I entered the animation industry in 2020, and as we all know, that was when COVID-19 had the world paused. I was in Tennessee, working a separate job when I received an email from an animation studio to do a background art test for what would be The Masked Singer Season 4. In earlier seasons of the show, the clue packages for each mystery character were live-action. However, due to the pandemic and safety measures, there was the opportunity for the clue packages to be animated instead! That show was ultimately my gateway into the industry, but during that time artists had a unique experience of doing these full-blown productions at home due to the state of the world. And this was my first production, ever. Ultimately, I’m incredibly proud of how intuitive and resilient the animation industry had to become to continue producing shows while live-action had a bit more obstacles to face at the time.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work completely remote on a variety of different shows that have landed on various streaming platforms. I’m proud of what my coworkers and I have created, and I’m super excited for any opportunity to work on more shows that might be coming down the line! Overall, I love what I do. Getting to work in these super team-oriented creative environments has been incredibly rewarding. I ultimately think it’s really cool to say I help make cartoons for a career. Even outside of animation, I think younger me would be proud of what I’m doing with my art.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best thing people can do for artists is to support real-life creatives. Art is something that takes countless hours of practice, and education. It’s the fascinating interpretation and communication of the human experience. No software or machine can or should take that away. Art is everywhere and I believe society taking notice of how much artistic design and thought truly goes into every aspect of our lives, be it advertisements, the products we use every day, the words in our favorite books, actors in shows, the design of our clothes, buildings, you name it. Art is everywhere, and in my opinion, we should continue to expand human-led financially supportive opportunities for artists rather than eliminate them in place of machines.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I actually had to pivot in my career right after graduating college. The entertainment industry can be tough to get into, and sometimes there are lulls that last a little too long. In my case after college, I was applying to places hoping to get in for about 6 months but the reality of the world caught up to me. Like everyone else, I had bills to pay. Thankfully as an artist, my skills were easily transferable to a different industry. I chose graphic design, and that kept me afloat until I was able to get where I dreamed of being. The experience I gained from my career diversion was absolutely worth it, and I’m grateful for the new knowledge and skills!

No matter if you’re an artist or not, having to change course from what you want to do is scary and it can be really uncomfortable. Sometimes I think it can make a lot of us feel sad or shameful to have to turn away from what we love doing due to circumstances beyond our control. I want to stress though, that you’re not a less worthy artist because of it. If you can find something that will fulfill you for the time being, go for it! Use downtime to create art for you or for your portfolio, or maybe learn some new skills in the meantime. That’s the mindset I try to keep in these types of situations, even if it is a little tough in the moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cierraramsey.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lvl1artist/?hl=en
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/cierra-ramsey-384231159

Image Credits
All images credited to Cierra Ramsey