 Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. The alumni career pathway series is a collaboration presented by the alumni relations and career development and work integrated learning offices. Before we get started, I would like to acknowledge that this panel is being moderated on the unseated territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Slava tooth peoples, who are the rightful protectors and custodians of this land marked on a map by Vancouver. To introduce myself, my name is Sarah Multon, an artist here in Vancouver where my work dissects private and public disclosure and parasocial relationships. I represent the alumni relations office here at Emily Carr University, and I am an alum myself graduating in 2015 with a BFA in visual arts. Shannon McKinnon is the executive director of career development and work integrated learning Shannon will be introducing the purpose of this panel. Hi, thanks so much for joining us today or tonight. I just wanted to give a brief overview of why we put these panels together and it was to give alumni an opportunity to talk about their career pathways and also to demystify and give clarity for current students and recent alumni. Because as you know as alumni what it was like when you were graduating and, you know, going out, you know, post graduation. So that was the purpose of this I also wanted to let students current students know and alumni that you're welcome to come to our office, or not in person but you can make appointments with us for zoom meetings for advising and for career development and professional development. We help with resumes job searches interview prep grant writing applications to grad school every lot. So anyways just come by and see us or I should say email us and thanks so much, Sarah, and over to you. Oh, and I want to introduce just Lane Crawford who is here as well and she's the advisor for the undergrads. And I do advising for alumni and grad students. So, thanks. Thanks so much Shannon. So this panel is being recorded and will be available to watch within 24 hours after the panel for those unable to be here on the leeway.ca, which will be listed under resources. The leeway is the social and professional networking site accessible to all Emily car university community members students who sign up to the platform between now and the end of reading week will be entered to win an office gift card. At the end of the series all episodes will be available on both arts work which is the student and alumni job board and resource center, as well as the alumni website at ecua.ca. Tonight's panelists have all utilized and leverage online spaces to further promote their careers, whether it's building mailing lists, advertising workshops building brand partnerships, finding clients selling work or promoting publications. These artists have created a space and community that works for them. I'm pleased to introduce this group of talented individuals who be sharing their expertise. Rebecca Chaperone's work presents a visual journey in which we are repeatedly immersed in surreal versions of the world, places that waiver just outside our perception, hovering crystals, palatial icebergs, secretive caves and psychedelic gardens are some of the recurring motifs found in each of her painting series. Rebecca's work shifts between treating the landscape as figurative representation or as highly symbolic spaces that hint at a mysterious narrative. Her work is exhibited and collected internationally, and she's a two time recipient of Canada Council Awards for her and articles and cave painting series respectively. She is shown extensively in Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and has been included in exhibitions in Richmond, Virginia, Chicago, Illinois, San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Her paintings are held by several private and corporate collections, including TD Canada, San Vista and Eritzia. Pearson Hatfield is originally from Vancouver Island and is a graduate of the Fine Arts diploma program at North Island College as well as a BFA recipient from Emily Carr. She is heavily involved in the local arts community as a practicing artist, curator, art director and art educator. Her personal practice fluctuates between a wide variety of materials, but is always centered around painting and color theory. Her work has been featured on CBC Arts, BBC, Offpost Arts, Seventeen Magazine, New York Magazine and locally in Sadmag and Discorder Magazine. Christian Hernandez is the co-founder of DOG, a Vancouver based experimental comic press. DOG has participated in book fairs and exhibitions in Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Stockholm, Lucerne, Shanghai and Milan. Christian's personal work explores the aesthetics of abstraction and representation in domains such as biotechnology, genetics, evolutionary biology, cybernetics and complex systems. Christian has done web design illustration and graphic design work with Garden Don't Care, Neon Eon Wine, Little Burgundy, 221A, Oxygen Art Center, Carousel Magazine, as is an OCA. He is currently an MA student in the graduate program in science and technology studies at UBC. Ethan Berry Murley is a visual artist in Vancouver. His practice explores sexuality, identity, interpersonal relationships, intimacy and the dialogues around them. Working with both figures and text, Murley explores his themes through the mediums of illustration, photography, painting, printmaking and tattooing. His work explores ideas around erotica and breaking down societal norms through the lens of his own experiences as both an artist and a subject. Documenting the banal and everyday alongside the erotic, intimate and explicit, Murley builds narratives in his work that welcome viewers to become lawyers and project their own experiences and desires upon his work. After the panels, you'll have a chance to ask each of these artists follow up questions in breakout rooms. I'd like to start by asking our artists to please share an introduction to your work, starting with Rebecca. Thank you. Can you hear me okay. Thank you. So your introduction was pretty great for my work. Beyond that current work I'd like to talk about is over the past year of the pandemic. I began working on these window scenes that are mostly inspired by the kind of internal world that we all found ourselves in during the pandemic. And I like to explore elements that are magical and highly symbolic and create little narrative spaces within my work. So I started to assemble things on these window ledges and kind of create these magical views, because I'm also very much interested in escapism. And I felt during the pandemic these little window shapes were a really great manifestation of this idea to create a window out of our home lives which were feeling sometimes quite suffocating. Making those surreal elements and then creating a new sort of shape for them to belong inside of. So I'm still kind of working through a lot of those right now. Thanks so much for back at your stem. Yeah, your introduction to me as you said, my background is in painting. So definitely abstract painting and a large scale is what I had been doing for a long time. But two years ago, almost I got really sick. And now painting is very difficult for me to do because of my illness. So I've been working a lot more digitally still painting as much as I can but much less than I used to. And because of my illness, my work has kind of become more political. I've been doing a lot of like disability advocacy, as well as making like more personal work about my illness and disability just out of like means of survival. So, yeah, still doing some abstract work and dealing with some of the sort of topics I was dealing with before my illness, but also, I've sort of unlocked this new body of work, since I got sick. Thank you so much, Kirsten. And Christian, if you'd like to share what you're currently working on. Yeah, sure. First I just want to express my gratitude to Emily Carter University, Shannon and Sarah for inviting me to participate in this thing. And thanks to everyone who's joining us here tonight. I graduated from Emily Carter in 2017 with a BFA in critical and critical practices. And admittedly I haven't been very accurate with my art practice lately. I've taken a bit of time away from art related output focus on grad school. And where I'm doing a MA degree in the science and technology studies program. And that's basically a sort of interdisciplinary effort to study how social or historical cultural or sort of political processes in fact science and technology. It's research, innovation, communication, application and vice versa. And this is a program at UBC that involves faculty from a wide variety of departments and I'm just starting to my coursework but I'm hoping to do my thesis research on the social and ethical implications of applying technological and technological advances in genomics to the social sciences. But in terms of my studio practice, I have always been really interested in the sort of visual representations used in some of the scientific domains that Sarah mentioned earlier, bio task or genetics cybernetically complex systems. So these visual techniques, visual techniques employed in these fields, you know, are responsible for depicting the elaborate processes, but in some way is straightforward or intuitive visualization. You know, they're very data heavy. They're like imagery is very abstract, you need to have it to summarize the popular venture interlink dynamic processes and make them intelligible to single human interpreter. And I find these strategies of abstraction of representation really really interesting and so much of my personal work sort of explores these graphic conventions, hoping to sort of investigate how they shape their viewers perception of the underlying processes they're meant to describe, and what their affordances are, what their limitations are. And at some point hopefully in the future, I'd like to sort of refine this exploration and integrate it with questions about, you know, communicating scientific or philosophical knowledge about complex processes in the pedagogical context. So my work in there with my collaborators is really sort of, you know, focused on publishing zines predominantly by individual artists or periodicals with multiple contributors, all emphasizing sort of alternative comic art or experimental comic art. And, but also publishing some sort of larger and more linear publications that are sort of like miniature graphic novels. And, yeah. Thanks so much Christian. And last but certainly not least, Ethan, could you share a bit about what you're currently working on. Thank you. Again, this is really exciting to get to talk about all this. And as Sarah, Sarah had already said, and a lot of my work focuses around the erotica and interpersonal relationships in my life. So in terms of talking about what is going on. Currently, and COVID has put a really big impact on that with restrictions of space and how we interact with other people so a lot of the work I've been making over the last year is kind of trying to adapt my practice within the restrictions of COVID and how those restrictions have affected queer spaces, the experiences within queer lives and the intimacy. So, right now I've been exploring both digitally and publicly like public spaces in contrast to each other and also in contrast to like private spaces through animation and writing and photography. So, I am working on a couple different series. One that kind of bridges with my commercial tattooing practice, where I am making a small animation that I am tattooing on multiple people's bodies, because we can't have multiple people in a space but I can make this work over multiple bodies which is really nice. And then also a photography series that is documenting cruising spaces, which I don't know. I'll ask, sorry, I don't know if I should kind of expound on what cruising is, but it's documenting spaces that queer people inhabit in Vancouver within the context of because public spaces are a lot safer in terms of interacting versus private spaces which we're really not supposed to be having people who are not within our bubble into. So yeah, so I'm working on a photo series that documents those kind of interactions right now. Thank you so much. So, I'm going to jump into our series of questions now. How has digital spaces impacted your careers or your work or what changes social media have on creatives as a whole. I guess I'll start. I think I'll start with the bigger question, which is what my opinion is on social media and technology impacting sort of the art landscape as a whole. I think that traditionally, pretty much before my generation, like even 10 years before the power was very much in the hands of the gallerists for fine art and for commercial art. In the hands of gallerists or furniture stores and whatnot. And I think social media has really given the autonomy to artists represent themselves how they want to be represented, as well as artists that would normally be shunned from gallery systems for a myriad of reasons now have been more level playing fields still not perfectly leveled but so yeah I think it gives us artists a lot of autonomy of how they want to be represented what kind of work they want to make they don't have to fit in a box in the same way as before lots of artists are doing lots of interdisciplinary artwork where traditionally that was more difficult to do and yeah more autonomy for artists to be represented that would normally not be represented at all in a gallery system. I can talk a little bit about just my personal experience with dog especially I think the internet and social media had a net positive effect on the work that we did. And in a lot of ways, it was really the basis of our growth and exposure. We did get a sort of an early break with getting accepted to painting matters. So that really helped me that people got exposure and whatnot but you know aside from that everything else was really built through the internet. And our audience, you know, this comes almost completely through our website and our Instagram account. So many of the artists that we work with me connected with through social media. We, you know, are part of so many different communities doing similar things. And, you know, and it was just everything about social media was just really instrumental. And our reputations amongst other artists and, you know, how we were able to collaborate with other artists and, you know, and selling work as well for our website so just wouldn't have panned out the way it did without these tools. But, you know, simultaneously, there are obviously a lot of effects about social media, a lot of effects that social media has had on creative production, maybe that are, you know, that aren't so advantageous for me personally I found sort of managing metrics of our website, viewers and social media accounts that becomes really, really taxing and sort of burdensome at times. And it just becomes, you know, sort of like this, you know, additional obsession that starts that in my experience started to kind of subtract from being able to focus sometimes on the on the on what I actually wanted to make with the press. You know, and in a broader sense, I think sometimes social media contributes to kind of commoditizing artists, especially artists earlier in their careers. You know, because things trend and folks with less disabilities, you know, sometimes end up gravitating towards these aesthetic fads. So, you know, so like a really easy, simple example is like the corporate Memphis graphics, you know, the sort of flat vector illustrations. You know, and you see sort of similar patterns with less number relatively popular styles. And I think if there's something about the quality of virality and the incentives built into social media that, you know, that are misguiding for artists and trying to find their voice, essentially. And there are a lot of other, you know, things to say about the downsides of social media but later on. So, I wanted to add to what Christian was saying there. That overwhelm of data that's at your fingertips is very disorienting. And I've found that it's hard to I mean we have to learn how to run our own business so then this idea of data is very tantalizing what do you keep what teaches you something and you really have to make choices about what you're going to do otherwise you don't have a data collector. And it, that's not our function we still have to make our work and focus on all aspects, more holistically. And I, but I want to think I do want to say about like Kirsten's work is digital. And I really love the experience of looking at art online and seeing it all kind of in the same format that there's something nice about seeing digital work in the same way as I'm looking at like art historic paintings online. So it's kind of this, like leveling of the playing field, not just with the like gallery versus selling your own work online but just this way of that we present the work. It's all kind of like put on the same level pedestal in a way. And so I really like looking at art that way. It makes me kind of think a little differently about it because I'm not seeing this different and difference in the context of how it's being presented. And I love looking at art online and sort of collecting it and little collections for my own purposes to look at. For me, I think that when I saw this question I thought a lot about boundaries because how, how having social media effects us is like first of all like I think really impactful on first of all presenting yourself as an artist and having to decide how much to present. And what you want to keep that's personal and I know that I have like drawn some pretty solid boundaries around that for myself, but I don't think that's something that is very clear when you start out so you know if you went back on Instagram way way down to the early days you probably see all kinds of photos of like my day to day life or whatever. But then as I went on I just felt like I want to really kind of contain what I'm presenting here because it feels like very a very public space. People are feeling very connected to me in this space, which can feel also very threatening in some ways because they don't actually know me and we don't actually have connection in some ways. So there's safety issues that are there as well right. So those are kind of my thoughts on what that brought up for me and based on what you guys have been saying as well. Thank you so much I can say on this question. Um, social media is how I run my entire business and it is so instrumental in how I make my money. Being a tattoo or Instagram is basically all you use to book clients and show your work and that is kind of the game with tattooing and as someone who primarily uses tattooing as my main income which allows me to work in my other art practices for not have to worry about that being a financial aspect is really nice, but it does mean I have to fully rely on social media which is has so many negatives as just as many positives but so many negatives. And so I totally agree with with a lot of what Rebecca was saying. I think in terms of what I make in terms of tattooing as well as what I make in my art practice outside of it which is so so personal. I had to really figure out what I was willing to share with people and what I was comfortable sharing and it. I really very quickly learned what I was comfortable sharing and other people viewed that very differently so I share very sexual and explicit scenes which I'm okay with, but I don't share a lot of really personal emotional and other things and so people seeing those types of things can see they see one thing and they think they're getting everything from you which to me is not I'm comfortable with that what I'm sharing but they think they're getting a connection they're not. Well, huge thing is having boundaries and knowing those boundaries and what. What you want, basically, right. And so that's super super important. I think in terms of just like how it's impacted my career, it has made my career like it's really really important that I have this. And that's great but it also like controls it in a very weird way. So yeah so I was also going to say in terms of how social media has has changed things for creatives I think like for myself personally as a queer artist, working in Vancouver when I was at Emily car I didn't have very many other people that were operating and working in similar thematics or ways. And so social media gave me a community that I wouldn't have had otherwise and it really opened my world up that way and it's like a huge way that helped me develop the way I talked about my work, the way the things I was and really gave me a community that pushed for what I was doing where I didn't feel that support or need here in Vancouver. And so, so I think like social media has changed what artists can do because we have wider communities now where we wouldn't before and the artists that we can connect with and be inspired by and the dialogues around them. It's really opened that up and we wouldn't have that otherwise. So I think, which has already been said just like some levels the playing field and what we can show and what you can connect to, which is really, really wonderful. Yeah, like ties into the next question, which is, what is the highlight of your career been from sharing your work online. Yeah, I can go first. So, mine is like a very little story in which I was not looking at my phone or anything it was a Sunday, and I had posted something recently, and not really checked on it, and then I got all these texts from a friend of mine who was like, Oh my God, do you know what happened. And I was like, No, I'm doing my laundry it's fine like what are you talking about and someone that we really admire had posted something of mine. And it was the comedian Amy Sederis who is her brother's David Sederis and she's such a weirdo and I love her so much so it couldn't have been a better celebrity for reposting my weirdo art I felt so like seeing and like I loved that it was her, you know, like, if it was Beyonce, I would not have been happier, you know, so that was kind of a nice moment because I have no idea how she connected to it we have no connections in common she does post a lot of strange imagery on her account. But it was that thing of like, like something someone you really like has a very niche kind of way about them, kind of seeing your kind of similar like dark humor or whatever and it's cool to see that resonance on such a big scale. To me, I was fangirling all day so that that would be one of my highlights for sure. So next, I have lots of highlights like because my life revolves in many ways around social media but I was trying to think of it in terms of my career specifically but I think a lot of the work I've made that I put on social media has put me in contact with a lot of people who now are really really important to me. And so I think just the connections and relationships I have developed because of social media are the highlights. I like the work I make and that's really great, but a lot of these relationships have helped me even develop what I'm making. And like how I think about my work. It just, I think that for me that's what the highlight would be is just like the connections that I'm able to form around it. I've like two of my last boyfriends I met on Instagram like, or they knew me before I met them because of Instagram which like gives them a weird like context of who I am and it's just like this weird thing but yeah Instagram really creates a lot of relationships and connections which is what my practice is about so it just kind of fuels that for me which is really really lovely. Yeah, similarly to Ethan I would say the connections I've made with other artists and fans slash patrons that are like genuine connections have been by far the highlight. It is even though it's more indirect they've probably done a lot more for my career than any of the direct things from social media, because these artists I've like been friends with for years when I travel I have places to stay for free. They stay with me and it's just the art community. Our community is so much about community that you really have to be networking either social networking online or in person and making those connections. And also it just like feels good to have genuine friends and connections. But as far as directly this summer, the Whitney Museum acquired one of my pieces through the printed matter archive and reached out to me on Instagram. I have had one of my paintings turned into a meme about four years ago. It was a very random painting it was for a show at a local gallery that doesn't exist anymore called Hot Art Wet City. And it was a year of the sheep show. So everyone had to paint a sheep. So I just painted a sheep for the show. It sold and never thought about it again. And then, like a year later, it got turned into a meme. Because a Spanish guy who I ended up reaching out to wrote it's not easy being the psychedelic sheep of the family on it. And then it went viral and Sean Lennon shared it and a bunch of celebrities. So that was pretty weird. I will say most people don't know that the work is mine, but I don't really care because I don't consider it like part of my main art practice to paint sheep. But I have had some brand collaborations out of it. So that's nice, I guess. And yeah. And yeah, most of the people who have interviewed me that have been magazines or whatever have found me online, not in person. Only the Vancouver people have known me in person. I love that you got a brand collaboration out of that. Yeah, and also a lot of people selling t-shirts of it illegally. Oh, dance. The image I uploaded of it was taken with an iPhone like three through a frame. So like the pictures they're printing on t-shirts aren't high. Yeah, like, like you can have that. I don't really have any experience experiences with sluggery thing or work or anything, but but I think just to echo the sentiment that, you know, it's all the sort of communal relationships or connections that, you know, that I've made through social media that are just like the foundation of everything you've been able to do. So it's, they're the high, they're all the highlights they all, you know, are extremely important to your life. Pearson was saying, you know, being able to stay at people's places when you're traveling for shows or simple fairs or meeting people that you look up to three years and being able to connect with them and collaborate with them and stuff like that. Obviously for the alternative comics community, it's so niche and it's so small and so, you know, widely distributed around the world that it's really important to have, you know, social media platforms to be able to connect with these people because they have full of very talented, interesting experimental comic artists and Vancouver, but, you know, the whole, you know, the whole community is just all over the place and it's small but it's everywhere so yeah, it's really important to have to be able to connect with all these folks. It was really fun hearing everybody's highlights. I mean, community is really, really big but I like the funny stories as well because that's one of the unique things about being online. And so where do you all exist online right now and what platform do you find the most useful I have a feeling it's all going to be Instagram across the board but you know you never know. Instagram is less useful and also not just for me. It's just a blessing and a curse. And, you know that like, obviously, the advantages as I've mentioned with an instrument or efforts but you know, in retrospect, I would have liked to diversified our use so you didn't become just a portion of the line on Instagram. Yeah, I feel the same way. I definitely have the most experience with Instagram and every really use tumblr. I don't know. I was kind of the exact wrong age for it a little too old or a little too young. But I was using Instagram from day one, first just personally and then because I started going to art school I started posting all my art on there. And I definitely preferred it when it was chronological and I now we're all victims of the algorithm. So, I will say before the algorithm started changing things. I was more focused on likes and followers than I am now, but eventually when that started happening, I realized that focusing on that was not good from a mental health, or my art practice, because I started focusing more on posting frequently than making work that I really like. And I took a step back from it for a little bit, mostly due to my illness and stuff. But now I would say I still use Instagram the most. I'm starting to use TikTok and it is a lot easier to get organic growth on TikTok but it's a lot more effort to make like a curated video than to post an image when you're a visual artist. So, Instagram is still my most useful and I have so many followers slash friends on there that I communicate with pretty much every day. And I think that aspect of it is more important than just like the likes and follows. Yeah, I would have to agree. I use Instagram solely now. I originally was extremely resistant to it and refused to get it for years. And I use Tumblr and it wasn't necessarily like something I was using as an outlet for my art. Primarily, I posted lots of stuff on it and it was more like a personal blog and I would share what I was working on as well. And I think it was when I was probably in like maybe third year my roommate at the time would like always bitch about how she had no followers on Instagram. And I just got so tired of it that I got it Instagram and like surpassed her follower count very very quickly to shut her up. And was just like this isn't that hard like stop complaining about it. It doesn't matter. And then I got deep into the Instagram game of it all and once I was outside of Instagram I really started developing a practice that coincided with Instagram and it wasn't necessarily healthy, but it was really really useful. And I found it really difficult, primarily just because of the type of work I make within like the community guidelines, the guidelines that they have. Those change all the time. And so when I started I could really like push the line of what I was allowed to post and kind of they didn't have bots and they didn't have algorithms that kind of read the images in the same way they do before now. So it would be basically just like if someone reported something I posted I'm getting trouble. Whereas now I post something and it could immediately be read by a computer system on what it looks like, which is kind of hard to tell sometimes based on the way I draw, which can be fairly minimal. But I guess yeah like after they started implementing the like they switched from the chronological order and more of the algorithm based stuff, I had to kind of step back a bit and realize that I didn't care as much anymore and if they took my post down they took my post down and I just the bottom line was I didn't want them to delete me so I have slowly kind of like made my post very tame and they're not as exciting as it used to be which is kind of boring for me but it's a really really useful tool for what I do, and it allows me to share what I want and connect with the people I want to. I'm now very resistant to like another platform for that just because there's no alternative for a visual platform that allows you to post things chronologically like Twitter doesn't really work for that. TikTok, I can't get into it. I really really respect everyone who's transitioning to it because it takes so much work and I think it's a really useful tool for a lot of people but I don't know how I would implement that for myself and what I do. I think Instagram is kind of what I'm sticking to and trying to work within until I no longer can and I will just have to figure it out like it was probably I think it was in December they posted that they were changing the guidelines again, and I randomly will have taken down that we're like from 2016 I will get a notification that they've taken something down I'm like I don't how are you finally finding that thing and now it's offending you. But you always get a notification that they may delete you and that does not work for my mental health. So I have to like, so I had to go through and really clean my Instagram off and get rid of a lot of stuff which is pretty heartbreaking but I'm trying to work within the system. I can continue to share what I can, which is not a lot but it is the game that we're all trying to work within I guess. Have you ever considered like a gated platform of some kind like Patreon or totally but when I looked into it patron also had fairly strong stances on sexual content so I wasn't really sure whether I could. I had multiple surgeries last year and so as I was on bed rest for a really long time and I had so much downtime that I was really trying to figure out how I could utilize other forms but nothing really seemed to work in the way I needed it to. So now I have my own website, which I also I just hate computers in general I'm not a digital person and so I have my own website now and I really try to just put content on my website so people can see what I'm making in an unedited unfiltered way, which also allows you obviously to show in a much more ideal context and narrative form if you're showing photos or anything it's not just one post that's going to scroll past someone's fingers very quickly. And so I just try to direct people to that. That's the only thing I have right now because nobody seems interested to make another visual platform I guess. So I don't know. But yeah, patron was a thought, but I don't know if they would appreciate what I make or not. Maybe you could ask them. I don't know if anyone knows other explicit stuff. Okay, I'll ask around. Okay, yeah. They should just like have an art section of only fans. Yes. It's not about making an only fans because you totally can do that because you can carry what you want. But it's just one of those things where like Instagram is so easy and integrated into everyone's life that it's something they don't necessarily have to go out of their way to view. Yeah, so it would be nice to make money off of it. But Patreon would be great because then people have to go and access that through even if it's a small portion of money like it's not a big amount but that would be nice as well. Well you guys already started to touch on the most interesting trend you've noticed for creatives in 2020 and looking ahead to 2021 which is actually gated platforms and tick tock for the most part. And I mean a couple of you've already said how you feel about those but if the rest of you would like to share that would be great. Well I'd like to elaborate a little bit on tick tock and how I think it's affected art, because both Sarah and I got popular from process videos of art making on Instagram, like in 2016. And that is like when my Instagram blew up I went from like 2000 followers like 20,000 followers, because these process videos kept getting shared by like magazines and stuff. And back then the process videos were very raw. Usually just like a short clip of like a single motion or process and tick tock and now reels I find all the art process videos are very, very, very curated and polished. And I think there's good and bad, because I do really like watching time lapse videos and they're a lot easier to film as a creator because you just kind of let it run while you do your thing. But I think as someone learning new techniques that these curated videos are helpful because I'll watch them for art techniques that I don't know how to do like textiles or something. They're super educational but as an artist there's so much more effort to make like a 32nd video can take you all day, or multiple days to make. So I think there's positives and negatives but I think that's a huge trend we're going to see more and more of is sort of more polished curated feeds and videos and less sort of loose videos and stuff which I think has been going on for a while because of stories as well, because before you would post sort of your raw and edited stuff in your feed but now that goes in your stories and your feed is like polished. And then the other thing is twitch is not for gamers alone anymore lots of artists and musicians are moving to twitch, which is why I think in the future they'll probably also be moving to only fans, because everyone's at home. None of us can see each other in person for several more months, and twitch is a super easy platform to stream and anyone can join. So yeah, a lot of my friends who are artists and musicians have been moving to twitch as well, which is not gated is free. With twitch do you, there's some sort of like wallets or something like people pay you through like. Yeah, you can add tips. I don't know, I haven't like streamed on twitch and only watch streams. So most of my friends that I watch don't do tips because they're just like doing it for the six of us watching. But I do have some friends who are like twitch gamers that have like followers. And yeah they can do tips or they'll like do a stream like for a charity or something. I'm not exactly sure how it works but it is free to watch like you don't have to give a tip to watch it. Yeah. I guess I'll go next. I was going to just add that I mostly use Instagram like the rest you guys and that I kind of curious about Pinterest just because it's got more longevity for whatever you add there. So, you know with Instagram it's like your post gets shown for a certain amount of time but with Pinterest because it's more of a search engine stuff is like a lot more like you could get like a month or two out of it and longer people are saving it. So I'm kind of curious about that and I know that maybe in in North America it has a certain like connotation like using Pinterest to figure out what kind of like bouquet you want in your wedding or whatever but I find that like, like there's a lot of like European businesses that are using it. And I find that the search engine on there is like really amazing. The cool thing that I learned about it is that since it's a search engine it can see when an image is added that is absolutely new and unique. And it prioritizes that so I think if you're an artist, that's kind of exciting right because your art will get more of that algorithm juice, I guess. I'm curious about that. Have nothing to say about tick tock I know nothing. Yeah, I guess. I was thinking about it in terms of the trends that I think are interesting I guess like there are lots of cool trends that people are replicating I think there's lots of things people do to change those trends that make them a lot more exciting. What I was thinking about more was, I think which we've all kind of talked about is this year, or at least like in 2020. And going forward, a lot of people are really, really mindful of how they're using social media and that's the trend I'm focusing on right now is just that people are really, really aware of it. So I think after using it and how it's affecting them, which I think prior to 2020 people hadn't really stopped to think about it, because they just didn't have the time and COVID has allowed a lot of people to stop and think about how these things are impacting their lives, because we just have the time. And so I think some beneficial things are coming out of that obviously because we're all focusing more on what's actually making us happy and doing things that really don't have any purpose in your life anymore. And so curating, even like who you're following how they affect you personally that's really important. And so I think, yeah, more people are starting to realize that and that's really nice. I have that with TikTok. I think the one thing that as an artist I do get a little annoyed with and not in terms of other artists but it just kind of gives everyone a platform to create something that they are replicating over and over and over again and there's not a lot of new. So people who do make new stuff it's really great but then you're still having to look at a lot of the exact same thing, which I don't have a ton of patience for. So obviously you can follow people on TikTok so you don't have to see that stuff, but it just to me as a creator gets on my nerves a little bit. Yeah, I feel like that happened before social media but it's so amplified by social media. I used to sit more in illustration than in painting. But yeah, trends, like a few years ago when Adventure Time first came out. So many artists were drawing in the style of Pendleton Ward, like everywhere. And yeah now the flat vectoring where people just like trace a photograph and make it a flat vector. Like every girl I went to high school with is starting her own business doing that and I'm like, okay, like, I don't know I don't hate on it. Because like, I think it's nice for people to have a creative outlet or whatever but I also don't care to see it because it's so boring. I just wanted to add Rebecca that have you heard of arena. It's like a pretty small but growing sort of social media platform that is very similar. Collections of content called channels that are either like files upload from your computer or links. And then you can sort of make the branching many to many connections where you can channels to other channels from other users or connect a single piece of media to multiple channels, either from accounts with others. And it's already, you know, sort of being used up by artists, predominantly artists and minders really but Is the interface quite visual then. Yeah, yeah it's very minimal and there's no ads and it's, yeah, it's pretty interesting that it's a AR E dot and a Okay, I will check that out. Thank you. Yeah. And yeah, I haven't really been paying attention. You know, to art to creative production lately so I'm not really sure about yeah platform trends or artistic trends but personally I find like creative production using the new template is seems like a really interesting place where a lot of really creative things are something that are, you know, being produced by cancer aren't necessarily run by artists, but are creating like extremely, you know, interesting artistic work, I think. And also on the other end sort of like established artists like Brad Trinnell's example he used the format to produce sort of like spiritual content about the art world or about politics. And that I think that will, you know, will overlap as well with like, you know, the transition to tick tock in the like unit this is sort of accelerated by the virality of social media content. Yeah. Thank you for everyone's insights on that. The next question I have is what challenges are you currently facing as a creative. Um, I guess I'll start. So yeah, as someone who predominantly has worked traditionally and prior to getting sick shown in galleries pretty frequently. So like since COVID started I haven't even applied to any gallery shows because I'm very immunodeficient and disabled and it's just like not worth risking my life to put on an art show. So yeah not being able to do in person shows or book fairs is difficult, especially because most of my art throughout my life has been a material art practice. Even though more people see it through a screen, like thousands of people might see it through a screen I do like it when people see it in person, because my work is heavily about color theory and pigments and pigments do not look the same in a photograph as they do in real life. And also, I mostly paint quite large. So it's hard to tell the scale in a photograph. And yeah book fairs are where I made most of my money. I do sell online as well and I do make a decent amount online but book fairs, you can make like so much more in a day that you would make in months of selling online. And also the community around book fairs, like I've still been buying books from my friends online and reading them but I really miss seen trading seeing work that I wouldn't normally see that I wouldn't find online necessarily. So yeah all the challenges around COVID have been really difficult, and then as well I've had a lot of health issues which has made my art practice difficult. And I'm currently an artist and residents at an elementary school and teaching online, a material art practice to children, not the best. This year I tried to make it more concept driven but it's still yeah very difficult. I can go next. So, basically my current challenges are, I guess, in October, mid month, I kind of hit the wall with some of the things I've been saying yes to that we're coming along there are positive things but I felt really crappy after I did them. And so it just involves things where you're asked to do something and it feels a little bit like an honor and your ego is like, yes, this is great and so glad I'm going to do this. And then it just takes out like much too much of your energy and takes you away from your practice and all that kind of stuff so you know I was fortunate to be on like a council jury over the summer but it was very. It tapped me like nothing else and then I got like an illustration gig which I am not an illustrator but every once in a while someone will hire me to do something and I again the ego said yes, and afterwards the body said no. So I have been actually since that point, kind of making like a bit more of like a boundary practice and trying to say no to more things that are outside of just running my business because it takes everything and also making art on top of that because between those two things there's actually nothing extra. And I, I sometimes pretend that there is and I say yes, and then it's a bit traumatizing from time to time. So, right now I with the extra energy that I now have because of those boundaries I'm able to spend a little bit of time just working on my business. I went from big cartel to Shopify which I don't know if any of you guys have done but man, that was took me all holiday Christmas holiday that's what I did. And it's been amazing like I feel actually really satisfied now that I'm not like totally overdoing it with everything. Yeah, but it's hard to say no. I could talk next on, I kind of mentioned already but like just working within like Instagram's regulations I find really, really challenging in terms of what I'm able to share so over the last couple months I've been trying to shift my mindset out of that and just not focus on what I'm sharing there and just making work for myself that fulfills me and allows me to make what I need to make and not worry about who sees it. I also mentioned before the restrictions with COVID. It means that I can't actually photograph people very often. The majority of the people within my very small bubble are not people very comfortable being photographed. So I don't really get to do my photo practice right now and that's why I started this outdoor series that allows me to be outside so I can document people in a safe way, which has been nice but it's really been a matter of like really trying to work around things to make it happen. And then I have a new added stress to my life, which is my studio we just found out our building's being developed so I have to find a new studio, which is really stressful in Vancouver obviously. But there's lots of availabilities because of COVID which is really nice so I just have to find a space that needs all the needs I need it to. But yeah, so there's always tons of things and I think it's just a matter of figuring out what the boundaries are as Rebecca said, like what allows you to work the way you need to work and saying no to things that are pulling away from that because they can often feel very flattering and really nice, but they don't fulfill you in the end. And yeah, they just leave you really tired and not fulfilled know you need so I think just like setting boundaries so that you can actually make what you need to make is really important. Yeah, I'd like to say for that as well about setting boundaries. And I mean, I don't have a lot to contribute maybe to this question because I don't have any challenges in the practice of the moment. I'm just thinking of great really. But I mean I think the, you know, prior to that, you know, and one of the reasons that sort of pushed me in the direction of focusing on academia for a while was, was yeah, being unable to figure out how to balance those things and draw the boundaries in the right way and, you know, really, I think overwhelmed by the kind of, you know, incentives of social media platforms, especially like Instagram, where you just at times just feel like you're sort of, you know, jumping through hoops and computer metrics and, you know, constantly everyone's constantly trying to trick the new algorithm and, and it's, you know, and sometimes it just feels a little, it can feel a little defeated, you know, sort of, you know, what is this for essentially, you know, it's to, it's to, you know, meet the terms of these massive tech monopolies and, you know, reinforce their, you know, power over, you know, being able to curate our content and, you know, and, you know, essentially prioritizing marketing and advertising revenue over, you know, the like interesting creative work that's being done on the platforms and so yes, I think those are all challenges for me, and that, you know, admittedly I was unable to resolve effectively and I think, you know, one of the reasons why I think I need to step back for this. Okay, so what has helped each of you get to where you are in your career and what advice would you have for anyone looking to set off in a similar direction. I can start here. One of the things that was really important for dog was just building an online maybe as organically as possible. I've been like, no, no buying ads or buying followers or whatever, just, you know, seeking out people you admire and interacting with them, interacting with your audience constantly, you know, doing your, your best, you know, to the best of your ability responding to people who, you know, leave comments on your work, what message you, you know, like looking for advice or, or asking about the, you know, like looking for opportunities to collaborate or whatever. And, you know, just supporting each other, you know, sharing the work of the, you know, people that you work with that you admire. So sharing, sharing resources, IRL, you know, for the publication that's really important because there's a lot of, you know, sort of capital costs with printers or binders, you know, lots of sort of heavy machinery needed to be to do some of these things so having access to spaces and equipment and being able to, you know, allow people to work with it is, I think, you know, really, really important to have, you know, sharing costs on these kinds of resources as well. Which is, yeah, I mean obviously it's a little bit harder to be doing the pandemic now. Also, for me personally, learning to code, like learning just simple web development, HTML, CSS and JavaScript basics will go a long way, I think in terms of your, I think, autonomy, you know, in terms of designing the website or being able to help other people with websites for them. And also just a really useful skill that will pay well. And then yeah, you know, if you don't have financial support. Excuse me, it's the external financial support to be sort of realistic about how you intend to support yourself through your art. And, you know, and like make a budget and learn how to do your taxes. And, you know, price your work accordingly. Locate an audience who will be willing to purchase your work and try to balance these concerns with what you want to make because if you're just trying to satisfy your audience, this has been mentioned already before. You know, if you're just looking to satisfy your audience or just looking to, you know, take on projects for money. You know, eventually it'll become part of something that will wear you out. I can go next. So, I think for me, even though I'm not really like gallery focused as an artist, and that's not how I support myself. I have done a lot of shows and that's definitely helped me to really slow down with what I'm making, I guess, and like take my time with it, because it gave me these extended deadlines so I think that had a positive effect on my career, just in the way of seeing what I could do if I had like a year and a half to make some paintings. So the thought slowing down the thought process, writing about the work like those kind of things have helped me to be more connected to what I'm doing instead of, I think when I first, like after I graduated started showing in tons of group shows with like small pieces and things like that I was just generating a lot of stuff and I did learn to paint and I got to try things out really quickly, but it wasn't until I think I did like a show at the Grant Gallery and that show I had this extended deadline and it really forced me to say like, Okay, now I have more time. And what could I do with that time and what if a painting that before I might spend a couple days on could take me like a month what would that painting look like and what could I bring to my practice if I actually gave it time so I mean it's not like ideal to make a paint one painting a month I don't know how people do that but people do do that and live off of that so that's amazing. But I think just whether you're someone who takes a long time to make work it's good to practice making work in shorter time spans and and kind of like come to some kind of neutral place where you're not taking too long. But you're not taking too short, but you are still connecting with the work and moving through the ideas at a good pace so think just showing even though it's something that I am not like super focused on now or want to continue doing and the gallery in context necessarily I do think that it helped me to kind of like get into this habit of how I was going to think about the work and present it and like it gave me a chance to really contextualize the narrative as I was making the work. I mean I'm not, I generally don't have a concept going in it may be a rough one but then it kind of develops as I'm working so it gave me a rhythm to what I was doing which has benefited me quite a bit now. Yeah, I similarly to Rebecca, early in my career, read out of art school I found that transition. In art school you're like really forced to constantly be producing things. And even in third and fourth year, when you get to do more of an independent practice you're still often given assignments and some of your other classes that are maybe outside of your main practice. My fourth year of art school I was probably doing two or three group shows a month in Vancouver, and then continued that sort of trajectory for maybe two years after art school there were I will say more galleries doing group shows back then in Vancouver. So, there was like a social aspect to it where it was fun to sort of submit every month to different galleries so you can go like see your friends and what they made in that like theme. And that was good for like sort of getting my name out there, and sort of meeting artists outside of Emily Carr, because before that I pretty much only knew my classmate. But similarly, I had a hard time showing people like my whole body of work, or sort of what my work was about because they were only steam I work in the context of these themed group shows. And I started dating my current partner who is a comic book artist, and we would go to events or whatever and he would always have his comics in his pocket, and show them to people like a business card and they would get like the full sort of vision of what he was doing. And so I kind of realized like I could be printing my paintings in books, or zines, and showing those to people and they can kind of like understand more what I'm about, especially as an abstract painter, where it's kind of hard to explain with language often, especially to those who don't speak abstract painting language. So yeah, personally I found making books very helpful both to show people my work, and also sort of see like my work as a body as like one object. So I found that very helpful personally. And then the other advice I would give which one of my old professors told me and is so true is work comes from making work it doesn't come from thinking about making work. And I find a lot is an artist I can get in my own head and think about the millions of things I want to do and I want to make, but that's really not helpful like you have to actually like do do the work. And as you do it you're going to discover things that you would have never thought about, because there is something that happens when you're physically, even if your work is conceptual, when you're physically seeing it or hearing it or dancing or like the work comes from making it will just spark more ideas. So, I mean, I used to tell myself I had to make art every single day and I used to do that. But since I got sick, I don't make art every day but I still try to push myself to at least make something every couple days, like at least a doodle, like anything. So that I think is really important advice if you want to be a professional artist like you have to make work all the time, even when you don't want to. Yeah, I guess like my kind of advice for that was very similar. When I was in my last year at Emily Carr, I was lucky enough to have friends who are in the year above me, and I kind of watched them go through the graduating process and in that year after, or a lot of them really floundered and like couldn't find their podium in Vancouver or like find studio space because obviously like the facilities at Emily Carr are very different from what you have access to in Vancouver outside of Emily Carr. And so I just tried to be really smart about it and set myself up with as much as I could before I left so I built like 10 huge ass canvases and like built an entire series of embossing prints that I made after I left. But like wasn't going to have access to the CNC machine anymore so I wanted to try and like set myself up so that I had work I could do when I was done. And so I did all of that, but I realized that like I had to have a day job and I wasn't going to get to work on that all the time so I started the daily drawing practice so I was making something every day. And that's kind of where my Instagram developed from was the drawings I was making every day and posting, which didn't necessarily create a healthy habit because then everyone was expecting something every day. And like that output isn't necessarily great all the time for you like yourself as an artist, but it was great in terms of like developing the style of drawing they do and creating a name for myself and not allowed myself to create a tattooing practice people were seeing the drawings I was doing and really liking them and taking those drawings to other people to tattoo them. And so I was like, I might as well start tattooing these on people and make money off of it because I'm not making any money off of this so that was really instrumental for me in like having a career in this. I think outside of tattooing in my more conceptual art practice. I would say, yeah, like what what Kristen said like you have to do the work, you can't just think about it, it's not going to happen if you don't, and you have to make time for it. So you have to realize that like sometimes things that make me money aren't necessarily the things I should be doing if I want to be really fulfilled in other things so I have to make time to make the art which eventually does make me money but it's not going to give me money now. So realizing that you have to set goals for yourself and realize that the things you want will happen eventually and the short term isn't always better than the long term. And there's going to say for advice. Realizing that there's a lot going outside of a lot going on outside of Vancouver don't limit yourself to Vancouver. I think a lot of people within Vancouver kind of get really cellular and focus on what's going on here and if you don't necessarily get what you need out of it that can feel really sad. But there's so much going on outside of Vancouver and people and communities outside of Vancouver are really welcoming and you'll be very surprised. So utilize those. That's great advice. Thanks everybody. I know that I've been asked a lot of questions repeatedly so I'd love to hear from you guys. What's the question that you are most tired of hearing as a creative and what would you like to say about it so that you'll never have to answer it again. I'll go first. So like, I kind of have two parts to this where like as a tattoo artist, I have to make small talk with people all day every day so I get asked the same questions, all the damn time, which can be exhausting. I'm also just like part of the process and like people when they're being tattooed are usually nervous and need to talk to relax themselves and it's like I am aware of those things but a lot of people just ask you like how long you've been tattooing, which I don't really want to talk about because like you're getting a tattoo from me regardless how long I've been tattooing. And they ask how you got into tattooing they like want to know the process of it and sometimes that can feel depending on how they frame it not great. So sometimes they, you know, you wouldn't ask any other professional like how they got their education in terms of what they're doing, while they're doing it for you. If you wanted to ask me that before I was putting ink on your body, then that could be like helpful, but while I'm tattooing you that's kind of distracting and not super fun. I think like the other thing I try to remember within that context is that tattooing is like super gatekeeping and I try to share information really widely with people if they want it. So it's just a matter of being like really respectful of artists and the journeys they've been on to get to where they are so not being casual about the questions you're asking. So like being really meaningful and if you actually want to know ask, but if you don't care don't ask. The other like annoying question is everyone always asked me, like what's the craziest place I've tattooed everyone wants to know other people's like what's going on with other people's bodies which isn't really like consensually that great to ask I don't really want to tell other people about other people's like private tattoos. So that's something I don't really like to be asked, and I don't want to be asked anymore. I don't get asked weird questions or annoying questions outside of that in my like actual practice which is really nice. The only question that I've been asked repetitively is how to pronounce the name of our press, because it's just spelled with two of each letter it's like do you do. It's fine it's not annoying to be asked that because it doesn't I don't really care how you can ask. Anyway, you'd like, I just say dog but, but yeah besides that, I'm honestly just yeah happen, happy to hear anyone's questions and open to them. I can't think of too many things that people have asked me that are frustrated to hear or challenging to answer something like that. Similarly, I don't get asked a lot of questions that I find super annoying. Definitely when I was in art school creepy guys would often when they found out I was an art school the first question was do you draw people naked so that was annoying and constant. For sure. But outside of art school, when I tell people I'm an artist they pretty much never asked that question. Otherwise, I guess my partner is also an artist and we both table book fairs together and often share a table and our work looks very different from each other's. But lots of times, especially like comic dudes will treat me like it's not my art and like ask him questions about my art and he'll be like she made it it's hers and maybe like pretend I'm not there. I also had a solo show where my name was on the wall, and like a person from a magazine went up to him to interview him for his solo show and he's like, uh, what. So yeah, just like weird sexism things that I like never noticed before dating another artist because I used to be the only artist in the relationship, but talking to my other friends who are like artists couples that are like heteronormative it is pretty common I guess where the male counterpoint gets all the questions or they pretend that the girls just like there as an object I don't know it's really bizarre. So yeah I find that very annoying, especially because like at these book fairs I'm usually wearing like clothes that have my art on them and it's like all rainbow so it's like pretty obvious I think that it's my art. And my name is on everything, which is like, you know, a female name. I don't think I have really like a particular question that has annoyed me except that I guess there's always that moment where you're at a non art event around a lot of non art people and then they ask you. What is what is your art about and I, it's not that the question is annoying. It's just that like I'm so used to what the response will be the second I start talking about my artwork or showing them it on my phone it's just like complete glazed over and they just don't know what to say so when people ask me that question now I actually think about the time I saw another artist answer that question in a way that was kind of not answering the question. This is the artist Bradley harms I don't know if you guys know him but he, he was asked that question and I just saw him like decide to, like he completely decided to not answer the question but instead he just talked about what he was excited about right now visually and like in life, and it was a great conversation that he had with the person. I think sometimes people like don't know how to deal with us. So they find engaging like the second may ask that question, it becomes hard to communicate a little bit. They feel a little out of their depth so I, it was kind of cool to see him answer that question in a way that like he just started talking about colors he was excited about and things he was doing and it was amazing. I've never seen it happen that way before so. That's a great way to answer a question that you might feel like awkward answering. What is another piece of practical advice you give to anyone that's starting out we've got emerging artists will be watching this and I'm sure they're curious to know about one practical piece of advice. Susan and Ethan really made a good point about, like, just, you know, making time to work and like, you know, just constantly working at your practice. And also in terms of sort of finding your voice it's really important, I think, in my experience at least I spent a lot of time sort of trying to formulate that in my mind before actually implementing it, and then realizing over time that like, I actually just have to go through so many iterations and working it over and over and over again until you start to figure out, you know, what it is that you're actually considering making and what will ultimately produce work that is idiosyncratic and personal and that does, you know, have this quality to it that is, that is, you know, highly individual. And the only way to, for me, the only way to reach that was through working over and over and over and over again. So, yeah, I think that's a really good piece of advice. And also, I think you should learn to go creatively as well I mean like there's a way to incorporate into our package but I think it's just a really good also like a fundamental skill that can complement your work or, you know, open up avenues for, you know, being able to sustain yourself in order to produce work that you want. I agree with that for sure like, I think making work consistently and exploring through actual like tactical means is the only way to figure out what your style is because when you're a young artist and you look up to all this art there's like an idea in your mind of what work you want to be making and your hands might not necessarily move that way like I don't know when I was a kid I definitely my mom is an artist as well as she does like very realistic like photo realistic etchings completely the opposite of what I do. But when I was a kid I always tried to draw realistically I spent so long learning how to draw realistically, I can do it but it's actually not fun for me at all and a total struggle and art school and sort of personal explorations outside of art school throughout high school and since graduating has sort of shown me what style it comes out of me naturally. So it's like a mix of absorbing other people's styles and inspiration but also just seeing like what comes out of you. And then the other advice I would give is not to be competitive with other artists and only be competitive with yourself, because it's actually good. If your like peers get things that you don't get, because if your friends with them and then they become really famous, and they put on a show they're going to put you in that show with them. So there's no point in being competitive like literally, it's not helpful for your career even like it's normal to feel jealous when people get things that you want but like, seriously, it's better to just uplift them and congratulate them, ask them for advice and how they got that grant or got that award, maybe they'll give you some insight that's something you didn't think about. But also like art is so much about nepotism and so much about community and like you want to ride those coattails. So be nice to everyone and don't be competitive with people. I'll go next. I think you guys have kind of mentioned this one already but just the idea of like when you sit down to make work that you make it for yourself like to like thrill yourself to amuse yourself to totally dig into what your most emotions and not have any guilt or weird shame vibes around that and not play into like sometimes when you sit down in front of the easel or whatever medium you're using, you can kind of feel here a lot of different voices in your head of like, do this do that this is acceptable this isn't or people like this do this right so I think that being able to just like really zero in on making art for yourself. I know that sounds really simple but I guess what I'm trying to say is that like you should feel really into it. And the second that you don't that's like just start something else that's that you do, and it will be all the colors you like in the subject matter that you like and all of the things you're interested in can be in there. In the thing that you're making. And I mean that can. I work fairly like, you know, figuratively but you know that can be abstract that could be conceptual that can be whatever you're making. And I guess I think that one thing that I learned in just getting like grants. I remember I really believed that I was not the type of artists that would ever get a grant like I firmly believed that and yet I. Like, another part of myself was like, Okay, now prove yourself wrong, or at least do it for the apply for the practice and get better and maybe in 10 years. This is what I said to myself maybe in 10 years, you'll get a grants, and it actually happened a lot quicker than that, and I was able to get to really big grants and it was amazing and it really helped me to do that work of zeroing that I liked, instead of having to worry about what was selling and who my audiences and what they wanted so I'd say those those things go together like just being patient with yourself and being able to check in with those assumptions you have about what type of artists you are and what you deserve to get, because that will totally block you from applying for stuff, or asking for what you want. Yeah, I mean, a lot of what I would like to add is what's kind of been said. I guess the biggest thing that I think about is finding your voice and what you're trying to make. And like if it's not coming from you authentically people won't connect with it. What you want, it needs to come from you it needs to make you happy. So make what you want to make. I used to think about like what was more commercially viable, and it didn't make me happy. Like it could make work and I could sell it, but like then you just end up making that because people want it. Then you just are sad, and you're using all your skills for things that are making you fulfilled. So yeah so it's really important to like really push yourself into finding your voice what makes that voice happy and fulfilled and really nurturing that so you have the experiences you need to push it and further it. And then I think just to reiterate just like setting boundaries is really, really important and like figure out what works for you and work within that not everyone works in the same way it's not going to work for everyone the same way and to kind of piggyback off and what Rebecca was just talking about as well. I like have a really, really crippling anxiety about rejection and so I almost refused to apply for things because it like it drives me a little bit crazy just going through the process of it I really bad ADHD in terms of like filling out forms and people are good stuff it like sets off all of my triggers and I can't do it. But there are lots of people who will help you and realize that there's community who are willing to help you, and you can push past that it doesn't always have to just be you. And I think it was Shannon who was talking about that there's help actually from the alumni office so like their resources for you realize that you don't have to do on your own. And you can make it happen, because those are really, really important things to utilize as well. Thank you everyone so much.