We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mitch Meseke. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mitch below.
Alright, Mitch thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I’ve always considered myself an artist, even at an early age, and knew that art was something I wanted to pursue as a way of life, but I suppose it wasn’t until I turned down a scholarship at a fine art school to attend a technical art institute for computer animation and multimedia was when I took that path seriously. My thoughts at the time were, how would I make a living as a painter? and knew that computer art was a new industry full of endless possibilities. This was around the time when movies like Toy Story and Bugs Life were just coming out. In retrospect, I probably should have just been a painter.
Mitch, 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?
Hi, I am Mitchell Wadsworth Meseke, and I am 40 years old. I currently live in a small town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Originally born in Kansas I received my bachelor of arts degree in Denver Colorado, and have lived on both coasts from Brooklyn to Berkeley. I’m a freelance illustrator and storyboard artist for over 10 years and when I’m not working on projects for clients I’m keeping busy with a wide array of my own personal art projects such as music, photography, collage making, writing, and illustrating children’s books. Most of the work I do professionally is for commercials. I do a lot of character development as well as storyboarding and style frames for pitch decks. I think one of the things that sets me apart from others is my traditional ability to draw, even though I predominately use an apple pencil now and a program called pro-create it’s still drawing as if I would on paper by hand. This gives my characters a more organic feel as opposed to something done entirely on the computer. Which tends to attract fun projects. This work comes and goes at random throughout the year and I rely on passive income to help balance out my cost of living through selling prints and books which are available at my website www.mitchmeseke.com.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I just feel fortunate to be doing what I love to do for a living and to be able to do it from home. I know a lot of people who get up everyday get dressed to go to work. I just stay in my sweatpants and draw all day.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I worked a lot of odd jobs right out of art school and ended up having to move back home with my mother for a spell. I was feeling a little discouraged and even had my transcripts sent to a university with plans of going back to school to be an art teacher. Then it hit me, I’m twenty-three and I’ve spent my entire life in a school, and now I’m about to go back to school, to spend the rest of my days teaching in one? The thought still haunts me to this day, not that there’s anything wrong with being a teacher, it’s just that school has never been something I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed. So I moved out to New York City and slept on my brother’s floor on an air mattress in Brooklyn instead and got a job bringing boxes of wine out of a cellar. One day I got a random email wanting me to come in and work a few days at a design studio. After working off and on with them for a while, I was able to quit my job stocking wine and I’ve been a freelancer ever since. I guess the moral of the story would be to take chances when it comes to following your dreams.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mitchmeseke.com
- Instagram: @mitch_meseke
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mitchmesekefreelanceartist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitch-meseke-156661b8/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MitchMeseke/featured
Image Credits
All images were created by, Mitch Meseke.