We were lucky to catch up with William (Bubba) Flint recently and have shared our conversation below.
William (Bubba), looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you 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?
All of my early jobs involved art in one way or another. My first Summertime job during my high school years, I designed flyers for Sears. It was a fun learning experience, I learned how a drawing went from paper to an ad. For my next two jobs, I worked for sign companies designing logos and signs, I had the opportunity to work around some pretty talented artists. All the time that I was working at these daytime jobs, I was coming home and creating at night. I drew cartoons for several publications, and many nights I got very little sleep due to the amount of work that I was having to churn out. As time went on, the side hustle started out paying the daytime job, at this point I made the decision to dive head-first into a full-time career as a self-employed artist! I’ve never looked back!
William (Bubba), 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 have many different avenues of making money with my art. I have been an editorial cartoonist for many years. I draw cartoons for several different publications, including The Dallas Morning News, Katy Trail Weekly, White Rock Lake Weekly, Dallas Cowboys Star magazine, and several other various and unique publications such as Amusement Today and The Bowling News. Each has its own niche and each gets their own special cartoon made with the particular reader in mind! Another avenue is paintings, I have paintings in several galleries across the country, and I send paintings to each gallery on a regular basis, as my paintings sell-I send another to replace its spot on the wall. Each gallery is unique in its own way, the galleries range from Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios on Route 66, which specializes in Route 66 memories to the Swizzle, a hip Tiki Bar in Dallas, which obviously specializes in Tiki culture. I also show in a couple of galleries in Deep Ellum, a cool area known for its music and art in Dallas. I do a few art festivals during the year and do the odd commission here and there. To add to the mayhem, I design t-shirts, banners, and rock band flyers and have been known to illustrate children’s books. Each and every project is different from the other, which makes it all the more fun! I have a pretty strict working routine on a daily basis, I like to get up early, put on some music, and get after it. I keep a sketchbook around at all times to jot ideas down for future references for any and all projects!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When I begin my art journey, Editorial Cartooning was my main focus, readership for newspapers was at an all-time high! Then along came the world wide web, and readership started dropping at an alarming rate, when that started happening, layoffs came soon after, and cartoonists were not spared! I had to reinvent myself as an artist. My major in college was painting, so I took my knowledge of painting and combined it with my background in cartooning and created a style that satisfied my new direction. Add those two denominators with my love of childhood memories and you get what I refer to as “Future Paintings of the Past”!
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
As an artist, in whatever medium or publication I am doing, I want to bring a smile to the face of the viewer or audience member. The greatest achievement for me is moving the viewer in a way that makes them think, makes them remember a time of their past, and makes them wonder out loud, any and all of these emotions give me a reward beyond any amount of money that can be paid. However, money is nice too! At the end of the long artistic day, creating brings me joy, but sharing my creativity with others takes it to another level!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: flintsworld
- Facebook: William Bubba Flint