We were lucky to catch up with Laine Gay recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Laine, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve always been drawn to the arts, growing up I loved being in art class and learning about art history. I didn’t start making art outside of a school setting until I was about a junior in high school. I wanted to make a Christmas gift for my mom and I made my first painting that wasn’t for an assignment. I enjoyed it so much I started making more art in my free time. When I went to college I tried a few different majors but my mom kept telling me I should be an art major. I was resistant at first, I wanted art to just be something I did for myself on the side. Eventually though, when I became a sophomore, I decided to make the jump and switch my major to fine arts. I mostly took drawing and painting classes but I also started taking printmaking classes and I fell in love with carving. While in college I started noticing more artists on social media who were making art their career and I decided that that was what I wanted to do too. I opened my online shop in 2017 and have been selling art ever since then. I spent a year recently doing art full time but decided I wanted to go a different route. So right now I have a job as a barista while I look for an apprenticeship to pursue tattooing.

Laine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an artist living and working in Atlanta Georgia. I work mostly as a painter and printmaker. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse I use art as tool to heal and process my trauma. My work celebrates women and their resilience and strength that comes from living in a patriarchal society, as well as the exploration of their femininity. I create whimsical and ethereal pieces of women embracing their feminine softness. My work often illustrates those traits we are often shamed for in s positive light. The women I draw or paint are vulnerable and gentle, they are delicate and strong, even in the face of so much adversity. Using a combination of floral, celestial and figurative elements, I display the power and beauty of the feminine spirit to help others feel empowered.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building an audience on social media is a lot of work and takes some patience. I was posing on social media for years before I started gaining followers. My best advice is to be your most authentic self. Post captions that your audience can interact with and feel more connected to you. It’s also important to create real relationships with other artists to create a community where you can support each other. You have to be consistent with posting, post everything! Post your behind the scenes as well as your finished products, you never know what will catch peoples attention. Recycle your content!! If you spent 30 hours on a painting keep sharing it over and over. Sometimes people just don’t see your posts so make sure you give them multiple opportunities to see it! And make sure you have fun with social media, don’t take it too seriously! You will have posts that will do really well and some that don’t, it’s not a reflections of you and your work, sometimes the algorithms just don’t want to push what we post and that’s okay! Not every post will go viral and that’s okay too!

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

For about a year I was able to be a full time and it came with a lot of ups and downs. I loved being able to work from home and make art everyday but there came a point where I wasn’t very happy. The algorithms had changed on social media and my posts were getting less views which meant I was getting less sales. When you tie your art to sales and money and views it becomes really stressful and can lead to burnout. I realized after a while that being a full time artist just wasn’t for me. I decided to get an non art related job and work on my art in my free time. I closed down my shop and didn’t have to worry about making sales anymore and it completely changed my relationship with my art. I became so much happier and I actually wanted to make art again. It’s been really nice making art just for me this past year. I did recently decide to open my online shop again so that people could purchase originals but I’m so much more content with art not being my primary income anymore.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.lainegayart.com
• Instagram: Lainegayart