We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Morgan Valdez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Morgan, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us a story about a time you failed?

I actually love talking about failures because I feel like in society, especially when it comes to owning/running a business, failures are a negative thing. I love failures because it means I am learning and am one step closer to my goals. Yes, failures can suck and sting a little, but I believe mindset is everything!

I am an illustrator and like most artists I have multiple streams of income. One of them is I have my own shop and sell my art on products. I first opened my own website and paid for the site and for the domain. It was not cheap and it took a big leap of faith, and I had to pull from savings to open my own shop. I didn’t make a single sale on my website, not one! It was a big loss for me money wise and confidence wise. However, I knew I really wanted to sell my art on products for others to enjoy, so I had to change my perspective. Yes my website failed, but I did learn other avenues to sell my products and got to meet lots of incredible people that still help me to this day.

It is very easy to shame ourselves for our failures, but without them we would loose who we are today. I always try to remind myself that no matter what, I can overcome any obstacle in my path as long as I believe in myself. We create our own realities and we have the power to make choices that work in our favor, even if they are failures. We choose how they work out for us.

Morgan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am Morgan and I am a character and environmental illustrator. I knew ever since I was a kid I knew I always wanted to be an artist.

At first my dream was to become a Disney animator, however when I got to art school, I quickly found out animation is not my niche. I then knew I wanted to be a freelance artist so I can have more freedom with pay, projects, and schedule!

As I was feeling out the freelance artist gig, I was still trying to find myself and my art style within the art community. I started reading fantasy books as a side hobby and quickly fell in love with them.

Whenever I would read I would get vivid images in my head and would immediately try to get it onto paper! I ran with this and I now do lots of book art and have worked with many Fantasy authors to make their written words come to life through illustration!

It brings me much joy to have found the book community and have met many friends doing so. I will be attending book balls as a vendor and I hope to be illustrating book covers one day!

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

As an artist, there’s no real blueprint on how to achieve business goals. Yes there are many successful artists and there are patterns that many have done to achieve success, but the thing I had to learn is everyone’s art journey and path is different. I would think very rigidly about how to become a “successful” artist, and I believe success is subjective. I would think I had to follow another artists path exactly to become like them. I learned quickly that there are other paths I can take and still reach my goals. I will come up with new ways that fit my needs better to reach my goals. I did take and try lots of methods from other artists, but I now reinvent the way I go about my own marketing and pricing.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media is a tricky one. It can be very challenging getting the algorithm to work in one’s favor. The only thing that I have found that works for me, is to post consistently and post more about myself. Yes, people enjoy my art but I also think by me showing my personality and my face more, it creates more of a connection to my account. Never be afraid to be yourself and be vulnerable. We all share a fear of being seen and rejected, but I find whenever I am vulnerable I allow my followers to feel comfortable and more confident in who they are. I hope to inspire others to express themselves unapologetically.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @illustratedbymorgan

Image Credits

All images and art work was done by me Morgan Valdez.