We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hanah Tremblay a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hanah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?
The first dollar I ever earned as a creative was at a farmers market my freshman year of college. The story is actually pretty ironic and I laugh about it often.
My first year at Flagler College I was in a super small dorm with a couple girls and we didn’t have much room to store anything – especially not my buckets and buckets of paint and all my canvases so I had to leave most of it behind when I moved in. I missed creating so much and tried to find a new medium to work with that wouldn’t take up too much room and would be easily portable so I could hang out at the beach and take it with me. I had seen macrame plant hangers all over shops around town and thought it would be really cool to try to make some of my own. Immediately I was hooked and was making at least one a day and gifting them to friends and family. The next week I saw a flyer hung up in one of the art studios at Flagler about a market that would be taking place that upcoming weekend. I thought about it for awhile and decided to give it a shot, the only problem was I had already gifted away all of the plant hangers I had made and the market was in 3 days. I went and thrifted a couple pots and made as many hangers as I could between work and classes. I think I ended up with 6 of them by the time the market came around, so I didn’t have much but I was stoked regardless – I was about to sell my art for the first time ever! The morning of the market I packed up all my stuff in this huge bin and started running down the dorm stairs to the first level because I was so excited, maybe a little too excited because I ended up tripping and fell down a half a flight of stairs with everything in my hands. My ankle was killing me but I didn’t want to be late so I didn’t second guess it, hopped right up, and ran to my car. I didn’t really know what I was doing since it was my first market so I just had nothing but a clothing rack to hang my plant hangers on and a chair. I hadn’t realized how much I should’ve brought until I saw everyone else’s booths and recognized how unprepared I was. I got a little discouraged, but didn’t let it get the best of me. I had some super sweet people come by my booth – or should I say rack – and check out my stuff which made me feel a little better. Then this older man came up looking very excited and said “My wife loves these! She’s been wanting to get one for our kitchen. How much?” I told him $15, which I’d like to think was a pretty good deal since each one took me several hours to make. He immediately changed his attitude and scoffs at me, “Are you kidding me!? They sell these on Amazon for $7 I’m definitely not paying $15!” and walked away. Instead of saying as a small business and solo artist, “I can not compete with Amazon’s prices”, I lowered all of the prices on my tags because I thought he was right and that there was no way my work was worth that much. Then, track back to falling down the stairs that morning, my ankle started to hurt pretty bad again so I took off my shoe and checked it out – it was super swollen and part of it was even dark purple. I have never sprained an ankle or broken a bone before so I wasn’t sure if it looked serious or not. While trying to decide if I should just call it a day and head home a huge gust of wind came through and knocked over my rack, shattering all of the pots in my plant hangers and breaking the rack. In that moment I so badly wanted to just quit and go home, thinking it wasn’t meant to be and maybe my art just wasn’t good enough to be sold. But, every vendor around me immediately came over and helped pick everything up. One woman even lent me an extra table she had to display my stuff since my rack was now snapped in half. I stayed through the end and hadn’t sold a thing until this wonderful lady came by right when I started to pack up. We talked for awhile and she ended up buying half of my plant hangers and told me to keep doing what I’m doing because my work was beautiful. I’ll never forget that feeling – the feeling of someone truly valuing what I create and what I am most passionate about – it has fueled my fire ever since. This woman and the amazing artists that helped me out that day are what kept me going and made me love and cherish the art community in St.Aug so much. I knew it was a community that I wanted to be a part of.
Long story short, even though it started out ruff, that day taught me a lot. It taught me that not everyone will value your art or resonate with it and that’s okay, you can’t please everyone. But no matter what, never devalue your work because of what one person says. If you put your heart and soul into creating it, the right person will eventually come along that will love and appreciate that.
Hanah, 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?
I’m currently living in St. Augustine, Florida while I finish my degrees in graphic design and business administration, but I grew up in a small beach town called New Smyrna Beach about an hour South of St.Aug. I’ve always been interested in art and was immersed in it at a really young age and I’m so grateful for that. My art teacher growing up was my best friend Sammy’s mom and she had the coolest little art studio in her house. I’d go over there to hang out and Sammy and I would be in her moms studio for hours on end creating anything that came to mind. We spent a whole day up there one time cutting up a cardboard box from a package her mom had gotten that morning and turning it into a mini robot family. We hot glued the cardboard pieces together to form the bodies and made them outfits out of fabric scraps. We even made them a little dog. Her mom still has it today! I’m so thankful for how much time her mom let us spend up there and how much creative freedom she gave us. I truly think it’s what sparked my creative interests. My parents were always super supportive as well and continuously reassured me that if I wanted to make a living as an artist that I could. I remember telling my dad when I was 11 that I wanted to be a tattoo artist when I get older and he said go for it. He would sit down and draw with me and give me tips since he’s an artist as well.
Flash forward 8 years to 2019 and Tremblay Art & Design is born!
Some of the products and services I provide are t-shirt illustrations, logos and branding, pattern design, board art such as surfboards and skateboards, macrame, and much more. My style involves a lot of smooth line work and frequently has skeletons in it. I’m always open to any type of freelance work, but one of my favorite things to do is illustrations for t-shirts. I also really love creating illustrations for beer cans and have created illustrations for stickers, tote bags, and patches, and a few other things. I just recently started some projects involving website and app deign as well. Another one of my all time favorite things to create for people is logos. It’s a really surreal feeling to be able to make something that helps someone to grow and promote their passions in life through their new business. A logo really helps to kick start everything and I always have so much love and gratitude when someone chooses me to create something so important for them. I have been doing a lot of board art recently as well. I use posca pens to make designs on the bottom of surfboards and skateboards rather it be for decoration or for use. I painted a super detailed skeleton on a 5,2 surfboard for Surf Station last year and thats probably the piece I’m most proud of so far because I put so much time into it. I would love to do. a snowboard one day as well!
For anyone in need of a creative product or service, I would love to collaborate with you! Contact me anytime and lets create something rad.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
By far, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist and designer is getting to do what I love and share my ideas with people. It is even more rewarding when I get to do it while I travel. I go on surf trips every so often, sometimes for months at a time, so graphic design has been such a gift. As long as I bring my laptop and my sketchbook I can still make money while I bounce around from place to place and I can’t stress enough that I am SO grateful for that. There has been a couple instances as well where I meet people while I’m traveling that are in need of a design or logo and I get to create something for them. Nothing beats the feeling of seeing your art not only in your hometown, but in other countries around the world as well. Most of my work is inspired by my travels, surfing, the beach, and music and I feel most inspired when I’m traveling and immersed in these activities. I always return with so many design ideas that spark from the new people I met, things I saw, and the experiences I had. I can’t lie, I have definitely shed some tears of joy while drawing on the beach of some tropical places. It felt like all these ideas were flowing out of me and that it was exactly where I was meant to be and what I was meant to be doing – sitting in the sun and creating. I think that is one of the feelings that drives my desire to travel as often as I can.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think one of the main things society can do to best support the art community is to think about how much of an impact art has on the world and the true value of it. Art plays a role in almost everything and a lot of thought goes into it. As a freelancer, I’ve learned that some people that have never been on the creative side of things do not realize how much time and effort truly goes into creating even the most simple things. Color, texture, sizing, proportion, and much more all make such a big difference in the final outcome and have different effects on how the viewer will feel. Artists are just as needed and just as important as say a banker, a construction worker, an accountant etc. Big corporations who out source and sell art for insanely low amounts hurt local artists and make some people think that the services or products offered by local artists are not worth it because they’re priced higher than the crazy low and unrealistic prices online. Just keep that in mind next time you buy something handmade, us artists put a lot of love and time into each and every piece and have put a lot of thought into the pricing of it as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hanahtremblay.myportfolio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tremblayart_/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanah-tremblay-68b260225/?trk=public_profile_browsemap