We recently connected with Sydney Stone and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sydney , thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
To be honest with you, I’ve kind of always known! Sure, there are other interests I have like music, biology, and literature, but no other career path has ever really stuck out to me. With that being said, my interest in working in the picture book/kidlit space is relatively new. I took on a challenge with a friend of mine to craft some self-published picture books and absolutely fell in love with the process. I find my personal style, which is inspired by a lot of animated media, can really suit this space even if it’s a little less “traditional” to what you typically see in picture books.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Illustration as a career path is something I’ve been working toward seriously only for a few years now – since 2019. Before that I was completely convinced I would be working in the animation industry, and that’s even what I (briefly) went to school for. My “day job” for the past 5 1/2 years has been with Kindle Direct Publishing, which is Amazon’s self-publishing business. It offers the opportunity for creators to make their books available for sale on the Amazon marketplace even if they are yet to find success in getting published traditionally. Seeing the passion of these creatives taking the reigns of their own works and putting themselves out there really inspired me to finally try it out for myself! From there I worked with a friend who was an aspiring author. We put together two books and made them available on KDP. From that point forward, I’ve been hooked!
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
I think the obvious answer here is to patronize their business in whatever way that is: commission work, buying originals or prints, share your favorite artists by word of mouth/social media. I think perhaps a more overlooked answer would be to show this chosen profession respect. I’m sure I share the experience with many artists of being on the receiving end of, often well meaning people, perpetuating the “starving artist” trope or showing concern for the future well-being of someone in pursuit of a creative career. When someone is choosing a career in the arts, they are making the decision to share the deepest parts of themselves with the world. They have committed to bringing their passions and ideas and celebrations of life with all its nuances to the minds of others in whatever medium they choose. I think that’s pretty respectable.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
That there’s a single path to “success”. Growing up it was: go to school, get good grades so you can go to college, go to college and get more good grades so you can get a job, do said job for the rest of your life or until you retired. Looking back at it now, it really seems rather boring and narrow minded, but I believed this was the only way forward so wholeheartedly that it almost destroyed me when I failed at it in the most devastating way to me at the time: I dropped out of college. It wasn’t for a lack of passion or hard work – I was always a straight A student and studying animation at the Savannah College of Art and Design was truly a dream come true. As it does, life got in the way and I found myself unable to afford to finish my education. I was devastated; it took me nearly 4 years following this event to even have the desire to pick up a pencil and draw. I let this affect me so entirely that my one lifelong companion – my love of art – abandoned me. From time to time I still mourn these “lost” years when I think of how far behind this put me but, then again, that line of thinking really ignores the lesson that should be learned from this: one misstep is not the end, you can always get up and try again tomorrow.
Contact Info:
- Website: sydneyjstone.com
- Instagram: Sydleys