We recently connected with Michelle Hagewood and have shared our conversation below.

Michelle, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I currently work full-time as a storyboard artist, animator, and artist. My practice is a combination of applying my skills for Andrea Love’s animation studio and pursuing my own independent freelance commissions and projects. I’ve benefited from holding jobs that allowed me to earn a living from being creative and leveraging my artistic identity–while also leaving enough time to grow my own work. But it’s only recently that I was able to leave non-profits arts administration in the rear-view mirror. I now happily spend forty or so hours a week drawing, animating, painting, making—either for myself, for clients, or for Love’s animation studio.

My journey to this point has been one of divergences and of following various curiosities; as well as holding dual or triple jobs in order to find a corner that felt right. Over the past two decades I’ve transitioned from retail gigs in art supply stories and bead stores to museum education, and then to working as a full-time maker. There was not much in the way of art career coaching back in 2002 when I graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art and my concept of what an artist was or could be was very limited. I was fortunate to find part-time work that led to a full-time career in museum education and I spent the next two decades hopping museums; first the Walters Art Museum, then the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and finally the Henry Art Gallery. In these roles I watched how artists at all stages made their livings and practices. I attended a low-residency graduate program at Vermont College of Art while I worked at the Walters Art Museum that taught me how to reach out to art heroes and work with them as mentors. And on the job, I learned the in’s and outs of being a teaching artist and rubbed elbows with art stars that were exhibiting at the Met, while also working with kids and adults who had never set foot in a museum. While this work served me well, it was never my dream to work in museums for the rest of my life. Therefore, I always kept my studio practice alive on the sidelines; weekends and evenings with studios in living rooms, garages, and friend’s spaces.

Throughout all of my jobs and transitions, I’ve learned a few key things: Reach out to your heroes, build relationships, find a side hustle that pays off long term, and invest in yourself. Grad school taught me that I could send a cold email to someone I’d never met before, and before you know it I started working on a contract basis as a storyboard artist and fabricator for a local animator—squeezing it into the evenings and vacation days of my other job. I did this for two years, and started getting clients of my own for animation and illustration. I took some art business workshops and learned about some financial realities and possibilities. With the dual income I was starting to receive, I slowly invested in my own studio—taking up a new lease on a space, and gathering the equipment I needed to compete in the animation and storyboarding industry. It has all been a bit of a slow burn, but well worth it.

Michelle, 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?

I am a visual storyteller cultivating imagination through fantastical illustrations and animations. I work with art directors, fellow artists, organizations, and collaborators of all kinds to move audiences into surreal worlds that drip with possibility.

My work is informed by children’s literature, magical surrealism, speculative fiction, and relationships between ecology and the built environment. My clients have included dance collectives, festivals, arts organizations, and independent filmmakers. I work in whatever medium feels right for the project. This might include painting, sculptural installations, stop-motion animation, or elaborate 2D digital animation.

Because of my background in museum education and arts administration, I have a special sensitivity to what it means to think about the perspective and needs of audiences and content consumers. I’ve worked as creative director for educational and marketing campaigns and have been trained in various types of evaluation and audience research. I find myself constantly applying these buckets of knowledge to projects such as indie game development, social media storytelling, and festival marketing campaigns.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest thing I’ve had to re-learn after two art school degrees is that there are infinite ways to understand what the career of an artist looks like. While my formal education introduced me to countless amazing artists and peers who I still collaborate and lean on today–it also gave me only a narrow slice of what the “art world” is. I’ve had to unlearn the idea that the “art world” is a place to get to or be accepted into. Instead, I now believe that as artists, we create the market opportunities for where we are valued. That regardless of the job we hold, our perspectives as creative thinkers, visual or other types of makers–all industries need our voice. Not just the “art world.” Our world is constantly making meaning from the content that makers are putting out, and we have an important opportunity and responsibility to voice our perspectives in all the fields we might end up in.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I want people to find and embrace their own imaginations, and I want to open doors to worlds where they can creatively thrive.

I grew up in the rural south of the United States, in a place where there was really limited access to the arts or art education. Sometimes it feels like a miracle that I found my way to an arts career, and I want to be a model and a contributor to a world where that isn’t so hard. I also believe that one of the greatest pandemics of our time is repressed creativity. What would it be like if everyone had permission to express themselves fully? I am an idealist, and have to hold onto the possibility that this can happen one day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.michellehagewood.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellehagewoodart/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-hagewood-8425695/