We were lucky to catch up with Qiuyuhong Lu recently and have shared our conversation below.

Qiuyuhong, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’d say I felt the urge pretty early on in my life. When I was about 10 years old, I was so elated to be able to draw a recognizable cat, I went to my mother and told her I wanted to be an artist. She immediately signed me up for extracurricular art classes. Time fast forward to when I graduated from Boston University with a dual degree in Psychology and Painting, I felt lost about my future as I kept hearing the young me saying they wanted to be an artist, yet my identity as a non-resident alien in the States forced me to deal with other more exigent issues such as visa. In order to renew my visa and stay in the States, I started working as a teacher with adults with severe autism. Though I enjoy working with my students and I am still committed to a career which empowers others and their mental health (which is why I will be starting my graduate study in Psychology at Columbia University in September), I found that teaching is not my passion. Every day after work I would create illustrations and work on projects in preparation for my own art and merch brand, which I plan on operating during and after my graduate school. The calling is always there, but it took me a few turns to truly hear it again.

Qiuyuhong, 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?

Hi lovlies, I am Qiuyuhong (pronounced as Cho-Yu-Hong) Lu. I am a freelance illustrator, makeup artist and a graduate student at Columbia University. I have a lot, I mean, A LOT, going on, but all these endeavours are important to me as a human and as a creative. So here is a brief timeline of how I got myself here.

After graduating from Boston University in 2021, I began using my online space (instagram, tiktok and xiaohongshu) to document my art making process and exploring makeup as another mean of expression.

I started reaching out to brands I loved and pitched for contracts. This led me to paid opportunities where I made deliverables that brought my artistic visions to life. I filmed makeup tutorials and even participated in product launch campaigns for my favourite brand. I often blend in my art practices on the finished makeup looks, giving my content a fresh look.

Lots of my art projects and illustrations focus on experiences as a minority in academia and abroad as well as nostalgia associated with a vague homeland. I experimented printing and selling my digital illustrations in my local community. The physicality of the prints gave my illustrations a different vibe and elevated the art-viewing experience; these prints were so loved, they sold out immediately. This encouraged me to work on my future online shop drops.

On top of that, I am determined to work in the mental wellness field and empower others. So after a year of clinical experience with non-traditional students, I come back to school to become a therapist.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One thing I unlearned in my college is the habit (or should I say “the internal feral urge that pushes me”) to finish and perfect a piece of work in one session. Taking breaks in creative sessions is pivotal for not only an artist’s mental and physical health but also the overall quality of the piece. Sometimes the breaks can be long, but we must not exhaust our creative minds.

I was making an aquatint etching in my senior year. My plan was to create a piece with high contrast that illustrated a scene of a fantastical creature bringing light to a city (you can see this piece on my art instagram). That day I was in the studio since 11 AM and was still pulling test prints at 10 PM. No matter how I wipe my plate, I could not achieve the effect I wanted. I put on rosin again, etched again, printed again and again and finally broke down and started crying in the acid room.

I usually come into the studio with a detailed agenda and I work hard to adhere to it. That day, I had to swallow and admit the defeat. I left the studio and just slept. When I came back to the studio two days after to face my troubling plate, I felt refreshed and came up with a different wiping method. Everything seemed to work so smoothly and I quickly decided on a good proof and started printing on nice paper. I eventually sold this piece to Beacon Gallery in Boston.

Looking back on that eventful process, I realized I was stuck in the printing process and was too focused on trying to finish the work while my mind and body were both exhausted. Artists must learn to recognize their personal signals for taking a break. Not only a change of view and activities can recharge us, but also bring in new ideas that might push our work further. Now I still work with a schedule, but I have become more flexible with myself.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I started visiting local community events (i.e. print fair, pop-ups, markets…) earlier in my creative journey (if you can’t attend events in person, I recommend you to look up the event on social media and check out the work of attending artists).

Various artists of all fields show up and exhibit their work. These in-person events are great for gauging art product pricing, learning from how other artists market themselves and making new friends.

I recently visited MoCCA and IFPDA, both are great large scale events where you can speak to curators, collectors and independent artists themselves. Attending these exhibitions always fuel my creativity and inspiration. For IFPDA, you might even see works that are not in museum collections.

I also found smaller events like the FAD market through social media. Smaller events are great for artists who wish to grow their audience and get a feeling of selling their work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fetchmeramenpls/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qiu-yu-hong-lu-0a2959162/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dragonrootqiu?lang=en
• xiaohongshu: https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/597180236a6a69637f49f4cc?xhsshare=CopyLink&appuid=597180236a6a69637f49f4cc&apptime=1692049296