We were lucky to catch up with Mierra Nelson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mierra, 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?

Well before doing illustrations I was doing little crafts. I use to make these cute pixel art made from beads for my friends and whatnot. I think it was the day I made my first sale is what got me wanting to do it professionally. I was at my friends college cafeteria and I brought my crafts with me to give away to people because I had so many. People suggested I should sell them instead and as they took my pixel art out my bag they spread it across the table. Many people came in and bought one and it was the joy I saw on their face that made me want to take it more seriously. Seeing someone clip my pixel cart on their book bag showing it off made me feel really good. At the time I was going through so much but seeing someone else get joy out of a hobby that was really only a thing I was doing to cope with loss.. it made me very happy. I stopped doing the pixel art and got into illustration and still get that same result but it’s on a much bigger scale. I’ve had many people tell me that they actually see themselves in my art. That makes me so happy and it definitely encourage me to keep going.

Mierra, 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 Mierra but people know me as Lunabunneh. I’m a full-time artist/illustrator and small business owner. I mainly specialize in digital art. I do a array of illustrations from my ipad that is dedicated to my love for my culture, food, anime and video games. The main thing currently I love to draw is my original characters from a series I like to call Foodiez. These characters are based off of food and their goal is to help people learn how to cook.
I grew up around good food because both of my parents were chefs. I took my love for food and art, put them together and now I have recently came out with a coloring book. I’m currently working on my comic book right now. The comic will be dedicated to my mother who I lost at the age of 16. I was very close to her and I got into art in general as a way to cope with her lost.
My small business consist of merch made from my art. From keychains to stickers to even stationary. I plan to do apparel and cute kitchen accessories.

My main goal for my art is to show the world the beauty of Black culture and it’s people. As a black woman I see discrimination from all sides and I know how hard it is to even go online and to see people just like you going through terrible things daily. I hope that my art brings even just a small bit of joy to someone. One smile for me is a mission accomplished.

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

I can definitely give advice. When people say you have to be consistent they are not lying. It can be a full type job to try to keep up with content and post a lot. To make it more easier though I think the first step is to figure out what is your target audience. Who do you want your art to mainly reach out to. Of course we want the world to see our art but not everyone may connect with it, When I found my target audience I then started sharing my work into facebook groups related to my niche. I draw food characters, I share them in food groups. When I draw video game related things I will share it into groups related to that. TikTok has been quite helpful as far as growth and it mainly took me just using things like trending audios and hashtags.

Also the main thing I see many people don’t do is engage. When a person comment, reply. I do this not only because it boosts the algorithm but it also nice to build a connection with the people who support you. It’s cool to see people like your work but it’s more awesome to have people like your work and you as a person. I’m extremely grateful for the support I have. I have INCREDIBLE people who follow me. If I didn’t engage with them I wouldn’t have know them and vice versa. So engage and build a connection with your audience. You never know who might be following you.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

There is a common misconception that in order to support artist and creative that you have to do it with buying something from them. It literally cost zero dollars to support a artist today. In this day and age many artists main source of income is through online presence and social media. When they post online the algorithms are always combatted against them. Social media wants us to buy ads just in order for most of our followers to see our content. This sucks for many artist who don’t have the money to buy ads but you can help them by boosting their content. Something as simple as a like and a comment can help their content reach other people. Also if you do have money to support artist and you want some art my greatest suggestion is to buy from their shop rather than commissioning them.

If you need artwork of course commission but if you just want to support a artist with money just buy from their shop or some artist have ways you can donate to them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Lunabunneh.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/Lunabunneh
• Facebook: Www.Facebook.com/Lunabunneh
• Other: TikTok: www.TikTok.com/@lunabunneh https://linktr.ee/Lunabunneh