We were lucky to catch up with Ben Treat recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ben, so great to have you with us today. There are so many topics we want to ask you about, but perhaps the one we can start with is burnout. How have you overcome or avoided burnout?
I think a lot of people see burnout as this inevitable force that needs to be run from and kept ahead of, and it’s true for most creatives, burnout is probably always nipping at your heels. I personally have come to terms with burnout. Burnout is how you revive your passion and it’s a testament to your love for an artform. Most of the time if you are burning out it is for a reason and it is a sign you need to balance your passion with your life a bit more. There are times when it should be fought, maybe you are committed to making a big project or have no say in the matter and then I would suggest looking at your creative energy as a limited thing and a valuable resource. Allocate some of that energy to yourself, give yourself the freedom to do art for you and no one else. I’m often surprised at how much that brings life back to me. You got into art for a reason, sometimes you just need to find that reason again. If you end up burning out anyway, that’s ok, burnout is healthy and it means you are force quitting and restarting. I think burnout isn’t something to be scared of but to be seen as a healthy necessity for all artists.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I work professionally as an artist today thanks to social media. I shared my art online and whether it was fate or luck or both I’m blessed to work in the arts today! I started aiming to make art professionally when I was 16 and I think that’s an outlier as not many kids wanted something like that from an early age, but it was stuck in my head. I was also blessed to be a part of a creative family so I’m sure that played a big part. Today I make stop motion animations for vertical platforms like TikTok and Instagram. I make a living from brand partnerships and making ads for all sorts of brands.
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?
Jack of All Trades: I think I’ve spent a lot of time getting good at a lot of things. This really helps me, it’s wild how just having a small foothold in an area can lead you down a lot of paths and give you confidence in tackling projects you otherwise wouldn’t be prepared for. Spread yourself out and learn where you can always!
Embracing the flow state:
I think a big part of making art for me is finding a rhythm and a flow state, and a lot of times it takes a long time to get into that state, where you’re focused and you feel like time isn’t even passing anymore. That’s when you have to make sacrifices to keep that state, because it’s valuable and hard to find. A Lot of times that means sacrificing things you want to do or sometimes sleep if you got to to get that project done.
Learn from everyone:
I try not to limit myself to who can teach me things. I think you can learn alot from professionals and people who have been put on a pedestal of knowledge. But anyone can teach you something, we are living very full and complicated lives and you never know who you can pick something up from. Just keeping an open mind to it is always a good bet.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Right now I am still struggling with validation and specifically from the internet itself. When you receive a lot of validation for something you’re doing and then suddenly it is stripped away, it hurts and makes you question yourself. I know a lot of artists who are really good at finding validation from their art itself and don’t even need people to see it, so I’m trying to be more like that. It’s something to strive for (:
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/franticframes/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5uewak1o_RlHbU_10iGliw
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@franticframes?_t=8Vwc3he6D18&_r=1
Image Credits
Ben Treat
