We recently connected with Mark Wang and have shared our conversation below.

Mark , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I always loved cartoons, comics, and drawing, but I never seriously considered it as a viable option for a career when I was younger. For the most part art was always presented to me as a hobby and those who do manage to make art were a statistical anomaly, but man I just wanted to draw. My Senior year of high school was when I took my first proper art class. It really gave me the itch to keep creating. So I enrolled into art school with the intention to become a graphic designer. A graphic designer was the easier sell to my parents.There I learned about the illustration field and fell in love with visual storytelling and the drawing process. Once I figured that this was a real career path I was desperate to get in. It took moving to New York and grad school to get here, but I’m finally making money through my drawings!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I work as a freelance illustrator, in other words I draw for a living. My Career really got started in the New York illustration scene.Net working is most effective when you’re in close proximity to the industry. I got into this line of work mostly through editorial jobs (ie New York Times, etc.) Through That I dipped my toe into other types of illustration work like picture books, storyboarding, and murals. My biggest tool as a illustrator is empathy. I’m always hoping to connect to the viewers one on one to give them a new perspective, a new feeling, some sense of understanding and/or emotion. Drawings are my language, empathy is my tool.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I get to draw. There are a million way to get the message across all of them valid, but for me I get to tell my story through drawing and that’s enough for me.

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

Proper pay. My personal gripes on capitolsim aside, companies need to up their art budgets. Illustration rates at best have been stagnant for decades in spite of rising living cost. Artist as a collective do have bargaining power, but I also think the onus is still on the employers and corporations.

I don’t think survival makes the best products.
I no longer want to create for my right to survive.
I just want to draw the best drawings I can.

Cover all universal needs for all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://markwangillustration.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ouch_you_slouch/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-wang-41aa677b/