We recently connected with Julia Y and have shared our conversation below.

Julia , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made (either in terms of time or money)? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

Back in 2017, I had recently finished graduate school and was at a pivotal moment in my artistic career. I had lined up a meeting with the lead of the surface pattern design department at the clothing retailer where I was working my day job, and she asked me to make some sample patterns. I was also simultaneously working on a series of self-initiated mixed-media astrological paintings that I was really excited about. I was still working a full time job and only had a limited amount of time & energy into my artwork, and had to chose between creating work for a surface pattern design portfolio or working on my own project.

Every evening when I gave myself a choice of what to work on, I wanted to create work that excited me even though I didn’t know how it would further my career, rather than create work that I kind of enjoyed and thought I had to do to get a job. That series of paintings that I created has evolved over the past five years into The MicroCosmic Oracle Deck, which has been my biggest project to date and really redefined how I make my art.

I’ve repeated this process in similar situations where I have to “place bets” on where to put my time, money, and effort. When I invested in purchasing art prints to try my first art fair, I had a resoundingly positive reaction and now I make most of my arts income at art fairs. When I thought “I wonder if anyone would by my art on a t-shirt?” and had to invest hundreds of dollars into ordering my first 100 shirts, it was nerve wracking. I didn’t know if I’d ever sell them all. 3 years later, I’ve sold over 2,000 shirts! It’s a wonderful feeling to be walking around in Seattle and see people I don’t know wearing my shirts.

I’m currently venturing out into the unknown again, researching price quotes from oracle deck printers and writing my first ever book to accompany the deck. I’m once again betting that the project will be well received and sufficiently funded, and I’ll put a body of work out into the world that people will be inspired by.

Every time I have taken a risk and bet on myself, I made substantial strides towards making a living off of my art on my own terms. Every little triumph has encourages me to invest more next time.

Julia , 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?

My name is Julia Y (she/they) and I am a mixed-media illustrator from Seattle, WA. I use a unique combination of cut fabric, acrylic paint, embroidery floss, and nail-and-string art to create 3-D paintings with bright, vibrant colors and textural depth. Most of my work is inspired by folklore, astrology, geometry, herbalism, zoology, and the connections between them. I consider my work to be an amalgam of a lot of mystical and spiritual art that I’ve seen, representing esoteric subject matters in new ways.

I was fortunate enough to receive a formalized arts education, receiving my BFA in Illustration from Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles and my MFA in Illustration from University of Hartford. It was during my master’s degree program that I started experimenting with combining my interests in sewing & painting into the fabric-based mix that I use today. I’ve never seen anyone else create art this way… partially because it is very time-intensive and challenging and most people aren’t crazy enough to try it. But I love the tactile experience, mixing shiny fabrics and patterns, and creating a one-of-a-kind 3-d painting with its own movement and shine that can’t be replicated by a reproduction or digital painting.

I also adapt the subject matter in my paintings into striking black-and-white screen printed t-shirts. I wanted to create designs unlike anything I was seeing in the vast sea of apparel graphics, and am always striving to make shirts that make every person who wears them get inspired and feel like a total badass.

I identify as an independent artist, which means I mostly work on self-generated projects and ideas, but I do take commissions for t-shirt designs and paintings. I’ve been self-publishing astrological calendars for the past 6 years through Kickstarter, and later this October I am venturing in to self-publishing my own oracle deck.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

It sounds really negative, but I’ve learned to embrace myself as being a commercial art failure. I went through my education planning on creating illustrations for art directors to sell to others, but I never found a market in which the work I wanted to create was relevant or marketable. I sent out lots of promotional materials and tried to create art that I thought people would want to buy, but it always felt disingenuous and never turned out to be something I was proud of.

It was very frustrating and building my career took a lot longer than I thought it would, and there were many times I considered giving up. I tried to fit in to a lot of industries where, in hind sight, I don’t think I would have been happy. I spent a lot of years working day jobs in photo retouching while working on developing my own personal artistic vision and eventually putting myself through grad school.

In 2016 after I finished graduate school, I created a series of embroidered paintings about the astrological constellations, and I started releasing annual calendars through Kickstarter. Instead of buying postcards to mail to art directors to try to get them to bestow a career upon me, I started selling those postcards directly to customers at art fairs. I’ve gradually built up a fan base, a body of work that I consider to be really unique, and started making my living off of art that I believe in.

I also want to take a minute to destigmatize having a day job! I think people do not consider someone to be a “real artist” unless they make all of their money from art because we live in a capitalist society where our value is determined solely by how we make money. To this day, I still work part time as a photo retoucher, and it works really well for me to split my time between two different careers. Having my basic financial needs met by my day job is what enables me to create that art I want to make without compromise. On my art-job days I can devote all of my creative energy into art that I am passionate about and work a physically demanding day of long hours at an art fair. On my day-job days, I can decompress, sit in a chair, and do some technical work that I’m really good at that does not require any emotional or creative investment.

It took SO MUCH LONGER to get my career started this way, but I now create the art I want on my own terms. It’s not for everyone, but it works for me. I don’t ever have to let someone tell me to change what I do, and I don’t have to compromise my artistic integrity. If someone doesn’t like the art I make, they can keep walking. And plenty of people do! I don’t even think my art is that weird, but I get a lot of confused looks & disturbed glares when I try to do “normie” art markets. But every time someone comes in to my booth and gasps when they see a piece of art that I made that connects with them deeply, it reminds me that taking the hard road and staying true to my own vision has been worth it.

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

“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” ― Anna Lappe

What kind of world do you want to live in? I know there are so many people who will drop thousands of dollars on designer clothing, but they don’t want to spend $50 on a piece of handmade art or jewelry if it doesn’t act as a status symbol. I also know people living off of more reasonable incomes that will throw their limited resources into buying plastic imported shit they don’t need off of Amazon, spending money every month on subscription services they might not even use, or spending hundreds of dollars on an assortment of poorly made fast-fashion, but they’ll balk at paying comparable amounts for a quality garment made by a local artist that they’ll be able to wear for years.

I understand not everyone has dispensable income, but for those that do- I encourage you to evaluate your ideas on what has value and what brings you joy. Where did you learn to put value on labels and trends instead of seeking out your own aesthetics? Do you want to live a life where you can only purchase from faceless corporations that exploit their workforce? Would you rather have more, poorly made things or a few good ones? Does paying for a developer-created AI generated image made by exploiting the work of real, living artists give you a warm fuzzy feeling? Or would you rather put something on your wall that you bought from the hands of the artist who made it?

Normalize & prioritize surrounding yourself with beautiful things, made by real people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.juliay.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliayillustrations/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JuliaYillustrations/

Image Credits
I took all of them!