10 vragen aan…Faith Varvara

Zoek je op instagram naar illustraties in ‘kawaii’ stijl (culture of cuteness in Japan) dan wordt je om de oren geslagen met het ene nog schattigere charactertje dan het andere. Ik bleef regelmatig het werk van Faith in mijn feed tegenkomen. Naast haar illustraties vind ik ook haar gedrevenheid als onderneemster inspirerend. Ze runt een shop waar ze behalve stationary items, enamel pins en stickers ook kleding, pluche knuffels, geurkaarsen en sinds kort zelfs een eigen tarot deck verkoopt. Maak kennis met de eenentwintigjarige Faith Varvara in dit openhartige interview.

1. Please introduce yourself 🙂
Hi! My name’s Faith Varvara and I am an artist from Calgary, Canada!!

2. How did you become an artist?
I’ve always loved art from a very young age. I wasn’t the best at school but art class was a place I truly enjoyed and felt like I could thrive at. In 10th grade I sold my first ever art prints at a highschool art fair made from then on I knew it was something I wanted to seriously pursue.

3. What/who inspires you? Which artists, which characters?
I’ve had a lot of inspirations as my art has grown. Currently I find myself gravitating to more cartoonish and joyful art. Life can be very stressful and demoralizing. Just looking at the news cycle all the time but especially this year has really highlighted the injustices in our society and the lack of empathy in a lot of people during such a critical time. Through art and characters for example Sanrio’s Rillakuma, My Melody, Sumikko Gurashi etc. it serves as a type of temporary escapism, bringing a small piece of joy into so many people’s lives. That’s exactly what I want to try to do for others, I want to create a small world that someone can feel they can escape to when they need it. Somewhere you can feel safe and loved.

4. What is it like to be an illustrator in Canada?
Being an artist in Canada is wonderful. I typically make most of my income from selling at conventions and Canada has some really great ones like Otakuthon (Montreal), Anime North (Toronto), Otafest (Calgary), etc. The majority of the people that follow along with my art however are Americans! I’d love to do more conventions in the USA but the amount of paperwork needed can make it incredibly hard. I would say that’s the only downside about it. With social media though I think it makes it a lot easier to create a space for yourself no matter where you are!

5. Do you work for clients, if yes what kind of assignments?
I typically do not do commissions or work with clients very often. In the beginning when I was in highschool, I did however I found a lot of the experiences I had were bad ones. I often had people ghost me halfway though projects. Just a couple years ago I had been in the works with two quite large and well known American corporations to sell my art/products in their shops across the USA. I was so excited and thought it was going to be a great experience but not too long into it I found both of them to be incredibly unprofessional and rude, all projects with these businesses I have since cancelled because of it. With that being said I have also worked on some amazing projects. Last year I illustrated a new menu and take out box for an American macaron company called Honey and Butter as well as worked on an upcoming project with an anime convention that should be coming out next year!

6. Can you tell a bit more about the characters/subjects you draw?
I love illustrating cute food and fluffy friends to go along with it! I’ve been working on my own little world called Bumbleberry Hollows for the past three-ish years. In Bumbleberry Hollows there are lots of fun characters like Inkeri the goat, Fripouille the Tiger, Tofu the cat and many more! Recently I have been trying to flesh out that world and the individual characters personalities bit by bit. I want to create a world that brings people comfort and joy as well as characters that you can feel like you can be friends with! I’ve always loved cute food and I think adding that element into a lot of my art not only makes me happy but also is a great way to connect with others!

7. You have an online shop with a lot of products. Would you tell something more about running your own shop, like where do you manufacture all these items and where do you stock them?
There are lots of things to think about before opening a shop and finding good quality and reliable manufacturers is one of the most important ones! There are lots of things to consider like minimum order size, cost and more! I currently use manufacturers form Canada, the USA and China. However when I first started out my wonderful mother Jackie was the one printing all our shirts and sweaters in her home office and getting prints and stickers made at a local printing shop. After about 4 years of working with many different manufacturers we now have a somewhat consistent rotation of shops we use. Here are some tips that might help if you’re getting into making products with your own artwork!

If you want to make enamel pins check to see if the manufacturer you are looking at using is selling premade pins that look like artwork from other artists you’ve seen before. A number of manufacturers will make extras pins from your designs to wholesale or sell the old pin molds to other manufacturers to use.
If you can’t meet the minimum order quantity from bigger manufacturers there are lots of shops out there like Zap Creations and Sticker Ninja. They will usually cost a bit more since you are getting a smaller quantity but it’s much more accessible especially for small artists!
Watch out for third part manufacturers. A third party manufacturer is a shop that does NOT manufacture its own goods but instead takes what you want made and sends it usually to a shop manufacturer in China. Third party manufacturers aren’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s often easier to communicate with them and some will do quality control for you! A lot of them though are a bit of a scam and you might as well work directly with the manufacturer from China. Last year I wanted to work with some local Canadian or American manufacturers. I wanted to know where my money was going and bring business to smaller shops but after going through multiple companies I found a large majority of them were false advertisements. All they do is artificially increase the price.

8. Can you describe a workday at your studio? What’s your routine?
My workplace is currently my home! I have a little office space with my Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 tablet that I work at as well as an iPad Pro 12.5 that I currently do most of my illustrations on. With Covid going on right now most my days are exactly the same. I sleep for about 5 hours, wake up and eat, draw for a most the day (I usually have YouTube or a podcast always on in the background), reply to messages on my social medias and emails, take a 2 hour nap, eat dinner and then back to drawing for a bit, maybe play a video game or watch an anime and that’s it. It sounds pretty boring when I look at it all written out hahaa! I used to have a lot more going on with conventions and a lot of traveling but with Covid every day is more or less the same. Although it can get boring I hope I can use all this extra time to work and develop my art even more!

9. Are there any struggles you experience as an artist? If yes, would you like to share?
I feel quite lucky to have such a supportive family. A little bit after graduating high school my mother quit her job to help me full time and we created a proper business. I think the biggest struggle would be the stress to always come up with new ideas and products people will enjoy. Being a full time artist isn’t the most sustainable or reliable way to earn money. It makes it hard to take breaks and the time I put into these projects can be overwhelming. I illustrated a tarot deck this year and half way through I developed a sort of breathing disorder that persisted for 2 straight months. I had to take incredibly deep breaths all the time or I felt like I would suffocate. I had gotten a Covid test that came back negative and went to see a doctor who told me it was completely psychological due to my intense anxiety. The fear that I wasn’t working hard enough, my art work wasn’t good enough and the idea people wouldn’t like this creation I put so much time and passion into really ate away at me. Soon after I finished all the artwork the breathing problems went away. I definitely pushed myself harder than I should have but I am so happy with how the deck turned out. Every job has it’s stresses and anxieties. I am just happy and feel lucky that I get to do something that brings me so much joy.

10. Do you have a specific dream or goal you want to achieve in your career as an artist?
It would be my ULTIMATE DREAM to open a Bumbleberry Hollows themed café and gift shop!! Just like the Pokemon Cafe or Hello Kitty Cafe! Having a place people could visit and be surrounded by adorable sweets and fluffy friends from Bumbleberry Hollows, I don’t think I could think of anything I would love more than that! (ෆ˙ ˙ෆ)♡

( Bonus question 😉 ) What would be your favorite way to spend a day off (if a pandemic would not hold you back from whatever you normally would like to do)?
If there was no pandemic and I had a full day to do whatever I wanted I would love to go see a movie at the theater and then go out for hot pot!! Then maybe get a boba tea to take home and spend the evening playing video games or working on one of my miniatures! Right now I’m working on a sushi shop miniature! It’s so cute but so time consuming!!

That sounds totally kawaii 😉 Thank you for this interview!

Check meer van Faith’s werk hier trendynot.com