We recently connected with Mia Barnes and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mia, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

You can’t be an artist and be “corporate”. There I’ve finally said it. Being a “corporate artist” is an incredibly juxtaposing statement that I never understood. Look, I’m a small business owner, I obtained my LLC at 20 years old, so believe me when I say that I understand business very well. However, I will never be corporate, and frankly never strive to be. Systematically, it burns out creatives’ imagination for the creative process by molding them into the very box that ‘corporate’ itself chases to get out of. A prison of its own creation. “Corporate and industry” standard perpetuates a level of perfectionism that I have witnessed kill many of the artists I know- metaphorically and literally. It even almost killed me at a very young age, but I think maturing as an artist I’ve realized once you stop chasing unobtainable perfection- even if that means dropping your ego and watching as your peers still run with the herd, climbing the hill to the corporate idea of success- personal success still comes if you build your own solid foundation. I’ve had to unlearn a lot about what the idea of success looks like. To make it clear, I’m not dismissing the appeal of being a “industry leading professional” either, again I used to chase the process as well, it’s just I’ve come to understand the machine that drives it. I’ll be 23 this year, all my peers are graduating or have graduated. I didn’t get to participate in college like many of them, so I stopped beating myself up over the idea, and instead went on to create opportunities for myself that weren’t readily available where I lived in Texas. A statement I continue to live by is: “if there isn’t a door make one”. With that, I moved myself to New Orleans, because I had decided to stop asking for permission to live my life. I was only 19 at the time. I founded my business as a wish fulfillment to myself that anything I can create is entirely possible, without restriction, because I said so. In that, I’ve make it my mission to create as unapologetically myself as possible.

Mia, 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?

Hello, my name is Mia Barnes. I’m the artist, illustrator, and owner of Okay Casanova Studios LLC! I’ve been an artist since I was very young, but really started taking it seriously around 12 years old. I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to have experienced an education that had such a robust and vast visual arts program as it did. Now I harness those powers for unapologetic evil creating satirical and parody artworks regarding beauty standards, attraction, queer identity, pop culture, and other very real everyday horrors. I am a contemporary artist and illustrator, who has been shown at gallery events before- to be honest I’ve done a little bit of everything! I pride myself on eclectic patterns, kitch designs, and bright colors reminiscent of my formers like Lisa Frank, the horrifying works of Clive Barker, and 80s bubblegum horror media. Sometimes snarky, sometimes horrifying, sometimes sexy, but always absurd.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

So I moved to New Orleans in September of 2022 and started working at Boutique Du Vampyre in the French Quarter, I wouldn’t know it at that time, but they ended up being the first store to ever carry my artwork. When working, I had drawn a sexy pin-up Nosforatu that my coworkers convinced me to turn into a sticker for the store that we ended up not being able to keep on the shelf because clientele loved it so much. Then there seemed to be an insatiable appetite for more of my artwork, so I started to make prints and even more stickers, getting into more shops! It was incredibly exciting and unexpected, but I’m incredibly grateful it happened. I ended up starting my LLC filing end of January, and was established May 23rd 2023. I still think it’s silly that it all started with a vampire pin-up sticker, but that feels very on brand. Today I have a website, in-person carriers, and I’m still only just getting started.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Part of my persistence to being an artist comes from the fact that I can’t afford not to. In July of 2023, I ended up having a stroke that left me with a permanent motor function disorder, heart arrhythmia, and nervous system damage. I wasn’t even 21 yet. It was a result of genetics, life long suppression, extreme stress, and lack of eating- all due to striving be perfect, pleasing, and accessible 24/7 for everyone around me. Little fireball I was, it took several months of forcing myself to rest in order to get back to a mostly normal life. Not to be morbid, but waking up micro-dosing on death because your heart hiccups when you stand up really re-wires your idea of how life is supposed to be. As cruel of a joke it is though, it taught me to live for myself and not others expectations of me. I focus a lot more on my artwork now as a primary source of income quite literally because my disability forces me to be unable to work the traditional 9 to 5. I don’t let it define me, in all honesty, I don’t even talk about it much because I don’t want pity. I choose it as part of my success story, I wanted to be an artist full time- so I became one.

Contact Info:

• Website: HTTPS://okaycasanovastudios.squarespace.com
• Instagram: @okay.casanova.official