Meet Elena Ciolacu

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

Hi Elena, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

In my work, my resilience to carry on doing art as a job comes from the fact that I love it too much to let it go, even when it is hard sometimes. I feel it is my path, I feel it’s the way through which I can offer something good to the world, it gives me purpose and makes each day different and exciting. In a way, I am “condemned” to be an artist, so I stick to it with resilience because I would miss it too much if I were to ever give up on it.
But my resilience also comes from my upbringing, from having worked side by side with my parents and grandparents in their farm in the countryside ever since I was a child, from having been taught that I need to work hard to get somewhere in life and from having seen that trying something enough times doesn’t fail to bring results. So if I want to learn a new skill, I know that between me and that skill it’s just a certain number of hours/days of practice, or if I want to create an ambitious project, I know that between me and that project is a certain number of steps to take or days of work, and whatever I do I must show up, put the work in and focus on them rather than on getting to the desired result faster.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a Romanian visual artist and storyteller. My personal work is very diverse, ranging from illustrated books to short animations, fine art and comic strips, but what ties it all together is my passion for stories and their potential to inspire and help.
I also take divese commissions and I love seeing how happy my clients are with the work that I do for them – wether it’s a portrait of a beloved someone, illustrations for an indie author or mural paintings giving life to an interior, bringing joy through the work that I do gives me great fulfilment.
I am currently working on a few personal projects – a series of oil and gouache paintings paintings for an upcoming exhibition, a short animated clip and an illustrated book -, while also taking commissions on the side.

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?

I would say the three most important aspects that have helped me in my career so far are: my faith in God, having a vision instead of following trends, and never getting bored of learning my craft.

The first one was and is the most significant, because I can honestly say that the most meaningful opportunities of my career happened not when I was actively searching, but when they came to me out of nowhere, without effort, from people recommending me to other people, or from someone seeing my work somewhere. I guess other people may call it luck, I call it God’s help coming just at the right time.

The second aspect I mentioned is very important because I think having a vision or a deeper purpose for your work, gives you the strength to move forward and to overcome failures. Wanting to be seen and appreciated is normal, but following trends for the sake of getting attention eventually becomes exhausting. Having a vision that you follow, instead, gives you peace of mind and a sense of purpose, regardless of how good or bad you perceive your own art to be.

The third one is about loving your craft so much that you never get tired of learning it, you are always excited to explore new things about it. If I hadn’t been as passionate about learning my craft as I am about being successful at it, I would’ve capped long ago. Almost everything I ever did as an artist and got paid for, was based on skills that I taught myself from books and the internet. A university degree very rarely equips you with everything you need to know. Even today, a lot of my time goes into learning. And I still enjoy it.

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?

I like to think I am not a difficult person to work with and I am also not picky about my customers. If a client has basic respect for my profession, doesn’t expect free work, is open to discussing all aspects of the project (from budget to deadlines and techniques), and if they are willing to trust my expertise for their project and is open to hearing my advices, that kind of person is whom I am more than happy to work with. I have come across many types of people and I always do my best to make the collaboration work with each one of them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.elenaciolacu.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElenaCiolacuArt
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@elenaciolacuart