Meet Ella Mazur

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ella Mazur a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ella , so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Running your own business and constantly sharing your art with the world can bring up self-doubt and imposter syndrome, but I managed to develop a comfortable level of confidence and self-esteem fairly early on.

Ultimately, it was about changing my mindset. I didn’t start drawing until after I graduated university, and within four years I was working full-time as an artist. I started out by doodling with a ballpoint pen, and I was surprised by how much passersby seemed interested in my work. This gave me enough bravery to create a social media account and start sharing. From there, I tried out print-on-demand and selling my work at small arts and crafts markets in my city. You certainly meet all kinds of people when you are putting yourself out there. I was faced with a lot of skepticism about the fact that I was trying to sell my work, and especially when I was beginning, people trying to haggle my prices down (to as low as a dollar!). And of course, starting out on social media and getting no engagement on your pieces can be a tough pill to swallow, but I never took it as a comment on my work and rather on that fact that I had to start from scratch to build a network.

Getting my work in front of people was absolutely essential in encouraging me to keep sharing and selling my art. It wasn’t that everyone loved my work – it was the fact that they didn’t. Watching people walk through markets and be drawn to certain artworks taught me that there is an audience for every style of artwork, and when someone chooses your art above all else – WOW! what a feeling! Artists pour their souls into their work, and when you find someone that resonates with your art, it’s such a special connection. That is the feeling that I am after. I want my art to find the people who need to see it, hear it, read it – that will help them, heal them, inspire them, or bring them joy. If we all liked the same art, that feeling of connection – something so valuable in a society that seems bent on creating more and more isolation – wouldn’t exist.

Once I learned this, I was able to stop talking it personally when someone didn’t like my art, and focus on the people who did connect with it. It wasn’t about being the most talented or skilled in the room; it was about finding the people who related, in some way, to your soul. There are still some days where I fight my own embarrassment, or I am frustrated by my technical inability to capture the image I see inside my head, and I have the odd day where I look at my work and think all of it is garbage. So I keep a folder or the comments and messages I’ve received where people have been positively affected by my work, and I read through those. It’s good to have the reminders!

Being able to have the confidence to share and not be discouraged by people’s reactions meant that I was able to keep trying to put my work out there, and resilience and persistence are essential to having a successful business. Developing the mindset that not everyone was going to like my work and that was okay, because there are people out there that do. And this shaped the way I built my business practice too. A lot of artists are told to stick to a niche, recreate their most popular works that they know will sell, and not to experiment too much. I do the opposite. At the end of the day, I create art for myself, and then find people who also resonate. So I end up creating what’s most aching to come out of my soul. I get to be authentic with my work, and I get to work with clients and collectors that are passionate and excited by what I create. If a piece I make doesn’t end up being popular, I’m already working on the next one instead of feeling down about it.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I was always a creative person. When I was young I loved theatre and writing best, and I wanted to write books, which is how I ended up with a career in publishing. Right before I started my first job, I began to doodle with the pens that I liked to write with, and I completely fell in love with drawing. I bought a sketchbook and began drawing everyday. A couple years later, I started to sell my work, and within four years I was able to quit the publishing industry and start working full-time as a visual artist. This was the best decision I’ve ever made.

I still work mostly with pen and ink, creating whimsical dreamscapes inspired by nature: the stars, the ocean, the forest, and by the power of the human imagination – I love mixing surreal elements with the beauty of nature. My work is highly detailed and most pieces take me between 40-60 hours to complete. Each piece is a labour of love, and my process is so meditative that I don’t mind how long it takes – I often get lost inside my dreamscapes. I sell original ink drawings as well as fine art prints directly through my website. I also license my artwork, take on freelance illustration projects, and paint murals.

Being a few years into my artistic career, it’s been beautiful to be able to incorporate some of the other artistic disciplines back in to my work. In the past two years, I’ve begun writing poetry and released my first poetry collection, Seeking the Sun, in January. I’ve also been performing my poetry and have begun working in theatre again. I’ve also begun making ceramics and am eager to learn how to create large-scale sculptures, and I’m taking singing lessons. As artists, we are often discouraged from exploring other fields or styles of art, but most of the artists I know are passionate about many things, and I’m so thrilled that my soul has so many different forms of expression available to it. I try to encourage other artists and inspiring artists to create art recklessly and share it with the world. You never know who needs to hear/see it, and you never know what opportunities will come your way. I am so proud of myself for forging my own path instead of listening to what I was told to do, and I wish the same for all the creative souls out there.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Persistence

I don’t think that I’m more talented or skilled than other artists. There is so much talent in the world, and so many people who are very talented but don’t choose to pursue an artistic career. I think what makes most working artists successful, and what has certainly been the case for me, is persistence. The truth is most people will give up pretty easily. By choosing not to give up, you are already ahead of the game.

I worked in an editorial job for four years before I became a full-time artist. I’m completely self-taught, and I built up a passive income that could cover half of my expenses before I was willing to quit my job. I worked tirelessly for several years (every lunch break, every commute to work, every free evening), pouring hours into making new art, learning the technical skills to make digital files, building a social media presence, and marketing my print-on-demand services. It took over half a year before seeing any kind of results, and those results were so small most people would laugh at them. But I never gave up.

Confidence

When I decided to quit my job and try freelancing, I started telling everyone that I was an artist. Even though it didn’t quite feel true at the time, I said it anyway, and I said it at every opportunity I had. Now I would say that if you make art, you are an artist, but at the time I was still learning how to deal with imposter syndrome, and I didn’t feel like I was true artist unless I was making my living completely from my art (a narrative we are told growing up). I remember one time mentioning to a random person I was talking to at a booth for a health and wellness show that I was an artist. They followed me on Instagram and a few months later they reached out to me with an illustration project. This is just one example that still really stands out to me, but I think it perfectly illustrates that you just never know what opportunities might come your way, and having the confidence to define yourself as an artist goes a long way to creating those opportunities for yourself. Tell your friends and family too – most of my work has come from word-of-mouth. People love to work with people they trust, so you can’t be shy about how you define yourself.

Basic Business Skills

There are so many courses and workshops out there – and many of them are free! Check your library and community centres, and take the time to understand some basic business and financial skills. and take the time to properly record all of your expenses. Many of the artists, especially ones I meet at markets, don’t properly keep track of how much their art actually costs to make, and how much profit they are making (if any). Knowing the numbers is essential in being able to make an income from. your art. I personally took a course for female entrepreneurs in creative businesses, which had about six hours of workshops every week for a few months, but before I found that I was able to find a lot of information online.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

The past few years have changed a lot of how my business is run. The biggest challenge that has come up is AI. Honestly, it’s been terrifying as an artist, and the detrimental impact has been huge. Half of my income came from print-on-demand sites, and these sites have just been overrun by AI art. A lot of my friends and customers have told me that when they go on these sites that I sell on and search for something, the first 5-10 pages of results are all AI-generated art. My sales have dropped by almost 70%, and I hear these sorts of numbers from other artists as well.

There’s also this weird effect too where people will assume my art is AI generated, and when I am selling at markets, I have to basically convince people that I drew my work by hand.

At the moment, it feels like a bit of a waiting game to see what will happen next – if some kind of legislation will come out that will help protect artists. I’m trying to think of ways to pivot my business from print-on-demand (although I loved having the passive income and I loved seeing people from all around the world share the products they bought with my artwork.) I’ve been focusing more on getting in front of people in real-life and make more connections through community events and markets rather than on social media. I’m also thinking of new ways to create content and share my artwork that don’t rely on Instagram or Facebook and that won’t disappear in to the internet after 24 hours. It’s a confusing time, but it’s also a chance to be creative in new ways.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ecmazur.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecmazurart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecmazurart