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

Jack, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?

If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself to get serious about social media sooner. Although social media hasn’t been great for humanity as a whole, it’s a real boon for artists. I’ve always created art, but it wasn’t until I got serious about posting it to social media platforms (primarily Instagram) that I began to develop a following, gain exposure, and as a result, receive a variety of job offers. Keeping up with the hustle and bustle made for good practice, too.

I would never tell someone to make social media the focus of their time or energy, but I would absolutely recommend creatives to stop worrying about what people say or how many Likes and Follows they’ll receive, and just start sharing. The world needs more art, and you should never be afraid to share yours with the world. Start today.

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

I’m Jack Razor, a visual artist and illustrator hailing from the miserable little state of Michigan. I’ve done just about everything you can think of, but what I like to do most is simply draw. I’ve done it for as long as I can remember, and I am incredibly proud that I can do it professionally– it was a long road of hard work and a lot of disappointments to turn my hobby into a paying job.

The type of work I like to do most is illustration– shirt designs, posters, a book cover, an album cover. If it’s creative, it’s my cup of tea. I often use the descriptor “Art punk” to describe both myself and my work– I can do formal, but what I really like is something fun, or dark, or edgy, or all three. If John B. Artist is doing U2, I’m doing Black Flag.

How did you build your audience on social media?

This might be a little specific, but draw fan art. It doesn’t matter what it is– everything has a big following. What’s your favorite movie, band, cartoon, video game? Draw or write that. Learn from the creatives that made something you love, and apply it to your own style. Post it on social media, no matter how bad you think it is. Load the post up with a ton of hashtags! The fan base will come. It will be slow at first, but it will happen.

Truth be told, I never really built a big following until I began posting fan art. I always drew it, of course– doodling Archie and Dragon Ball characters and whatnot as a kid– but I always used that as practice for my personal art. Unfortunately, personal art rarely catches anyone’s eye.

Make your fan art, get a following, then slowly branch out. People who enjoy your work will stick with you. Just make sure you always stay passionate. Never create artwork for the sake of getting Likes or Followers. Create art for the sake of art, and over time your skills will shine and you’ll develop a following. Just create until the day you can create no more.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

These are pretty uncertain times for creatives and creativity. With AI, we are seeing a lot of non-creative people generating images and not only claiming them as art, but actually applying them for commercial products–and they’re proud of it! This is of course not real art, but unfortunately, it’s not going anywhere. We’re stuck with it.

But that doesn’t mean creativity has to die. AI can’t feel, can’t think, doesn’t have history, or experience, or emotions. It just steals a bunch of work from creatives and spits something out. In the future, we can value the work of creative people even among a sea of imitators. You might be able to buy a year-old bottle of grape juice at the Saver’s Mart and that’s wine, but people still buy wine from people who made it passionately.

I hope anyone reading this–whether you’re a creator or not– finds the real value in art of any kind made by a human; in its story, and its passion, and the feeling that went into and comes out of it. Support art and the people that create it. Find the value in what went into its creation. The life experience. AI doesn’t break up with a girl and write a song about it. AI doesn’t grow up poor and use that experience in a novel or painting. People do. I think maybe in the future we’ll find the value in humanity as everything becomes more automated and sterile. I hope so, anyway.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JackRazorMustDie
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack.razor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JackRazorArt