We were lucky to catch up with Shelby Vance recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shelby, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

In high school I made my first short film, “Jeffery the Goldfish.” I wrote, acted, filmed and edited it. It was selected for a film festival where I was the only high school student featured. It also led to me pursue a career in the film industry for a decade. When the pandemic came I wanted a career change, and had always wanted to write and illustrate a children’s book. I was also editing together videos of children’s books for distance learning and thought, I can make a better children’s book than a lot of these.

“Jeffery the Goldfish” was always the story that was special to me because it was the first time I felt like I had finally found something that I was good at and led me towards a career path. I chose to use that story for my children’s book because it’s the kind of book I would’ve liked when I was a kid. I put a lot of colors and details in the illustrations so that it is never boring, and made the writing unexpected and silly. Ultimately, my goal of this book was to make kids who feel like they don’t fit in, not feel like they are alone.

I had to change the name to Jessie the Goldfish in the middle of making the book for copyright reasons. I learned a lot about publishing, and legal boring stuff. Ultimately, I invested in myself and I’m glad I did it. I self-published, and had to figure everything out on my own.

I wasn’t sure if I would succeed, I just knew I wasn’t going to give up. As corny as that sounds, I think that is the attitude you have to have, if you’re going to be an artist. This might not work out, but I have to try.

Shelby, 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’ve always loved making art, photography, painting, digital illustrations, whatever was available. I started just doing it for fun on the side, then quickly realized, the dream would be to make art for a living and started Vancy Pants Art. After a decade in the film industry, I went back to school for Graphic Design, and have enjoyed working in the industry and learning more about how to communicate visually.

Vancy Pants Art offers prints of photography, mixed media collages, paintings and illustrations. While we are just starting out, we offer competitive pricing, quick and friendly customer service for orders, as well as a wide variety of products. We are open to commission work. Everything can be found at vancypantsart.com

The Adventures of Jessie the Goldfish is available in eBook, paperback and Hardcover wherever books are sold. You can order copies at jessiethegoldfish.com

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I have always had to have side jobs until now. I have had all of the worst, weirdest jobs just to get by and I feel like that is just part of it. I am just now at the point in my life where I am working a job that I actually went to school for and can exist semi comfortably. Every other time in my life, I’ve had a job that made me question every decision I’ve ever made in my life leading up to that exact moment. I don’t know if that makes someone a better artist, but I will say, it makes you more dedicated to your art. It makes you really want to get better at your art, whatever that art is. So now, as someone who gets to edit photos for my job. When someone complains that color is off by 2 points, I remind myself, I’m not being yelled at over cold quesadillas or unclogging a toilet at a coffee shop.

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

OnlyFans. I have great feet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vancypantsart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veep.art/
• Other: https://jessiethegoldfish.com/

Image Credits

Shelby Vance Chapman

Shelby Vance

Vancy Pants Art

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