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

Hi Sarah, thanks for joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I do earn a living from my creative work, but it has been a wobbly journey! I knew I wanted to be a full time artist, but as I was graduating from university with a pile of debt it honestly never seemed possible. I started as a flight attendant, and then became a barista, which better allowed for time outside of work to create and build a presence as an artist within my community! As a barista, I met so many people! Many were business owners or other creatives, who later became clients or displayed my work in their spaces. These connections eventually gave me enough momentum to quit and launch into full time creative work with a print shop! I will never forget what my partner said, “You can always go back. If you do, you are exactly where you are now, which isn’t bad.”

So I took the leap! I HUSTLED. I worked really long days (12+ hrs), no weekends, and no holidays. I was always creating and trying to figure out how to collaborate with others to make my work as sustainable as possible. I had cheap rent, and ate a lot of beans and rice! Here I am 6 years later and I am still full time!! A lot has changed during this time: I moved cities, we have experienced a wild array of national and global events, and with that I have changed and so has my art and my business! One of the biggest transformations in my work was when I realized that I did not enjoy creating and promoting my own product. I love illustrating, but running a shop is not what gives me life or joy. What gives me true joy is when my work can empower others. This realization has pivoted my work into client work! Instead of trying to sell individuals things, I now work on projects that organizations need illustrations for!

This change not only gave me a ton of joy, it also started to give me financial stability and artistic and sustainable GROWTH. Instead of spending hours creating work that I hoped someone would buy, and doing it in a way that was not joy giving to me, I was now working with enthusiastic clients on projects that would have a life and that had a built in budget!! One of my favorite things about this pivot, has been getting to know so many incredible scientists, engineers, professors, business owners, art directors, authors etc. but also getting to learn so many new skill sets because I often get asked to push my illustrations into new spheres. I have learned to paint murals, basic animation, digital illustration, and motion graphics, layout and design etc.

I am so grateful that we live in an age where so many different types of creative jobs are possible!! I am so glad that I was able to learn and grow from running my own shop, and to have the freedom and opportunity to pivot into a sphere that was a better long-term fit for my creative wiring.

Sarah, 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?

My name is Sarah Nelson and I am an artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles! I primarily illustrate our natural world! Most clients hire me to illustrate botanicals, wildlife, and the interconnectivity within environments. For clients I mostly work digitally, illustrating in the Adobe Suite, and especially Adobe Fresco. My work typically ends up in printed form, on packaging, clothing, or throughout social media and client websites. That being said, I have also worked on murals, illustrated public transit wraps, and created animated works as well! I think what makes my work unique is the emphasis on intricacy and detail, and also how non-digital my work usually appears. I absolutely love to try new things! My favorite client projects are usually when they want something illustrated from the natural world, but then ask me to try it as an animation, or with a new color palette, or as a giant train wrap- something that pushes me out of my comfort zone. I discovered my love for these challenges when I got to work with Metro Transit in Minneapolis, Minnesota for their Earth Day celebration. Together with the Sustainable Communities Partnership at the University of St. Thomas, I got to work with students to create a design that represented the power of public transportation and the monarch butterflies that are iconic but also endangered in the region. It was such a fun and amazing experience!

I think the other thing that I am really excited about is how my fine art and illustrated work interact. They both feed the other and help me to learn not only about companies and organizations doing cool things in the world, but also to learn more about our incredible planet and the ways we can better care for it.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think there are so many things that society can do to support artists and creatives. It truly is an ecosystem, and in ecosystems, things change and grow and adapt. I think something I see a lot, and have experienced myself, is that creatives need to evolve.

It is so natural for things to evolve from seed, egg, toddler to adult etc. Nothing remains static, and neither do artists. I have talked to a lot of other creative business owners who feel inspired by new things, want to up their rates, expand their business and change their name, try a new style, etc. And there is this fear (and sometimes it is legitimate) that they may lose everything they built if they change course. I think the best thing that society can do to creatives, is to celebrate them when they are in this phase. I have seen the backlash when people feel disappointed that someone is changing, people don’t always like change. The problem that I see is that staying in one stage of creativity, often stunts new and important growth and discovery that is an integral part of being human and being a creative. It’s scary to grow and change, and it is also usually messy!! I would love to see more artists with the freedom to lean into these new seasons knowing that their community is with them and understands that this is a necessary part if the journey.

Shout out to all the people who have been with me through the numerous phases of my creative journey and kept encouraging me to keep going! <3

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think about this A LOT! With the ever changing algorithm and preferred methods of posting (reels/stories/IGTV/posts/ etc) always changing too, this has become a hot topic!

I do not have a huge following (just under 4k) on Instagram, but I have a really incredible and engaged community that has formed through that platform. There are a lot of schools of thought on how to approach social media, and I am sure a lot of them actually work, but the thing I have learned is that it isn’t about the number of followers or likes, but the actual investment people have in my work, and that doesn’t always show up with follower numbers or even likes. I think that people connect with my work when I post and creating content that feels true to who I am and is FUN for me to make.

I also had a realization, that I get hired a lot by being discovered on Instagram. The people who hire me never refer to my reels, it is aways posts of work! That means that my Instagram – for me- is most successful when I treat it like a portfolio! This is not true for everyone, but I realized that even if the algorithm feels like it is against me, chasing the moving target of what gets more likes or views, it is not actually leading to the things that I need from this platform! I don’t need to be viral, I need clients to find me and get inspired to hire me, and posts are the best way for me to do this! This was such a freeing discovery!

The time you post, the colors and text and to reel or not to reel… all of that is important, but not nearly as important as sharing the work you are doing in a way that is exciting and true to YOU. People want to know your work, but they also want to support the person/people behind the post and behind the business. So getting to know YOU and support and be a part of what YOU are up to is super important to getting lifelong fans! I love when people reach out to me because of a personal thing they saw on my feed (like my severe egg allergy) and relate to it! It has created friendships and client relationships that I will always treasure! So I guess my advice is two parted but also connected: 1. be honest with yourself about what purpose you need your platform to serve. Do reels actually serve you? Or are clients always referring to posts? Do people always refer to your reels and is that leading to actual sales? Listening to these trends and then weighing them agains what feels most fun and exciting to you is going to be a great guiding star on your social media journey and a great way to cut through the ever changing but loud voices telling you what you should be doing. 2. Don’t be shy and let people get to know you a little bit! People want to know you and be a part of what you are up to! :) That doesn’t mean you have to tell them your deep dark secrets, but it does mean that if you are excited about something that happened in your day, if you are a working parent, if you love coffee, if you have a food allergy, etc. there is freedom to share it- if it feels good to you! :)

Contact Info:

• Website: sarahnelson.art
• Instagram: @Sarah_ann_nelson
• Other: Behance: https://www.behance.net/sarahannnelson

Image Credits
Photo of wrapped train and large scale drawing are by Dane Pedersen