Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mary Hawkins. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mary, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I don’t feel like an adrenaline junkie – I’m not someone who loves roller coasters or scary movies – but when I take big risks and push myself in my professional life, the results have always been better and more meaningful than I imagined. It’s not a coincidence that the projects I’ve created for myself versus my client work are also the most meaningful for me and for audiences. In 2023, I took a sabbatical year to intentionally focus on creating the sort of work I want to be hired to do in the future. It was an amazingly productive year: I made two short animated films and a music video, and I art directed two documentaries. Prior to that year, I felt like a lot of my professional work was ephemeral. I often work on 360 campaigns, which means that I’m making promos and social posts – the sort of work that goes out into that daily firehose of visual images in our culture.

By contrast, the projects I chose to work on in 2023 were projects that have had a much bigger impact on me and the people who’ve seen them. I knew I was interested in working on the movie Kokomo City (https://www.magpictures.com/kokomocity/) when I first started talking to producer Harris Doran (https://harrisdoran.com/) and director D. Smith (https://www.instagram.com/truedsmith/) about the theme of the documentary, and it’s gotten big accolades, including some major awards at Sundance, and I hope that it continues to make waves for years. If you’d asked me this time last year what I thought would happen with my short film, Love Letters for the Subway (http://www.loveletters.city/), I could not have predicted that it would be in more than a dozen film festivals and even be selected for curated museum programs. When my composer, Carlos Dengler (https://www.carlosdengler.com/), approached me to work on a music video for his song Golden Dawn (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrotkcZYK-M), we were able to craft a sunlit world that was bright and mildly hallucinogenic as a setting for the single and it got great feedback from his fans and reviewers. My next two projects – Skate Fast, Turn Left (https://vimeo.com/maryhawkins/skatefastturnleft) and the feature documentary Igniting the Spark(http://ignitingthesparkmtg.com/) – are just on the cusp of wider releases and I’m looking forward to seeing how audiences react to them.

The biggest revelation for me in the last five years of my career is how much my personal work as an artist and filmmaker has fueled my professional growth as an art director. Taking time for these personal projects was a bet that paid off in my growth and in how people see me as an artist and professional. I’ve been gathering up friends and colleagues and approaching people who I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to work with, and I was actually able to give myself the time to create full pieces from those collaborations.

Mary, 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?

.For people who are new to the term, “Art Director” is a broad and sometimes slippery job description. In the stack of people who are working on a creative project, I sit between the creative director’s vision and guidance and the work to be done. I take the notes and direction of the creative director, plus the feedback and strategy from clients and interpret it visually. On larger projects I’m directing other commercial artists and leading them so they can create pieces that flow into the final project. On others, I can sweep up the whole project and cover all of those steps by myself.

I’ve been really lucky to work with a bunch of lovely, brilliant people on interesting (and sometimes intense!) projects over the course of my career. I have nearly two decades of experience working as a designer and animator for on-air, social and 360 campaigns at Paramount — beginning with the MTV upfronts in 2004 — as well as other networks, including Sundance, Food Network, IFC, Cartoon Network and NBC. Outside of networks and film, I’ve worked with a diverse range of brands including L’Oréal, M&Ms, Paypal, KiwiCo, Harley Davidson, Martha Stewart, Chase and Bliss. I’ve also worked with a number of nonprofit clients, including Women’s March and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. My work on Vote With Us, a livestream from March On/future coalition, was nominated for a Webby in Virtual & Remote Public Service & Activism, 2020.

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

As a freelancer, my colleagues and I always assumed that if we worked hard and excelled at our current projects and just met or impressed the right people, we’d advance to more complicated projects. We thought that was what ambition and forward motion looked like. In reality, we all got hired for the same projects over and over again because we did them well, even for artists that were more talented or more outgoing. It was a comfortable place for me and for many of my coworkers, and that was my work strategy for years. It took me nearly a decade to realize that that attitude and assumption was impeding my career and artistic growth, and that I needed to be more adventurous and bolder. Once I started being more deliberate and making my own work, I started getting better clients and better assignments.

Contact Info:

• Website: maryhawkins.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryhawkinsnyc/
• Other: IMDB: https://imdb.me/maryhawkins

Image Credits
Photos: Alex Palombo