We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sam Soper a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Sam, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
I am a freelancer earning a full-time living from multiple facets of creative work. The art side of my business manifests itself as a broad mix of murals, custom immersive installations, illustration commissions, live painting, and selling merchandise made from my work. The other side involves more commercial services, like graphic and UX design, website maintenance and development, and creative and interactive marketing consulting. My goal is to someday make my full-time living from just the art side of my business, but I am having patience and slowly moving it that direction.
I started working for myself five years ago. I’d received a lump severance from an extended transitional services agreement when the corporation I worked for went bankrupt. I was having a rough time landing my next full-time UX career step, but freelance offers started coming to me from all directions. Moving forward with the abundance that was making itself available to me and aligning myself with what I really want has carried me over the past five years to where I am now. Last year, I finally made it official by forming Fae Frog Studios LLC.
This was the second time I’d attempted self-employment. The first time, I was in my early 20s and failed miserably at setting boundaries, client communication, project management, and everything to do with accounting, which became the proverbial nail in my small business coffin. These failures, along with the various jobs I held in-between, helped me pinpoint exactly what I needed to fix the second time around and the tools I could use to make it better. Experiencing these failures first-hand was crucial to my success today.
Honestly, I still can’t speed up the process knowing what I know now. The process is always a process. It requires infinite amounts of patience. I would have gotten more connected to the art community earlier on, if I’d not convinced myself I wasn’t cool enough to hang around the art scenes, while waiting for an invitation. The failures of my first business taught me a lot, but it took my entire career journey to establish the solid lead network and dependable reputation I have now. Those aren’t things you can rush.
Here’s the top ten pieces of advice I give to members of my creative community looking to start their own business:
– Start small and don’t quit your day (or night) job up front, because you will need funding to get established.
– Find software to help you manage your invoicing and accounting. Personally, QuickBooks has been so important in me keeping up with my quarterly taxes, tracking mileage and deductions, and remembering when client payments are due.
– Contracts are so important! Do some research to establish a solid service-level agreement. Beyond that, get everything in writing. Confirm notes from a call over email so you have something to reference later.
– Never be afraid of asking what you are worth (Trust me, bottom of the barrel pricing attracts bottom of the barrel clients and you will burn yourself out trying to make them happy).
– Get half to a third up front as a deposit prior to beginning a project.
– Don’t give your ideas away for free and always place a limit on free revisions in your contracts.
– Keep track of your hours and not just for billing. Knowing exactly how long it takes you to do something helps you confidently set pricing and gauge whether a clients’ timeline is even possible. You are the expert in your field and you set the timeline.
– Under promise and over deliver. Overpromising to secure the contract will always hurt you in the long run and lead to burn out. Better to double or triple expected time and deliver early. If you need to extend a timeline, communicate that to the client as early as possible before the promised due date.
– Develop a process for how you bid, onboard, and work with clients. It’s different for everyone, but having an established process helps you protect your boundaries and streamline the more time consuming parts of getting new leads and starting new projects.
– If you’re wanting to sell merchandise with your designs, sign up for marketing email lists for manufacturers to get your base inventory started in a cost efficient manner.
Sam, 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?
I’m an Austin-based mural artist and illustrator specializing in colorful, highly-detailed, pop-surrealist portraits, characters, and concept art. Joy and universal representation are the main drives behind my work. I make each piece an educational experience by highlighting real subjects, cultural archetypes, and the beauty of the natural world, enabling the viewer to see themselves or their environments reflected.
Originally born in New Orleans, the city’s vibrant culture and street art influenced my drive to create and my interest in esoteric symbolism from a young age. I’ve been painting murals since 2019 with large-scale works at Ani’s Day & Night, El Tacorrido, Sunshine House Blanco, and more. I’ve had aerosol canvas works commissioned by Tito’s Vodka and various private collectors. My artistic strengths lie in capturing accurate human and animal portraiture, florals and greenery, space and skies, detailed environments, and crystal growth. Additionally, she excel at hand-lettering work, as well as fun and friendly character concepts (especially frogs!) and trompe l’oeil scenes.
Since 2009, I’ve had work published in 7 compilations, been featured in the press 13 times, and shown in group exhibitions in Austin, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and San Salvador. Additionally, I’m founder of Creative Cuties ATX, an intersectional group for creatives interested in building local community by encouraging self-expression, connecting with others across various disciplines, and celebrating all members’ achievements.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Keep your purchasing power local. Many people avoid shopping local because of the expense of artisan goods, but good news is you don’t have to shop 100% local all the time; even a small amount of local shopping helps the community. The more times you make the choice to support a local creative business over buying gifts or goods off of Amazon or from some other big box retailer, the more money you are putting into supporting your local creative ecosystem and allowing those creators to thrive. You can do this by buying direct from local creators you know of in your area, by shopping local markets or craft fairs, and by finding coffee shops, galleries, and specialty shops that focus on selling local merchandise. One of the most impactful ways you can support local artists and creators is by commissioning work or a mural from them.
If you’re more of a minimalist who can support financially but don’t need more things, you can donate money to local organizations who support creative outreach. Not all creative outreach is the same, so stay cognizant on the diversity of the creators they are supporting and how they have used their funds in the past. Make sure they are participating in activities that lift up new and emerging creators, promote work from marginalized communities, and don’t just extend opportunities to the same few people every time. You can also donate directly to the creators you already love! Ask your favorite locals if they have a Patreon or tip jar or any other online payment platform that you could set up a recurrent donation through. Most of us do and your contributions really do a lot to help support the work we are doing and keep the creative ecosystem thriving.
If you’re unable to support financially, you can still support by sharing the work of local creators, recommending them to your friends, and keeping an eye out for new and upcoming talent. You can be the tastemaker of your friend group by staying knowledgable about what is out there. Especially if you are appreciating and taking photos of someone’s mural or other artwork, look for their name and try to tag or credit them when you share it. A lot of people don’t because they think it’s bothersome to the artist, but I can say from personal experience, I always get really excited when someone shares my work and tags me! We love being credited for our work. If your creative-curious yourself, come out to sketch meet-ups and gallery openings and start getting connected to your community.
Lastly and overall, you can support a thriving creative ecosystem by keeping an open mind and focus on being positive. Understand that it takes a lot of guts to make the step to put ourselves and our work out into the world. Taste is subjective, but it’s rough to overhear someone making a rude or disrespectful comment about something you put any work into. We’ve already had to battle decades of “that’s not my style” and “you can’t make money as an artist” comments and other baseless critiques on what is or isn’t valid art (newsflash: all creative pursuits are valid) to even get to the point that we’re comfortable sharing our work. Fortunately, I’ve had mostly positive reception, but I’ve heard from others in my community that people will say things like “I [or a friend] could easily make this” or “I can’t believe this costs so much” right in front of them at their table. These people could have just said nothing at all or better yet asked a question to learn more about their process or pricing. It’s heartbreaking to hear comments like this and it can be a blow that might keep creators, especially those who are just starting out on their journey, from trying again. Keeping a positive perspective and understanding that you don’t know what you don’t know when you’re interfacing with local creators is so helpful in allowing creativity to take root and blossom. If you feel like you absolutely need to make a critique, keep it constructive, but honestly, just try to stay curious and kind.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
After quietly and timidly exhibiting illustration work and doing vendor markets for almost a decade, I got my first big break into Austin’s mural scene through the SprATX Ignite residency. I was meeting artists I’d admired for years, learning how to spray paint and price mural work, and building a collective with other people I met through the community. I was making moves that I’d felt fearful about taking in prior years because I never felt “cool enough” (a myth I never should’ve bought into), so I felt like things were really going to gel for me in the coming year.
Did I mention this was in January through March 2020? So we all know what actually happened that year: massive shut downs, no public gatherings, cancelled events and festivals, huge shift in everything, but especially art collectives. Many art collectives didn’t survive the pandemic and those that did, pivoted from an open community model to a studio or agency model in order to do just that. We lost so many creative spaces and programs. And there I was, just BARELY on anyone’s radar with the collective I’d put tons of work into launching shelved indefinitely. It was enough to make me consider that it might be a sign to just give up on the dream and stick to building websites.
That would never make me happy though. I continued dedicating time to my creative practice and my newly learned spray paint skills. I invested the money I made doing web work into furthering my art dreams. I started streaming while I worked on art. I kept up persistently on social media to continue putting my work out into the world. As soon as events started happening again, I’d volunteer to participate as soon as I saw them pop up. I lost all shame I had around asking if or how I could be involved with anything. As I continued putting myself out there however I could, I started getting invited to paint jams and my collectors started finding me, enabling me to get mural projects that were paying similarly to my website gigs.
By the start of 2021, I realized few of the programs for educating and connecting aspiring creatives were starting back up again, so I started Creative Cuties to help others as I had been early on. Since then, I’ve mentored many people on launching their creative careers or side hustles and helped even more get connected to Austin’s wider creative community. I am proud to have gotten the chance to create that stepping stone for other people through my perseverance. In 2022, I got my first corporate commission, had work shown in LA and St. Louis, and was booked and even paid to live paint at festivals and football games. If I’d given up when the pandemic hit, I never would have had the chance to do any of that.
I’ve still got a higher peak I am striving for, but my resilience will get me there and I’m so grateful for where it has gotten me so far. Every year opens up a new adventure for my art business. I may be taking the slow road, dividing my time between the two sides of my business, but that’s okay. I create my best work when I feel safe and supported and will continue to conduct my freelance career in a way that allows me to do that. Someday soon I’ll be able to just focus on the art side of my business, but until then I’ll continue creating because it always brings me closer to my joy.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://samsoper.art
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samsoper.art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samsoperart
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthasoper/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/samjeansoper
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@samsoperart
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/samsoper https://www.tiktok.com/@samsoper.art
Image Credits
Frogs Taco Picnic feature image shot by Isra Shahjahan. Other works in order of appearance: Wildflower Bevo at UT football game (aerosol), Serenity Before Dawn (aerosol) meditation room at Sunshine House in Blanco, Gus (aerosol) commissioned by Tito’s Handmade Vodka for their Distillery Dogs Art Program, From the Depths (aerosol) and Astro Frog (aerosol) for Astronox Music Festival, Painted Bunting Year (aerosol) for the Looking Up Mural Fest Wall Show, All Glory (aerosol & acrylic) canvas art, Ride the Wave (aerosol & acrylic) canvas art, Scissor Tail Sunset (WIP, aerosol) in Brownwood