We recently connected with Alena Popovich and have shared our conversation below.
Alena, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
My optimism comes from my creative drive, and complete want to make and create. The business-sided optimism I believe comes from the feeling like there is a new way to do something, or a new strategy to try that is in within reach. By this I mean, I know that every artist and business owner has their own way of doing things, and that mine doesn’t have to be forever decided, or always work, but I have the power to try. Optimism can certainly occur in waves, and I don’t always feel motivated, but something as simple as a song lyric I like or a cool color palette is enough to bring me back into my “keep going and moving forward” state, which being in has helped me say “yes” and find myself open to opportunities.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m Alena, and I am an artist from Denver! More specifically, I am an illustrator and designer. I work in many mediums, which is I believe what makes my body of work unique! Some of my primary mediums include acrylic, graphite, watercolor, gouache, etc. I started Ally Popovich Art officially around 3 years ago, but have been doing custom drawings for family friends since I was in high school. Alongside offering prints of my pieces, doing custom work is the root of my business, and it is a privilege to capture special moments, loved ones, and memories.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three qualities I believe were and continue to be impactful to my journey are openness, desire, and courage. Openness is one that I have really been working on this last year, and I feel has been detrimental to the wonderful opportunities I have had access to. To be open, to me, means not just having one idea of success or one path with a certain formula I should be following. There is so much to learn and so many different ways to get your art and yourself out there, and that path is certainly not linear! Some things I have done or ideas I have tried I thought would not be meaningful, but ended up propelling me forward, in turn becoming meaningful in a different way. Being open to experiences and open to learn from them has been really important to my growth. Another impactful piece to my journey, and perhaps the simplest one is the desire to keep going, and keep creating! At my core, art is my passion, and I love it! Art has always been a part of my life, and is my rawest form of self expression and way of being, which sounds dramatic but it’s true! It’s a world I am grateful to have found myself in. Lastly, courage. Also a portion of my journey I am actively working on! Courage is important to me, because it can help build a community, teach, and create a space to feel comfortable trying new things in. I can personally be a bit inward when it comes down to it, but putting myself and my work out there and consciously making those efforts has taught me a lot as an artist and business owner.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I personally think a bit of both! I think being aware of your strengths and utilizing those in ways that are effective to you helps you in a lot of ways, because you are building on what comes naturally to you. But at the same time, facing perceived challenges can help in ways we didn’t know it would! It can be easier not to think about those areas of improvement, but facing them has its importance as well. They can go hand in hand. For example, a strength I have is being strategic, but something that is challenging to me is is using social media to what I feel it is the max level of being an effective business tool. So that would open the use of a natural strength (strategy), to help uplift me in something that could use a bit more work (social media savviness).
Contact Info:
- Website: allypopovichart.com
- Instagram: @allypopovichart
- Other: TikTok : @allypopovichart
Image Credits
Not applicable
