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

Mason, appreciate you joining us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

I feel like as an artist, as anyone who has ever ventured into a professional creative outlet could tell you, I constantly fall into situations where myself as well as my craft are misunderstood or mischaracterized. Speaking for myself, whenever I mention to someone that I am an artists there are already so many misconceptions that come with that title. For example, the assumption that I don’t have a “real job” or that I must be “starving” as a result of my career path. Another big one is that I must be wasting my time because it is foolish to believe that I can become successful based on my passion. Now in all honesty, my art career is not currently paying my bills (at least not yet) so I do have a 9 to 5 and I am in no way a starving artist. However, I have made strides in cultivating a following around my art in participating in festivals as well as on social media, and have had the opportunity to make money selling my pieces. Which in my mind is the beginning of a successful business opportunity, that will one day become my main financial resource, instead of just a side hustle.

As for my art, there have been many times where my work has been misunderstood. My medium is in digital art, and I specialize in minimalism; typically focusing on human references, influenced by a fusion of Neo-Traditional American style and Japanese style tattooing. Now obviously art is subjective and left open to interpretation. I have long understood that this comes with the territory and I have made peace with that. I of course want my pieces to be well received and appreciated, which I have gotten. On the flip side, there are always critics or people that view my work and “just don’t get it”. A pet peeve of mine is when someone views my work and tells me that I should have done this-or-that to make them appreciate it more. Now in a perfect world, everyone would love the work I do. But in reality, I’ve learned to accept criticism and focus on those who do understand my vision.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those who may not be aware of myself or my work, my name is Mason Bradley a.k.a MAEVOLUTION. I am 26 years old and was born and raised in Austin, Texas. I am a self taught artist, and am hoping to one day start a business in selling my art, either in prints or in other forms such as clothing and home apparel. I started becoming interested in art when I was very young, and for a majority of my life it was just a hobby. That all changed after attending Graphic Design classes in high school. I received a lot of praise from teachers as well as other students, and realized that I could actually develop a career out of the work I had done not just for the classes but for the catalogue of work I had behind me. In the last decade or so, I have had the opportunity to work on a multitude of projects, such as: a music video for an up and coming rapper, participating in festivals and art showcases, being published for my work in a few magazines (check out my previous article with Voyage Austin !!), and just recently a gallery spotlighting LGBTQ+ artist in Austin. It took some time for me to find my own style, but after some years of practice, I have created a style of my own that has been instantly recognizable with those familiar with my work. It has been a little weird but there have been a few times that I or my work have been recognized by strangers, but when it does happen it reminds me that I’m doing a good job in finding success in my work.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A huge lesson that I have learned in my journey is that CONFIDENCE IS KEY !!! I know that may sound cliche, I can feel the eye rolls coming. However, in being human not just an entrepreneur or an artist, having confidence in yourself and your work is truly the most important factor in becoming successful. Like most twenty-something’s, I have struggled with anxiety and depression issues for a lot of my adult life. It isn’t something that I discuss too often, but my struggles dealing with anxiety have definitely had an influence on my journey to become make a name for myself in the art world. There have been times where I was offered an opportunity to participate in a project, but my own self-doubt kept me from participating fully or even participating at all. Until there came a time where I decided that I wasn’t going to allow my own feelings to override my passions anymore, almost like splitting myself in two: Mason the guy and Mason the artist, and the artist side doesn’t let anxiety stop him from perusing success. And in doing so, I have been able to achieve things in my journey that would have seemed impossible a year ago. There are of course times where it can be difficult for me to express myself or my work, but pushing myself to try has been beneficial in my career but also in my personal life.

Confidence is like deodorant, you have to reapply for it to work !!

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

Building an audience is always tricky and in no way an easy task. In being an artist (really in any field), having a following is crucial because if no one sees you then you have no platform to build off of. Social media is a great tool to gain supporters, and in my case instagram has been the most beneficial. One tool that I have used in building a social following is participating in “challenges” via social media. One example is Inktober, a challenge for artists to create / design 31 pieces (one for everyday of October) based of a list of prompts provided by the account that hosts the challenge or just posting a piece of your own without said prompts. I have participated in this challenge for the last four years, and although it is difficult at times to come up with thirty-one pieces to post, it is probably the biggest tool for growing my following.

Another tip that I have for developing a following is to know your audience. This is also standard for starting a business in general. Finding that bridge between what I’m into and want to create and what my audience is into and what they want to see can help bring attention to you page. Now as an artist, I don’t want to create pieces solely based on what people want to see. However, staying true to my style and incorporating elements or references from pop culture helped me to create base. That way when I post something that is fresh from my mind that may not have anything to do with something publicly relevant, my audience can still appreciate my work.

As of now you can find my art on instagram @maevolution … website coming soon !!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @maevolution