We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Evelyn Conway a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Evelyn, thanks for joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

I was blessed growing up to have parents who were incredibly supportive of the arts. My mom is an interior designer and I have relatives on either side of my extended family who paint professionally. That meant there wasn’t ever any pushback to me expressing interest in doing art full time as an adult which I understand is a really beneficial but unique position for a kid to be in. They never made it seem like arts were a singular career path, I knew that there were far more options than just gallery work or freelance illustration. Which isn’t to knock either form of art but I often hear about people who enter those fields specifically because to their knowledge more niche or trade-focused art careers don’t exist. My grandfather on my mom’s side was a draftsman for construction so he had taught my mom perspective drawing which she then spent time teaching to me. It was nice to be introduced to the more ‘rigid’ artistic principles at a young age that way because I never felt intimidated by drawing landscapes of buildings. My mom likes to tell the story of how when I was a toddler drawing in chalk on the driveway one time I started making a floorplan using the symbols I’d seen from her print-outs around the home and when my grandfather came out to see what Id done he started celebrating because it meant he could start teaching me draftsman skills as well. As much as retelling the story in snippets paints a picture as If our whole family line was destined for architectural drawing work, the other important lesson my mother in particular drilled into me is that careers change and flexibility is the best skill to learn. My mom actually went to school initially for biology, eventually that shifted into an English degree and it wasn’t until she was pregnant long after her first graduation that she went to earn a degree in interior design. This helped my anxiety a lot as a young adult because when I first entered college I knew I wanted to do art but was somewhat directionless in the exact form that would take. I actually started my education at The New School in NYC but found the majority of our classes focused too heavily on fashion design and magazine illustration for my tastes. It was only after transferring a few blocks uptown and finishing my degree at the School of Visual Arts that I found my groove doing animation work specifically. Having my mother in my ear reassuring that a change in career and education isn’t the end of the world made even that small step for me a lot easier. I’ve had other part-time work consistently throughout college, I’ve been a cashier, a florist, and a ticket teller at the local theater. While I’d love to imagine that I’ll be doing animation work consistently from here on out as my primary income, being self-assured that I am no less of an artist during lulls where I happen to work in other fields to make ends meet is the best thing my parents taught me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a background designer for animation, which means I primarily work in line. Animation is a wonderful and kind of insane art form because its impossible to do in large scale alone. You’ll always be working in a group passing ideas from one specialist to another. My specialty is perspective and detail. I love to fill scenes with complex clutter and give reality to locations that otherwise seem impossible. I turn fictional locations that exist only in a director’s head or a storyboard artist’s sketch indications and I realize it from every angle necessary. I’ve always loved good line-art, the ability to make an art piece beautiful through only the thick and thin of the marks on paper rather than relying of color and light to tell the story is amazing in my eyes. Its a completely different way to approach art because there is so little room for technical error which allows both the highly logical and creative aspects of my brain to be engaged at the same time. I’m a weird artist anomaly in that I love math problems and approach all my art from the angle of both equation and aesthetic simultaneously. I take any chance I get to introduce warped perspective or extreme 3 point camera views into my art because I find that sort of challenge extremely satisfying to do successfully. I work mostly in the indie sector at the moment, jumping onto as many short films as I’m able to handle (usually two or three every couple months), but have just started an Internship at Titmouse Inc which I hope will lead to even larger projects in the future!

In terms of the content of the art I love old castles or estate houses and find myself drawing a lot of Gothic or Victorian landscapes in my free time. For my career the art depends more on the director’s vision. I’m happy to hop into any aesthetic imaginable because it allows me room to stretch and try out new styles. However, when I’m left to my own devices I always loved gothic horror. Haunted house stories were some of my favorite growing up in part because of how much the architecture played a role in the cast. I love art and animation where the setting speaks directly to you and acts a main character in the script. Edward Hopper paintings do that very well and I think a lot about the way his ‘House by the Railroad’ painting directly inspired the locations in ‘Psycho’. Its a goal of mine artistically to create locations, houses specifically, with such impactful auras as that one (whether they be charming or horrifying). Secondary to that is my love of nature. I’m a big hiker and try to get outdoors as much as I can. Growing up in upstate NY I was never far from a forest and would spend a lot of my weekends on hiking trails looking at rivers or tree roots. I love art that captures a feeling of nature’s enormity. The movie I’ve watched by far the highest number of times is Princess Mononoke by studio Ghibli. I often return just to pause and stare at backgrounds to see how they’ve rendered the forests. I bring a sketchbook whenever I go to the park nowadays so If I see a tree I like I can quickly jot its shape down. Nature is the best inspiration for daily drawing.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Its the collaboration! I love geeking out with other artist’s about our process; sharing brushes, techniques, film recommendations. I always have the best and most exciting conversations with other artists. I love animation as a career because it allows me to work directly on top of other people’s art and have someone else work off my art in turn. You’re freed from the preciousness of being an ‘individual genius’ and just get to enjoy the back and forth of sharing really cool ideas. Whenever I’m stuck in a personal project I’ll find a friend to describe it to. Sure enough half way through my ramblings they’ll have already suggested something that fixes the art block.

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

We need better safety nets, financially, medically, and in housing. I’ve only gotten as far as I have because I knew friends and family would support me when creative decisions didn’t immediately pay off. It’s unfair and restricting our culture’s creative diversity that many aren’t allowed that same level of risk due to wealth barriers. I firmly believe that If we lived in a society with universal healthcare and universal housing than the art being made would grow in quality and quantity tenfold. Animation in particular in an *expensive* industry to start out in. As the strikes over this past summer proved, film and TV are in dire need of restructuring because most of the workers starting out in the field can barely support themselves. If an entry level wage does not cover your rent then its unlikely anyone without a backup or savings account can last long enough to climb the ladder to something more reliable. It should not be a necessary sacrifice to starve oneself for passion. Suffering does not equate to great art and that old myth needs to retire.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.evelynconway.art
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/illustrativefae/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evelyn-conway-a03567194/

Image Credits
The personal image was taken by my roommate Ethan Wolfsberg, The photo of me sitting on a mountainside was taken by my sister Ceili Conway.