We recently connected with Jean Schapowal and have shared our conversation below.
Jean, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
it was developed over a period of time. After struggling with freelance work and just not feeling confident in my abilities I took some time off, switched gears and started putting myself out there. I started to take some risks( baby steps) and take advantage of as many opportunities cities as I could. Eventually this helped to build up my confidence, my self esteem, my ability to work harder for what I wanted and that focused work ethic.
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 Jean A. Schapowal and I am the owner and cake artist of Cakes with Character. This is a brand I started 20+ years ago after struggling with freelancing as a cartoonist/illustrator. Single handedly I built my brand, my followers and my career as a cake artist. Ive been lucky enough over the years to have appeared numerous times on Food network shows, appeared on the cover of the industry leading magazines, began teaching my craft, competed in numerous cake competitions and won and to be recognized by my peers with numerous awards. I have even been honored to represent the US in the FIPGC World Cake Designers ChampionshipIn Milan Italy this past fall! I love being able to use cakes as another art form and to bring joy to those who order my creations. I also love pushing the boundaries on what you can do with an edible art medium and to be able to take the things I love and bring them to life in the form of cake!
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?
A big factor in my career was attending art school. I feel having that art background and to take some of those classically trained art classes has helped in my current career. My work ethic and always wanting to stay busy creatively helps me to always put out content and to bring followers back to my social media pages
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
The current challenge facing me today is the direction of our industry. The pandemic and the current economic climate have definetly impacted not only the food industry but many other creative ones as well. So Im at a crossroads as to where Id like to take my career moving forward. Do I continue teaching and making that more of my focus. Do I strictly focus on doing the type of projects that make me happy and pushes my brand? Do I look to collaborate with others on new and exciting projects? So at the time Im definetly looking into all these avenues to see which would work for me and what will also make me happy.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cakeswithcharacterbyjean.com
- Instagram: @momschap
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/momschap
Image Credits
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