We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Duairak Padungvichean. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Duairak below.
Hi Duairak, so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?
I think the way that I overcome creative block is to do something new. I still have that issue today where I would feel really uncreative and uninspired. Every time it happens, I would try to look for different projects to do and I like to switch the medium. I think it allows me to just have fun with the new project or medium that I’m exploring. I currently have so many projects that I started and haven’t finished, but I think that is totally fine. I think it’s nice to take a break and just work on something fun on the side. Another thing that I like to do is to go outside or go to my favorite spot in town. A lot of time when I’m more relaxed I can come up with ideas much faster and those ideas tend to be more interesting than whatever I have in my mind when I’m stuck on a project. I also like to look at other people’s works and get inspired by them. I like to see what other people are doing with all the different techniques and sometimes it makes me really excited to apply some of those techniques to my artwork.
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?
My name is Lun, I’m currently a freelance illustrator and a rug maker currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. My art is usually inspired by nature, places I’ve been to, and things I have seen and found interesting. My work usually has some whimsical aspect to it. I think the most exciting thing about my artistic career is that I don’t like to stick to one medium and I really enjoy exploring many different techniques. That is how I started my rug business. During COVID time when it was really hard for me to find an illustration job, so I wanted to work on something new that still allows me to use my illustration skills but also make something new and something more physical than just a drawing. So I decided to try rug tufting and turns out I enjoy it a lot. People also seem to be very interested in them, so I started to take them more seriously and now it becomes a big part of my creative journey. In the future, I would love to expand and experiment more with different mediums which I think will take me take me to the next step in my life.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think three of the most important qualities, skills, or knowledge are to be consistent, open-minded, and experimental. For me, it is really important to be consistent. A lot of times, when I stop producing work, I find it extremely hard to get back to the rhythm, and I think it’s harder for me to get things started, especially as a freelancer. What I like to do when I don’t have as much work is I’ll try to work on my project to keep my creative mind running. Being open-minded and experimental is also very important qualities to have. I think I was able to find solutions to many of my creative problems through these qualities. In many projects, I need to be more experimental and try new techniques or ideas that are out of my comfort zone. Experimenting with all the different things allows me to find the best solutions to my issues that I may never think of. Similarly to being open-minded, it’s important to believe that everything can be used to our benefit. Once you don’t have anything blocking you from thinking, I think that is when you get the most exciting and unique ideas for your projects.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I like to write things down when I feel extremely overwhelmed. I find that when I have too many things in my mind e.g. stuff I have to do or things that I’m worrying about, writing them down help me get them out of my brain. Like when I take on many projects and I’m starting to feel like I won’t be able to finish them in time, I’ll start listing things down in order and I think once I see the list in the physical form, it seems to be more manageable for me. I think if you keep letting your thoughts and worry build up in your head it just kinda goes in circles and it will get worse and worse if you don’t let it out. For me, I catch myself many times, just thinking about the same thing over and over again and it started to make me anxious. Once I write that thought down, I remember feeling like “oh, it’s not as bad as I thought”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://duairakp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/duck.ruai/
