#goodbye square carousel
Challenge 144: 10 Years, Looking Forward: The Perfect Homestead Studio
I relocated to SCAD in 2010 at the beginning of the new year and graduated November of 2011. Having transferred blindly as a Junior totally relying on that “good feeling” alone SCAD and all its resources, as well as the town of Savannah, had exceeded all my expectations so much so I now call it my second home. I’ve met some beautifully talented people at my time there. Feeling the creative energy that flowed in the city and around my fellow classmates and professors every day I finally felt I was where I was suppose to be. The only two things I regret is not taking licensing classes, since this is what I have done since graduating and absolutely love, and not being able to afford to come back to Savannah to attend my graduation that Spring. Despite my financial struggles after graduating, what has happened since each step of the way has only prepared me for success, gave me confidence as an artist, a professional, and as a person to become stronger and better at what I do, and helped me learn not take anything or anyone for granted.
Square Carousel has been my push, my drive, my focus, and in some cases my savior for my mental and professional sanity. This amazing group of individuals, who I consider family, has helped my art and style grow from the uncontrolled random mess it used to be and continued to challenge my abilities with super cool projects and challenges. This is something I’ll truly miss, but not as much as I will my fellow SCAD Illustrators. There’s always something special about a group of people who “get it”. Who come together to help solve design issues, who support one another as much as we do, who have “been there done that”, and who are an understanding reliable shoulder to lean on during the more difficult times as a working illustrator. Being a part of Square Carousel has been such a pleasure and is something I’ll always be grateful for having experienced working with such talented beautiful people. I wanted to give a special big thank you to my girl Sayada for bringing me into the Collective, and for everyone else being so amazing over our years together. For all our Christmas card swaps, all of your friendship and support, and having watched many of you grow as creatives over the years, I will continue to follow and support you all in your creative and your life journeys. I am forever grateful for all of you, and I cannot wait to see what life has in store for all of us in the next 10 years! You guys…we’re so going to crush it!!!
For our last and final challenge I wanted to illustrate something truly special to my heart. Ever since I saw the 1990s TV show The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends, I wanted my own home/cottage to mirror the spirit of that of Beatrix Potter. In this homestead I dream of looking out my studio window as I create for a living to support my future family, and seeing my animal friends happily playing outside in the garden. Over the years this vision has stayed the same, but having since adapted a vegan eco-friendly lifestyle, volunteering for rescues and creating content for those types of animals, and the way I see my garden have changed a bit to accommodate how I now want to live and use my art to give back. Now I see this whimsical space not only giving me creative inspiration and a meditation space of my own, but also a land that has a productive purpose to give back to our animals and our environment who need it the most. My new cottage, now with a greenhouse studio, consists of self-sustainable practices such as solar windows, surrounding myself with plants that keep the air clean, converting part of my studio to a foster space, organic gardening that attracts healthy pollinators, and animals that I hope to rescue/foster to help give them new homes and a better quality of life. Though I look forward to this studio and space coming to a reality, I’m still not quite sure where I want this magical space to be located or how it’ll turn out….which makes this vision all the more exciting.
Here’s to the next 10 years and the start of our many new adventures. Salute!
-Tina
Find out more about Tina’s rescue missions here
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Challenge 144: 10 Years, Looking Forward: A-Frame Studio Life
Buckle up– this is a long one!
Wow, ten years. It’s hard to believe a whole decade has passed since Square Carousel began, and since I graduated college. In some ways, it feels like another lifetime, and in others, it feels vastly shorter than the decade before that, from ages 12 to 22. Time is fascinating that way. College was such an incredibly impactful time period, but just a measly 4 years– I could have done college 2.5 more times back-to-back in the years since I graduated, but somehow those four, from 2007-2011 were monumental.
It’s hard to believe I’ll be in a post-college world without Square Carousel, since the group has been a constant in my life these last ten years. I’m really proud that we made it this far and are able to choose to end the journey, rather than it fizzling out or dying from lack of interest. Sometimes it felt like that might happen, but other times it felt like we were blooming. There have been many ups and downs over the course of this journey. And damn, it was a lot of hard to work to keep running, but I am so grateful for the learning experience. I know so much more about leadership now than I ever would have before– the delicate balance of having rules to keep the group running (deadlines, participation requirements, our dreaded “strike system”) and keeping up morale (knowing when to forgive slip-ups, keeping challenges sufficiently entertaining and well…challenging, making sure the group feels like it’s a community).
Elizabeth and I were reluctant leaders, just naturally having to take those roles as other original members of the group left and were replaced by folks who needed guidance. We definitely didn’t seek it out, but we knew that if the group were to stay alive, we had to put some structure into the system. Pretty early on we made our rules and guidelines, extended the challenges to 3 weeks from just 2, and worked on our visual image online. Our awesome logo was made by former member Casey Crisenbery, and we switched from Wordpress to Tumblr, purchasing a URL, and Casey using special code for custom organization on the site. Sketch critiques were now a halfway point through our 3 weeks-long challenge, which helped a lot with the community aspect and engagement. We started doing interviews for each member, reaching out to other illustration groups, blogs and submission sites and had our work featured on a few of them. Some of us even got jobs from the connections made through Square Carousel!
There was a bad stretch several years ago when I wasn’t sure we’d make it through, with toxic behavior and a few folks petitioning for removing deadlines and structure, making everything optional. One thing I can tell you with certainty after ten years of working with artists is that 95% of us require deadlines to do anything, and incentives/obligations for meeting those deadlines, or it just isn’t going to happen! Elizabeth and I, along with a few other solid members, were able to keep the structure we’d worked hard to create, but the toxic culture had already killed group morale and we lost a lot of members simultaneously. That was a sad and scary time for Square Carousel, but I didn’t want to go out on a sour note. So the small group of us picked the pieces back up again, did a little refocus on our goals as a collective and created an “Admin” so Elizabeth and I didn’t have to carry the entire burden alone. I am forever grateful to Sayada and Jordan for stepping up into these roles to help us get the train back on track. Sayada especially picked up a lot of responsibilities that a newer member shouldn’t have to worry about, and was a total rockstar for Square Carousel. I wish we’d had her with us for the whole ride. I’m so happy that we’ve had a few really great years with some really loyal and talented artists to round out the experience at Year Ten.
There is nobody I’m more thankful for than my Good Cop, Elizabeth, though. She was so reliable, always able to provide balance in our leadership roles, and such a wonderful shoulder to cry on when things got too stressful. Elizabeth, thank you for this journey and for being my SC Wife all these years! It’s so funny because of all the original members, you were one of the only ones I hadn’t really known from SCAD classes, yet you’re the SCAD Illustration friend I have remained most connected to most consistently. Nothing bonds you quite like running an illustration collective does! It also cracks me up that in all these years, we hadn’t ever facetimed or talked on the phone until a few months ago–I didn’t even know your mannerisms or voice, but knew you so well anyway. My greatest internet friend! I love you dearly and it truly won’t feel right, the absence of our weekly SC conversations. Thank you for all of the memories!
As just a member and artist, this group has helped me grow so much professionally. It was my client when I didn’t have clients. It was my motivation to paint when I didn’t feel creative. It was my source of portfolio-worthy work, but also my safe place to experiment and fail when I was trying something new. The girl who started as a Square Carousel member freshly graduated in 2011 was working part-time at Urban Outfitters, had basically no money, and no clue how to promote herself. The “studio” was a corner of the bedroom and nobody took her seriously. But a stubborn dedication and the security, purpose and structure of Square Carousel helped the slow change from that lost girl to a full-time freelancing woman. Now, in 2021, I have been doing freelance illustration fully for six years, through contract jobs, editorial, publishing, advertising, commission and local work, as well as selling prints and products online, in local shops and events. I am not making the big bucks, certainly, and I still have goals I’m working towards, but damn, if that isn’t a glow-up, I don’t know what is. Thank you for helping me achieve my impossible dream, Square Carousel, and always being a place with the right amount of advice, support and critique.
Ten years, 34 artist interviews, 38 artists, and 144 challenges. I’m the only member to have completed every single one. 144 illustrations through the years. Some were game-changers for my style and my portfolio. Some were total stinkers and I hope you don’t go looking for them. But all were an important step in my career.
So, in ten more years? I’ll be 42 years old, which is very weird because I have never imagined myself that old before… it’s hard to honestly say what that would look like, especially considering the world we are currently living in and how the last 4/5 years have proven that anything (awful) can happen. Jordan and I have a goal to move to Colorado in the next 4 or 5 years, and I’d love to have a little A-Frame in the mountains with a loft studio, shown in my illustration here. Texas has become extremely problematic, especially after the winter storm in February of this year, and will be impacted greatly by climate change, both environmentally and economically. Right now, Austin is still booming, but at some point the lack of foresight in this state’s government is going to screw over the residents and it will be one of the places from which climate refugees run. Is that tomorrow? No, obviously not. But I want to already be settled someplace more stable, having grown some roots, before other folks start to roll in. But, to be able to do that, I need to rely less on my local jobs and connections and be able to have an “anywhere career.” So right now I am focusing on expanding in that way, particularly with book cover illustration and design. I’ve been doing a lot of portfolio work and self-publishing jobs, and hope to get an agent that can shop my work to big-time publishers sometime in the next year or two. Let’s say I succeed at all of those things in five years– we’re in our Colorado A-Frame, I’m illustrating book covers (and I’ve also convinced my parents to come with me, and maybe a couple friends!). The next five years after that? I don’t know… hopefully a lot of adventures. Hopefully a lot of cool jobs, but also a lot of work/life balance. Right now, I don’t want kids, so the A-Frame will be filled with cats. Maybe we’ll have an old camper van for regular road trips around the western National Parks. I’d love for my work to reflect those passions– more jobs with outdoor brands, parks, organizations. More book covers for stuff I’d personally love to read and keep on my overflowing shelf. That’s the vague goal for me in ten years, but I don’t want to plan any further than that, because life just also needs to happen the way it’s going to happen. There are parts of my current life I planned for in 2011… and there are parts I never, ever would have guessed. I hope there’s some fun surprises in 2031, too.
Thanks for the decade, Square Carousel. Joining illustration collectives will always be the first bit of advice I give fresh graduates.
Caitlin
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