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

Lawrence, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Leaving a stable traditional office job to pursue the arts and invest in myself and my passions. –

All my life I’ve loved the art of storytelling and creating in comic books. While growing up, any signs of interest or demonstration of my abilities with art were often accompanied with suggestions to be a graphic artist or commercial artist. Needless to say, I continued to pursue my interest in the comic book world despite the lack of encouragement from others, all the while still taking instructions of graphic design and commercial work. At an early age of 20, I actually landed the graphic design job with all the benefits without finishing college. After working day in day out at this job for almost six years, I decided to leave after acknowledging how unhappy I was with the career and the environment that left me depressed and disatisified daily. I was still doing art and comic work sporadically during this tie and found my real passion in assisting and learning the art form through mentors. At the peak of my work in graphic design, I finally left and took a lower paying job to allow me the time to return to school and properly learn the craft and see my options. As a result, I’ve been able to find my passions in film making and comic books, and since then became a producer and professional comic artist.

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.

I have always had art as part of my life in some form. If I was studying or if I had freetime, I drew and did characters from my favorite comics. This led me to attend comic book conventions and meet the professionals to learn about thier paths. Its through these meetings and time spent with these mentotrs that opened my awareness of the different paths that are available in the evolving field of art. I learned that freelancing was a possiblity other than a regular 9 to 5 office job, and the different freedoms you can have to do your work and passion. I also was encourage to get former training as an artist to learn traditional methods and instruction. I was able to grow, and see the path was not restricted to one way of operating and that I can build a carreer with different interest such as film, animation, and comic books. This understanding and variety allowed me to adapt to different disciplines. It was this adapatability in school that got me recognized by different professors and professionals that led me to recommended to jobs in film and comic books. Ultimately interning and showing these skills often led me to rise through the ranks.

I was discovered by Mildred Iatrou, Oscar award wining film maker, in the classroom. She recognized not just talent but my work ethic stood above most in the classroom, and my willingness to learn under time stressed conditions. It is this contact that led me to be recommended in assist work at Pixar and several other studios. Each contact led me to another recommendation and referal. When I was not working in film, I was assisting in comic books a tie into film thorugh the work that i did as a storyboards for commercials.

Networking and the desire to learn helpd my carreer to build, when I realize the people you were around were the ones that got you the job by refererals. Its by working with you closely daily, people can assist you abilty and your work ethic, are you plesant to work with.

In film, my problem solving abilities and volunteering to help led to my possition as a FIrst Assistant Director, which over the years led me to become a producer because of my familiarity of all the departments and staff. Whereas my ability to imitate styles and work quickly allowed me to be an assistant to Comic Book Artists in the comic book industry.

Eventually these worlds of the film and comic book would collide and merge for me, as I produced a comic book film. I have been since been able to apply my skills to to careers. that wold help me grow.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’m a father and family man, being both of these has determined a lot of my decisions in my life that involve my career. I’ve often weighed circumstances on how it would affect my family, and more often I’d choose my family over my career. With these type of decisions, you are sacrificing your own gratifications and wants, and it requires patience. Having patience to wait for an other opportunity, or something else while your waiting for next project or job is a common occurence. Theere will be a great deal of sacrifices as you wait, and this is were resilience comes in. You have to beleive there will be another time, there will be more to come, and simpy be patience. Most of my jobs early on on my career required to travel and time away from the family, I let these pass in favor to spend more time with my children, knowing they grew fast. I weighed these times with my children and family very closely, as I knew it was time you would never get back. A job or opportunity will present itself or time, but time with your family is precious and fleeting. My resilience comes from understanding that, and allowing to learn what I can apply from my life experiences to my work and career. I’ve developed a wisdom that comes with time, and understanding that life is also opportunity to use in creating artistically as you draw for inspiration.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Becoming. a father has been a major pivot. I never thought I was going to have the opportunity to be a father, as it requires being involved with someone. I’ve been a very busy person in my life and have grown from a life in poverty adn constant moving. Most of my decisions come from deciding whats best for the family. When I became a father and family man, I looked for work that meant stability to taek responsibility to my children, often times giving up work in film and comics that required fleibility for work. One of those decisions was to become a professor teaching in the community college and the university. I never intended to be an instrucor and had no desire growing up. The opportunity came when I ws offered the position as I came as a guest speaker at a college as a freelancer in film. I had my new father at the time, and there were many financial worries at the time I was building a career and becoming a family man, taking the position meant stability. I taught for over 15 years as a film instructor, teaching what I knew directly from my film experiences on set daily from my freelancing. It allowed me to be an effective instrucotr as students saw my real life expeiences being taught by industry standards and not from theory or books. I was able to get many students emplyed through refereals to my professional contacts and eventually led to me being a film producer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kidheroes.net
• Other: lumpiamovie.com
  I See Sound Comics

Image Credits

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