Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Pleasurefaith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Pleasurefaith thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

My father was a painter. We lived in a converted corner store, where his painting studio doubled as our living room. Because of this, my education as an artist started before I can even really remember. My dad had a massive roll of brown craft paper used to protect the floor and wrap finished work, and he would pull off a massive sheet with a loud, crisp sound, and hand me a marker. He would astound me with his ability to draw whatever animal or cartoon character I could come up with, it felt like magic.

He was always pointing out how things looked out in the world, the colors he liked, when the light was just right, or when he thought something was ugly and drab. I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, but now I can say that knowing what you like – and what you don’t – is probably one of the most important tools I use as an artist.

Pleasurefaith, 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?

Pleasurefaith is an ongoing artistic project based out of Oakland, CA. The name serves not only as a pseudonym, but also as a title that encapsulates the entire corpus of work I have created under this moniker. This work focuses on themes around dreams, memory, and feminine totemic imagery, with the aim of inviting and exploring creative interiority. I am a self-taught, working artist, sustaining myself through a blend of original artwork and commissioned illustration work.

Employing gouache as the primary medium, complemented by the incorporation of antique marbled paper and pastels; I draw on visual influences from early 19th-century painting, contemporary fantasy literature, and the romanticized figure. My fascination lies with the timeless draw of stories, and the way they feel before they end. In this artistic endeavor, I strive not just to create, but to evoke a sense of both imaginative play and personal reflection.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

There are two aspects of being an artist that vie for the title of most rewarding. The first, is spending time painting, using my hands and imagination and sinking into an embodied state of flow. The technical and conceptual dance of creating a painting completely envelops me in this invigorating, creative energy that gives me life. The second is hearing from others that they find their own personal meaning in my work. My goal is never to guide the viewer to a concrete conclusion, but to elicit a personal interpretation, so when people share that with me, I know I have succeeded. These two elements are really what drive me to push forward and bring purpose to my artistic practice.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I started working earnestly through Instagram a few years ago, just posting my work, and a following slowly grew. Looking back, it was a time when showing up and being consistent was more or less enough to get you somewhere, if you made things people liked. I think things have changed substantially since then, and as I write this we are in a strange period of upheaval in that space. Content creation has become a legitimate job entirely on its own, and as such, the time and effort required to keep up with an increasingly saturated online landscape is constantly growing and evolving.

Any advice I might give could easily be irrelevant within two weeks time, but understanding the inherent insecurity in the space will allow you to approach it with a more flexible mindset, and that is necessary to make it work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pleasurefaith.com/
• Instagram: @pleasurefaith

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