Vashti Harrison, LITTLE LEGENDS
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[0:47]I'm here today with Vashti Harrison, who's the children's book author and illustrator
[0:52]of little leaders, bold women in black history, little dreamers, visionary women around the world,
[0:57]and most recently, little legends, exceptional men in black history,
[1:00]plus board books, dream big little one, and think big little one.
[1:04]She is also illustrated many other books, including Soul Way by Academy Award winner
[1:08]Lupita Nyongo, which is now a New York Times bestseller,
[1:12]CC Love Science, Hair Love, and others. Vashti is also a filmmaker, her film center
[1:16]around her family's history and culture in the Caribbean. Originally from Virginia,
[1:20]Vashti earned a BA from the University of Virginia and an MFA in film and video from Cal
[1:25]Arts. She currently lives in Brooklyn, and I met Vashti at the Brooklyn Book Festival
[1:30]and wanted to do this illustrator Smackdown, which my kids thought was basically the coolest
[1:34]thing ever. So I'm super excited to have Vashti come over and talk to her about her work.
[1:39]Hi Vashti, thanks for coming on mom's. Don't have time to read books.
[1:42]Thanks for having me. Of course, thanks for coming in.
[1:45]My kids and I loved seeing you with the illustrator Smackdown at the Brooklyn Book Festival,
[1:49]and we were trying to grab your pictures of dogs. Do you remember when you were drawing the
[1:54]to New York? Do you remember when I were talking about it? I remember drawing a monster
[1:59]who wasn't a dog with 11 arms and 11 eyes, a pie amount of arms, and that's true. Yeah,
[2:08]and I remember drawing, I had to draw myself in 30 seconds and then take another 30 seconds to
[2:13]turn myself into Abraham Lincoln. Yes, that's true. That's right. Oh my gosh, too funny. Well,
[2:19]we were all very impressed. So tell me about how you got started as a children's book illustrator
[2:25]and then also author. I'll try the shortest version of this story. I didn't study illustration.
[2:31]I don't have a background and formal painting, training, or anything, but I did study film, and I went
[2:38]to California Institute of the Arts to study experimental cinema, and that school's really
[2:44]famous for being the Disney school of animation, and so I was paying so much money to be there.
[2:49]It was like, of course, I'm going to take classes in every department, including this animation
[2:53]department. And I was in my final year and I thought this drawing class might be fun while I'm
[2:58]finishing up my thesis film and turns out it was not as fun as I thought it would be. It was sort
[3:05]of just so intimidating, but also kind of rekindled this love I had for drawing, but I started,
[3:12]and I realized I wasn't as good as I used to be. I used to draw a lot when I was a kid,
[3:16]but I stopped when I started making movies, and I, it was the first time where I thought,
[3:21]oh my goodness, I'm not good at this. Don't stop. But I mean, you couldn't have been that bad.
[3:25]Really? I mean, I was pretty bad. I mean, a lot of people don't want to believe this,
[3:29]but the fact is if you don't practice something, you're not going to be good. So I always tell kids,
[3:33]you know, if you're a really fast runner and you stop running for like five years,
[3:37]what do you think will happen? You're not going to be as fast as you once were. It's not exactly
[3:41]like riding a bike. And so it was so clear to me that if I do practice, I will get better. So
[3:46]I kind of just kept it a secret. I started drawing every day. I mean, just wanted it to be a part
[3:51]of my own personal practice to feel better about this thing, this form of expression that I used
[3:57]to really love. Did you ever think like, I'm not good at this anymore? Like, what made you think
[4:02]if I practice, I'm going to get better again? It was sort of knowing that at one point I was,
[4:06]you know, proud of the drawings that I could make and I could see that my hand
[4:10]wasn't doing everything that I thought my brain was sending it. So it was just so apparent to me
[4:15]that it's not about talent. It's just about practice and skill. Some people believe that,
[4:20]you know, some people can draw and some people can't. The fact of the matter is I think most of
[4:24]us, at least in America, is kind of stopped drawing after the fifth grade or after the sixth grade
[4:29]when you are stopped or you're not forced into art classes, you can choose your own electives. And
[4:35]you know, most of us never keep practicing and some people do and some people keep going.
[4:39]And I was noticing in this animation program, these kids are like, they're undergraduate students
[4:44]and they're so talented. They're so good. And like notoriously they don't finish their degrees.
[4:49]They like get hired by Walt Disney before they're even 20 years old. And I was like,
[4:53]no, yeah, if I kept drawing every day at that rate, you know, I might have been as good as
[5:00]them. And so it didn't intimidate me. It just sort of challenged me. I mean, while I finished
[5:06]grad school, I finished my films, got a job in the film industry. And I was supposed to, you know,
[5:11]work my day job and come home and edit my movies and keep submitting to festivals. And the only
[5:16]thing I wanted to do was draw. I still didn't tell anyone, but I, you know, as it goes in television
[5:22]when the end of the season comes, everyone, a lot of people get laid off and hopefully you get hired
[5:27]after hiatus for the next season. My show got canceled and it wasn't really easy for me to roll
[5:32]over into another show. And I thought, this sounds crazy. But, you know, do I keep trying to grind
[5:38]in the film industry or do I go after this crazy thing? This illustration thing is the only
[5:44]thing that's making me happy these days. And so it seemed a little bit terrifying and a little bit
[5:48]irresponsible, but I moved home with my parents to try to figure out how to become an illustrator.
[5:52]And I joined S-C-B-W-Y, the society of children's books, writers and illustrators,
[5:57]they tried to learn about, you know, the publishing industry as much as I could. And fortunately,
[6:01]it worked out very quickly for me way faster than I could have anticipated. But I read that you
[6:07]entered some sort of hashtag draw this competition. And then you won. Yeah. So it was only a few
[6:13]months into, I mean, once I got laid off, I applied for a lot of other jobs. And I was like,
[6:18]you know, looking to get to some sort of like into the publishing industry. But I didn't
[6:23]believe that I could be an illustrator. I thought, you know, I'll do something kind of illustration
[6:28]adjacent. Maybe I really liked books. And I thought, you know, I really love designing the
[6:33]interior. So books. And I taught myself how to do that. And I thought, this would be good. It's like,
[6:37]you know, it's business, it's businessy. And it's creative enough that I can not feel like
[6:42]I'm giving up everything, you know, to just go off and be an artist forever. Because I've just
[6:48]felt intimidated by, you know, taking such a deep plunge. But after applying for a number of jobs
[6:54]and not getting anywhere, probably around March 2016. So about six months after I got laid off,
[7:00]I officially decided to stop looking for other jobs and move home to my small home town in Virginia
[7:07]and just try to do this illustration thing. And if I'm going to do it, I need to figure out this
[7:12]whole kid lit world. So I joined SCBWI and I read all their literature. I listened to their podcast
[7:18]and I said, okay, now's the time you have to get your work out there. And so they have these little
[7:23]competitions. One of them called SCBWI draw this where they, you know, give you a prompt and you're
[7:29]supposed to just draw a single drawing and submit it posted online. And the prize is to get your
[7:36]illustration placed in the monthly newsletter. And so it was only about a month and a half into
[7:41]like really feeling like I'm actually trying to be an illustrator. And so I submitted at the end of
[7:46]May and on June 1st, I opened up my email and I scroll down and my drawing was there. I was like,
[7:52]oh my gosh, that's so cool. Like validation from this organization. It was so encouraging. It felt like,
[7:59]wow, yeah, keep going. This is the right choice. I had no idea what was coming around the corner
[8:04]literally the next day. June 2nd, I opened up my email and I had an email from an art director at
[8:10]Simon and Schuster asking me if I was interested in illustrating a manuscript. And I was like,
[8:14]whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. I know I wanted this, but I didn't know it was going to happen that
[8:19]fast. I was terrified. But I was like, okay, well, I said, I'm going to do this and I have to treat
[8:25]this like work. So I'm going to do it. And it's just been really intense and go go go since then
[8:31]a few months later at my my agent. And then a few months after that, I had the idea for little leaders.
[8:36]And before that year was over, little leaders was out. And one of the newer times,
[8:39]but seller's list. So it's just been go go go since then. Oh my, so how long has gone by
[8:44]since that June 1st, that first June 1st was that last year or the year? No, no, no,
[8:48]that was 2016. So, you know, I was like, how did you get all these books at? And then
[8:52]you had a time. There's no way. Yeah. June 2016, I got the call and that was for festival of color.
[8:58]So that was my first book I illustrated in October. I met my agent. And then February 2017,
[9:03]I had the idea for little leaders. And tell me about that series. What gave you that idea?
[9:07]Yeah. So it was Black History Month. And I was looking for another way to kind of challenge myself
[9:15]to do something in terms of my art and keep me going and keep me interested. And I sort of remember
[9:21]feeling like all through elementary school, middle school, and high school, we would hear the same
[9:26]stories during Black History Month so much so that it kind of just felt like like a chore,
[9:31]like, okay, here's the month where we read the same stories over and over again. And I thought,
[9:35]no, there's got to be more of a reason to celebrate this. So I was looking at the history. And
[9:40]when Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926, the sentiment was to celebrate the
[9:45]stories that have been long and neglected throughout history. So I thought, okay, well,
[9:50]here's a great opportunity every day for this month. I'm going to post a drawing of a
[9:54]Black woman in American history because they kind of sit at this crossroads of being
[9:58]doubly and neglected throughout history.
[10:00]So I started with Sue Jenner-Truth who was someone I had known about as, you know, an abolitionist
[10:06]as kind of a figure, but hadn't really considered her story as a person and I drew this little
[10:11]drawing. I wanted to create these kind of simple figures that I could draw different outfits
[10:16]and clothes on and kind of turn them into anybody kind of like an every girl. And I thought,
[10:21]this will be fun because I love drawing clothes. I love drawing hair and also here's an opportunity
[10:25]to learn about cool people. I had no idea how like kind of deeply it would affect me because I
[10:31]guess I had never realized that I'm a very empathetic person and I and I was reading her story
[10:37]like four o'clock in the morning. I was going to post this drawing usually I like draw late at night
[10:40]and I post something and I go to sleep and I was reading about her and hadn't really thought so deeply
[10:46]about her experience as a person. So she was enslaved in upstate New York and the emancipation
[10:54]rollout was happening across the states and it happened in the north-first, right? And so she had
[11:00]been promised her freedom by her slave owner. And so, you know, she felt like she knew that one day
[11:06]she was going to be free but obviously people were still enslaved in the south and her slave owner,
[11:13]you know, saw an opportunity to capitalize on what he considered his assets in his capital
[11:17]and sold her five-year-old son to a plantation in Alabama. And that's over a thousand miles away.
[11:24]And you know, it just like shook me because I don't know how I would get from here, from Manhattan
[11:30]to Alabama in 2019, you know, with no access to any resources, with no money, with no
[11:39]vehicle and knowing that the color of my skin would criminalize me once I passed a certain point.
[11:45]And I was just kind of just crying my eyes out to know that she felt this horrible fear.
[11:51]And amazingly, she got him back. She was one of the first black women in America to successfully
[11:56]file a lawsuit against a white person and win and she got him back. And it's just like so overwhelming
[12:01]to understand, you know, how terrifying that would feel. Could you imagine being that little kid
[12:07]because you imagine being that mother because you even, I don't know, any part of it seems so
[12:11]overwhelming. So I was I was excited by this feeling of like, yeah, I'm going to get something out
[12:17]of doing this project. So I posted it in the next morning. I saw that people were really into it
[12:22]and I thought, okay, cool, they like it too. So I felt energized to keep going. And it was just about
[12:28]three days into black history month. But I was like, I asked my agent, do you think there's a potential
[12:32]for a book here? And she was like, yeah, I was going to ask you. And we took the idea to a couple
[12:38]of different publishers and a couple were interested. And before the month was over, I signed this
[12:42]three book deal with a little brown. And so that was February 2017, the book came out in November
[12:48]2017. And each the next one came up the next year November 2018. Yeah, November. And then the
[12:55]third one will be out this November. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's been wild. That's amazing. You should
[13:01]like patch yourself on the back. It's like a miracle. I mean, it's like it's super impressive.
[13:05]Yeah, I mostly just took an app up for the last three months. And I read somewhere that you
[13:12]felt like you might not be the best person to write the third, the third of these, of the books
[13:17]in the series. Why was that exceptional men in black history? You felt like you didn't want to put
[13:22]yourself in that. So you know, go ahead. The first book was called Little Leaders, Bold Women in Black
[13:27]History. And it came from this kind of personal place of feeling like I wanted to showcase these
[13:32]stories for young girls that kind of, you know, for maybe even like a young me. It came from
[13:39]such a personal desire to showcase women from many different fields of study. Because when I was a kid
[13:47]and I said I wanted to be an artist, I thought, you know, that only meant one thing. And I thought,
[13:52]okay, well, artists are painters, right? So actually, I don't like painting that much. So I guess
[13:57]I can't be an artist. I had no idea that there were all these other fields that existed like
[14:02]film and photography. And I always wonder what would have happened if I had entered filmmaking
[14:06]much earlier than I did in college. And obviously we ask kids all the time, what do you want to
[14:11]be when you grow up? And, you know, I wanted kids to be kind of empowered and know the knowledge
[14:17]of all these different opportunities. I don't want them to have to know right now. But I know
[14:22]that they're going to be asked eventually. And so when they are ready to make that choice,
[14:25]I wanted to showcase here all these wonderful stories about an engineer and an astronaut.
[14:31]You have our doctors and our lawyers too. But there's also a photographer, a filmmaker,
[14:36]a painter, poets and novelists. So there are lots of things in between. And that second book,
[14:43]Little Dreamer's Visionary Women Around the World was really, you know, if the little black girl
[14:50]in me, if little leaders was for that little black girl who wanted to see all these wonderful
[14:56]women who looked just like her, do incredible things, the little artist in me wanted to see
[15:02]all of these different types of art and different ways or the little creative in me really.
[15:06]Because, you know, Visionary Women was about creativity and how it's exhibited through science
[15:12]and through art and how when those things come together, amazing things can happen. And so
[15:17]both of those books were really personal. And, you know, in my previous work as a filmmaker
[15:23]and as a fine artist, I made work that was for me. It wasn't necessarily for anyone else. And
[15:29]the last thing I would have considered, you know, really in that field as a professional fine artist
[15:34]is a consumer because it was all about expression and meaning making. But children's books are
[15:40]about the reader. And it took me, you know, writing two books to really get that. So when I first
[15:47]wrote, when I wrote the first book, I was like, no, I have no idea. I have no idea if I could write
[15:51]another book because it was just about thinking about those little girls that were basically little
[15:57]means, right? So when they said, so when's the one for boys coming out? I thought, I don't know,
[16:02]it's not coming from me because I don't have, I don't know that experience. I don't feel the
[16:07]driver that urged to write that story because I didn't feel it within myself. But over the past
[16:13]couple of years, obviously the experience has totally changed me. I go to schools and I talk to kids
[16:19]and I'm constantly thinking about, you know, I think definitely reading, working, reading,
[16:25]doing all the research and writing the second book, I had to kind of entered these different
[16:30]experiences and try to put myself in the shoes of these women, like someone like Monier,
[16:37]Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Farmon, Faron, and try to
[16:40]imagine her experience. Or Chianshim Woo, who was an experimental physicist, like I don't know anything
[16:47]about physics, but I was trying to imagine what it would be like to be her. How did you find all
[16:52]the people? Like how did you pick all of these visionary leaders and a number of the artists? I
[16:59]definitely knew about through having studied art history and watched a lot of films and
[17:07]kind of lived in the art world for a while. But it was a mixture of research and looking
[17:13]just looking through these old books of like, you know, I tried to find specific ones that were
[17:20]like not necessarily women in science, but unsung heroes of people of color. And I asked a lot of
[17:27]people, you know, there was an artist that I wanted to write about and I wasn't sure that their
[17:32]experience really felt like it fit the vibe of visionary women. And so I spoke to an Iranian
[17:37]friend of mine and I thought, well, you know, what do you think about this person's story? And
[17:40]you know, I feel what you're saying. You should really check out Monir. And I had no idea who they were
[17:46]at that time. And so I was really thankful of having friends. I could, you know, rely on for
[17:52]actual suggestions. So it was a mixture of things. My parents are super into it. And so my dad would
[17:58]always call me up and be like, oh, you should check out this person. You should check out that person
[18:02]because he's always watching the news or watching history channel reading something. So I relied heavily
[18:09]on my friends and family for a lot of suggestions and just trying to do obscure research. Like,
[18:15]one person I found out about because I had seen this movie and I thought, well, a costume design
[18:21]and this is incredible. And I just did some research and I found her and I had no idea. And so I thought,
[18:28]this is, I need to write about her. So those were all like, they came from kind of a more personal
[18:33]experience. But I had to put myself in these experiences that I hadn't, you know, hadn't
[18:41]understood before. And so I think that was kind of the transition that led me to really getting
[18:47]how I could approach little legends. And the thing that really sparked it was I was talking to a
[18:52]friend of mine, Quessy Johnson, who I went to grad school with me is a filmmaker, is a black man
[18:59]and is a father. And he was just talking about, you know, something as kid went through on the
[19:04]playground and just the way he phrased it. He was like, you know, just there are things that
[19:08]you have to consider when you're trying to raise a son, a black son in America through a feminist
[19:14]perspective. I was like, wow, yeah, I don't have kids and I never have to think about that.
[19:19]And I thought I was just thinking about his little boy who was thinking about all the little
[19:23]boys who come to my screen, my readings and they're like, when's the book for boys coming out?
[19:28]And I'm always like, I don't know. I don't have an answer to you. And so that was the transition I
[19:34]needed to help really consider how I could tell these stories to learn that it's not about me,
[19:40]but there's something that I can offer in my translation or guess my lens, my perspective,
[19:49]and particularly I think the empathy that I can connect, I wasn't sure that I could, but you know,
[19:54]their ways, their ways I found to connect to the stories. So that's how I got
[20:00]to writing a couple times.
[20:01]Wow, that's amazing.
[20:02]In the little leaders back, you wrote, I'm just going to read this quote, they saw things
[20:06]that no one else did.
[20:07]They asked questions, no one else was asking, and they chose to do something about it.
[20:12]And you repeatedly credit persistence and willingness to make mistakes with their success
[20:16]over time.
[20:17]Do you think that's what makes a leader?
[20:19]Do you think that sounds like that's some of those characteristics you've used yourself?
[20:23]Are you possessed yourself?
[20:25]I should say.
[20:26]Thank you.
[20:27]I'm not sure.
[20:28]I feel like you don't have to be big or bold to be a leader, and I feel like I'm constantly
[20:34]trying to impress that idea, especially with the little leaders' books, and especially
[20:39]with the way the little leaders are designed.
[20:42]Those are things that I think are just really special about the visionary women I wrote about.
[20:49]Just, you know, I think the thing that's so special is there are these connecting threads
[20:54]that, you know, sometimes you may not be appreciated in your time.
[20:58]You may not be understood, but, you know, pushing forward and pushing through that can lead
[21:03]to wonderful and incredible things.
[21:05]You had some people you profiled who are still living, and many who are not still living.
[21:10]Did you send this book to the living legends?
[21:13]Like, have you had a communication relationship with some of those people?
[21:16]I mean, definitely through the publisher, I personally don't have a direct line to Oprah.
[21:20]You do?
[21:21]Let me do that.
[21:22]I do not.
[21:23]But yeah, I know that, I know that we just tried to send a copy to Mia Venus or Serena.
[21:29]Yeah, I don't know if they got a copy, but I didn't.
[21:32]Yeah, it's hard to know.
[21:35]I think we send them out, and if we just can pray and hope they got it.
[21:40]I'm pretty certain that Julie Dash, who's one of the filmmakers, I wrote about little leaders.
[21:45]She posted a picture of her copy, and so that's really special, because she's like,
[21:49]and I'm very impressive woman, and I met her when I was in grad school, and just
[21:54]seeing her films, and meeting her really transformed my whole grad school experience.
[21:59]So that means a whole lot to me that she got it.
[22:02]That's awesome.
[22:03]If you were to think about yourself and the rest of your career and your life, this is
[22:06]sort of a bigger question, and you were going to be in one of these books yourself, let's
[22:11]say a mini-vashty comes along in 60 years, it's like making a little leaders or little
[22:16]visionaries or whatever.
[22:18]How would you like your bio to read at that point?
[22:22]Oh, well, I don't know for sure.
[22:27]Writing bios are really hard.
[22:28]It's so hard to kind of distill a whole person's life down to 300 words, but the only
[22:34]thing I would want for any person to know from my story in the future.
[22:41]I feel like our society's so really into Cinderella stories, and the story I told you
[22:46]about gaining success and getting into the book world, it feels like a Cinderella story.
[22:50]I don't want that to diminish the hard work and the struggles, because I think that that's
[22:56]what made it all worth it.
[22:59]In the end, I would hope that people know that even without the success, the passion that
[23:07]I have for making the art is really what drives me, and so you don't have to have best
[23:12]sellers or awards or whatever to know that that means so much to be able to express yourself
[23:19]and to be able to share that with at least one person who gets it and is transformed or
[23:24]excited by it.
[23:25]Tell me about one of the struggles, maybe that you faced, or one of the things you went
[23:29]up against on your way to your multiple best-selling books.
[23:34]I mean, obviously, like I said, when I first began illustrating, I really didn't think
[23:40]I could do it.
[23:41]I mean, it's scary to go after creative career, especially when I was a little kid, one
[23:46]of my favorite movies was Harriet the Spy, and I think that came out probably, I was under
[23:52]10 years old, and I watched it nonstop.
[23:54]It was a Nickelodeon VHS tape, so it was bright orange, but I learned the words starving
[23:58]artist from that movie.
[24:00]So that's not the kind of thing I would hope any 10-year-old has to know, but I was terrified
[24:05]of what it means to try to be a professional artist.
[24:09]So there were so many times where I thought, oh my gosh, I can't let anybody know that
[24:16]I'm doing this.
[24:18]I can't let anybody know that this is what I want to do.
[24:22]I forced myself, and it sort of felt like I was running on a treadmill and going nowhere,
[24:29]applying for all those other jobs because I wasn't ready to own up to the fact that
[24:33]I really want to try to become a professional artist.
[24:36]So I mean, I think one of the biggest struggles for me was just getting over my own
[24:40]fear.
[24:41]That is a huge hurdle, I feel like for any, especially for creative endeavors.
[24:44]Yeah, well, I'm glad you did.
[24:47]What other books do you have in mind, it's like what's coming next for you or what
[24:50]are their nonfiction books?
[24:52]I don't have anything specific that I'm working on, it's hard to know, it's hard to pick
[24:57]one thing, especially because it's been like three and tens, three and a half and tens years
[25:01]of work work that over the years of like, got this growing list of things I could
[25:06]be doing or things I want to work on.
[25:07]And so now that I've got time, like, okay, where do I start?
[25:11]So I would, you know, in my time in film school, I worked on a number of like narrative
[25:18]film ideas that I would really love to translate into like some highly illustrated
[25:23]middle grade.
[25:24]But I don't know, I mean, now that I feel like I'm really thinking about my reader for
[25:28]the consumer, I ask questions of myself that are like, well, which book does the world
[25:33]need now?
[25:34]Does anybody need this book or, you know, which one should I focus on?
[25:38]Which one will bring me joy right now?
[25:40]So I don't know yet.
[25:42]I mean, it's a weird thing to commodify your artwork.
[25:47]So sometimes I just want to work on drawings and don't post them and share them with anybody
[25:52]or sell them.
[25:53]I just want to make them for myself.
[25:55]So that helps, you know, helps me remember why I do this and it's a little bit restorative.
[26:01]So there's some things that nobody gets to see that I'm working on, but I really would
[26:06]love to work on some fiction.
[26:08]The nonfiction has been really fun.
[26:09]I had no idea.
[26:11]Like I would never have guessed that I would be, that would have three nonfiction books
[26:14]out.
[26:15]So I hope to have the time and the space and the right mindset to work on something longer
[26:21]fiction.
[26:22]And when you're not working and illustrating, what do you like to do with your time?
[26:26]Wait, what's that for free time?
[26:28]Do you have any time?
[26:29]That's not spent working.
[26:32]My sister lives here.
[26:33]When we go to the movies, we go to, we could dress up and go to a nice dinner every once
[26:37]in a while.
[26:38]And my parents are so supportive, they like love it.
[26:42]So they're always ready and willing to come visit.
[26:45]But I get inspired by, you know, looking at other work.
[26:49]So it was just the New York Film Festival and, you know, I'm still connected with
[26:54]all of my phone friends.
[26:55]So I go watch movies and try to remember that there are other ways to express myself
[27:01]in their ways that you can make art and not have to think about selling it and making
[27:07]it for other people.
[27:08]I like going to like festivals and I went to Comic Con, didn't tell anybody and go
[27:15]with any video just like to go and look at stuff and kind of absorb content.
[27:19]So yeah.
[27:20]But in that way, it sort of is all a little bit like work.
[27:22]So maybe I need to figure out how to not be working.
[27:26]I feel like you keep saying that there are things that you didn't tell anybody, like
[27:30]you secretly like I know this, I feel like that should be your next book.
[27:33]Things I secretly do because I'm too afraid to tell anybody and how they end up being
[27:37]like the best things ever.
[27:40]Do you have any advice for aspiring artists like yourself or aspiring authors since
[27:44]you're both author and illustrator?
[27:46]The most important things that I feel like I've learned over the years, I watch this
[27:51]like really great video essay really early before, before I ever began pursuing illustration
[27:57]called The Long Game, the video essay is by this guy Adam Westbrook and he goes through
[28:02]kind of the history of Leonardo da Vinci and some of history's greatest achievers and
[28:09]kind of breaks it down that many of these people who we believe to be the most successful
[28:14]people in the world all had this period in their life where they just had to take a step
[28:19]back and just put in the work and put in the time like Marie Curie spent seven years in
[28:25]poverty in Paris studying radio activity before she ever achieved any acclaim.
[28:30]Leonardo da Vinci spent 16 years drawing and painting and being kind of considered a washed
[28:36]up artist before he painted The Last Supper and that was his big break when he was 46
[28:41]years old when at a time 30 was considered like old age and when John Coltrane spent 17 years
[28:49]playing the saxophone studying before he ever had a commercial hit and so for me I know that
[28:55]doesn't mesh well with my very Cinderella story but it was really important for me to hear that
[29:00]know that if you really care about the thing that you're working on you should feel comfortable
[29:05]knowing that you know whatever version of success you're looking for it may take time and as long
[29:10]you are interested in developing your body of work and putting in the time and the practice
[29:16]you know it could be worth it it should be worth it and you should just feel fine with letting
[29:21]you know letting yourself know that it doesn't have to happen right away and then the other
[29:25]thing that I always quote is this quote from Walt Stanchfield who was an educator kind of a
[29:30]sketch artist and an artist at the Disney Studios and he said that we all have 10,000 bad drawings
[29:37]inside of us the sooner we get them out the better and I feel like that applies to writing and
[29:42]drawing and pretty much everything else and it sort of is I like the way he phrases it like they're
[29:46]all inside of us and they just have to get them out it's not it's not that you don't have the
[29:50]capacity to be a better writer or artist it's just that he's going to get the bad stuff out and so
[29:56]that means you have to put in the time and put in the work and
[30:00]Those two things help remind me that anything, whatever
[30:05]version of success happens, it could all change,
[30:08]but as long as you are enjoying the process,
[30:12]may not be perfect at all times,
[30:14]but it's still gonna be worth it
[30:15]because you have put in the time and the effort.
[30:17]So I hope that helps other people.
[30:19]I love that.
[30:20]I love that visual of sort of the funnel of the better it is
[30:23]and just the trash can.
[30:25]Yeah, that's something.
[30:27]Well, thanks so much for coming on mom's time to read books.
[30:29]Thank you, thanks for having me.
[30:31]Thanks for listening to mom's don't have time to read books,
[30:33]the award-winning podcast.
[30:35]This episode has been sponsored by Book of the Month Club.
[30:38]Book of the Month Club.
[30:39].com and your code Zibi to get your first book
[30:42]for just five dollars.
[30:43]You can follow me on Instagram at mom's don't have time
[30:46]to read books.
[30:47]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at TextureSound
[30:50]for the sound editing.
[30:51]And thank you to Morningmoon Productions
[30:53]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[30:55]Thanks for listening.
[30:56]You can always email me at zibiatzibiowans.com.