We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sophia Bailey. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sophia below.

Sophia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the toughest things about progressing in a creative career or as an entrepreneur is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

I think one of the most consistent problems that all artists face at some point or another is finding work. So much of what you need to do in order to gain a network, portfolio, and make a living for yourself is through freelance and just putting yourself out there over and over again. The name of the game is rejection and its something you have to feel comfortable in to make any progress. I recently graduated from college and am eager to get to work in the things that I love to do. I spend months on months on months trying to find work in anyway I can think of; Sending cold emails, filling out applications on LinkedIn, Indeed, Handshake, finding random gigs on Facebook Groups or Instagram feeds, and dropping off resumes in person for days on end. It somehow remains not enough. There are so many artists and what feels like not enough jobs. It seems nearly everyone I know has at least 2 side gigs going on at once (if not more) just to stay afloat. I don’t know if there is resolving this issue anytime soon, so it requires getting comfortable with the persistence it takes because it certainly wont all happen at once. That is what I am doing now. I continue to pursue the arts because of my deep passion for them and also working hard to keep everything in order. Its hard and all I can do is hope that the hard work will all lead me to something that I really want because I kept going.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always been an artist in my nature. I am multidisciplinary mostly because I love learning new crafts. This means that I now pursue a whole lot of different mediums and am eager to continue to create in all of them. I do art department jobs, sculpture, photography, graphic design, interior design, recently started learning about metalworking, and much much more. I make art thats surreal, whimsical, gothic, liminal, doodly, and just generally obscure. When putting out my art into the world, all I hope is that it resonates with or inspires other people. Art for me has always been like a method of communication and seeing art I like makes me feel seen; I just want to make things that make other people feel seen too. I like being an artist who is flexible in the work I make and would love to freelance/commission a little bit of everything. I hope to find my way into so many genres of art: fashion, interiors, brands, graphics, films, web, and music.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Yes! Network is everything in this industry. Joining facebook groups has been a huge contributor to finding more community and gigs. Also being on instagram explore page and the stories of favorite artists has always helped me. Joining local groups, going to in person events, and just bringing myself to new places has opened so many doors for me in only a few months. Basically moral of the story is putting yourself out there as much as you can. It can and will be hard and exhausting but it has brought me so much growth and hopefully will only bring more.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have been creating content on the internet since I was about 12 so I have really worked through the things I do and don’t like about it. I think building any audience on social media comes from just showing up as yourself and showing what things you care about and inevitably other people might start to care about those things too. Social media is also heavily community based so I have befriended lots of people online from just our mutual interest in the arts. I think figuring out how you want to present yourself and what content you want to bring to the table is a slow process of trial and error. Over time I have clued into what works and doesn’t work for me. Even after being on social media for so long I am still consistently reestablishing the schedules, brand identity, and content formats I like. The one thing that I have found to be most helpful for not burning out is planning and scheduling my content. There have been sections of my life where I have made lots of content and backstored it and then would release it later. This ensured I had enough of a cushion to work with for editing time and actual art creation/documentation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sophiabaileyart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophiabaileyart/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiagbailey
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sophiagbailey