We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joshua Phillips. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joshua below.

Joshua, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I was completely ignorant to the concept that I could make money creating art until about 2002 when I took AP art with Diana Olencki at Woodruff High School. Until then, every artist to me was a starving artist, no one was actually very successful except for the very talented and lucky. I loved creating art, but I also wanted financial security, something I just didn’t know how to do. She not only did a great job helping me understand the different ways art is used in everyday business, but really pointed me in right direction to how I achieve one of these positions through college and courses. The idea of becoming an artist was always there, but I can thank Mrs. Olencki for making it a reality.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My creativity began like many others, from my main influences as a kid. It just so happened that my parents were extremely creative, and there was always a creative project in our house. My technical side comes from my dad and his ability to fix or build anything, if he doesn’t know how something works, he will. My more abstract creativity comes from my mom, who has a Macgyver type talent of turning any junk into art… my science fair projects were extraordinary. Combine their influence on me with an old electric shop full of “junk” that sat on our property, and I had countless days creating anything and everything I could. Eventually, I got a little brother who combined his creativity with mine, and we still collaborate even today. It should be no surprise that he is also a professional artist now as well.

After a childhood of creating a bunch of junk in an old shop, I looked towards college and somehow turning this junk into a living. So I ended up in college, perusing a degree in Graphic Design, a pretty new form of art to me. Leaning into art that I am unfamiliar with has always been exciting, things that take me out of my comfort zone. Digital art became my new passion, the classes were great, but it was honestly the interactions with the students and Professors that made the largest impact on me. Art is subjective, learning that you will never please everyone in the room is something you should try to learn early. Instead, focus on who your client or target audience is for the project. Before I knew it college was ending and I was landing my first real job right before I graduated, working downtown in an ad agency. If given the opportunity to work at an ad agency, do it, because if you can keep up with that, you can do anything. Working in such a fast paced environment is great for any artist that can’t ever find the ending to an art piece, you literally have to get it done and usually it was due yesterday.

After 3 or 4 years working for an agency I realized that I didn’t have time for everything else I used to create though. Artist is a very broad term, and I like to check as many boxes as I can when it comes to types of art I do. Woodworking, sculpting, painting, graphic design, layout design, animation, are just a few of the things that I love. Repetitiveness has always been boring to me and moving from one medium to another has always helped remedy that. So I jumped around from agency to agency, job after job, most being in graphic design but all doing something different. I am very fortunate because I can say I truly enjoyed every artistic job I had and I am a strong believer in making a living doing what you enjoy.

Today, I am an art director, I love my job because I do something different everyday, but I also have the freedom to do freelance and art for myself. Balance seems to be very important to me, it took me almost 10 years to figure out that creative balance is what I need to make a living doing what I love.

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

Instead of answering this as “had to pivot”, I am going to take some artistic liberties here and explain why I think it is important to be able to pivot, and not paint yourself into a corner. I have had to pivot many times in my career, but only because being able to pivot created greater opportunities. If you are creative and you have the initiative to learn, you will thrive as an artist. No offense to someone who only wants to paint landscapes on canvas, they are amazing… but I have found that being a jack of all trades opens up endless opportunities and prevents you from ever having to pivot.

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

We live in a world where you want things immediately, and for the most part we get them. The art world and creatives have tried to fill that gap with stock sites, reprints, and reproductions. In the end though, you usually always get what you pay for. A lot of the time, quality is overlooked in art. So the best way to support art is to acknowledge and appreciate the time and quality put into something.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jdpcreations.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdpcreations/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialjdpcreations
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-phillips-b6048a18/