Meet Kendra Griffen

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kendra Griffen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kendra below.

Kendra, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

To keep creativity sharp and alive for me, it’s always a matter of pushing myself to learn different and new skills that I might not be as in tune with, which comes in handy for cosplay, as certain costumes might require unique skills that you may have never used before, such as working with servos, lights, and wiring, leatherworking, etc. I also have a list of projects that I would like to eventually start, and when something piques my interest for something to start as a prop or costume, I will add it to my list. Furthermore, putting yourself in a community of artists helps motivate and support creativity across the board. This has been most recently been relevant a lot with writing as well. Just recently I was invited to be a part of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. This was my first time playing and I was worried that what I created as a character wasn’t going to flow well with the story I had in mind and the type of actions and weight that character had. There is an emotional connection when I wrote the story and being able to create aspects of a world and character that you carry a piece of yourself with helps with motivation and the emotional investment with your creative drive. Especially when the people (my lovely friend’s Bee, Dylan, Robbie, Kameron, Isaiah) who are part of that campaign work well together to bounce ideas off each other in both light hearted and intense situations in what is essentially improv story telling. There’s moments where we challenge each other and moments where we have moments of fun all in balance with collaboration. With fantastic DM (Shout out again to Dylan) that adapts to support players and still drive and challenge the character and the person to go deeper emotionally it’s truly an amazing experience and it has definitely brought back the creative spark for me that is difficult to maintain and keep alive.

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 am a cosplayer which is essentially bringing costumes and props from tv shows, movies, video games (pretty much anything) to life and debut them at conventions and raise money for charity as well. It’s special to me because I can represent myself through characters that I share a deep connection to and also bring a good cause towards it to others as well.

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 believe that failing hard is key to learn and hone your skills. Patience is your motivator as an artist. Your passion and skill cannot be rushed and you will make mistakes but it is the actions you take to keep your focus and continue forward while acknowledging what you learned from setbacks. Lastly joy is the fuel for creativity. You cannot invest your money, your time, your energy into something you won’t be proud and something that doesn’t represent who you are. Art is expression it cannot be replicated as each artist is unique and each story is unique.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

Currently it is time management and maintaining energy. I work outside of cosplay and that takes majority of my time and energy. When I’m finally ready to create it’s difficult to find the consistent energy and drive I once had. Especially when you see others pumping out projects week after week when it takes so much just to simply get started which in turn creates fear. Finding that creative flow I once had has been extremely difficult. I’ve started doing little mini projects and again Dungeons and Dragons has helped greatly in working to get my spark back as there are several creative aspects involved with it. My two amazing sisters (Kylee and Kiersten) have also checked in on statuses of projects and content I’ve creative pushing me to make something because they know as much as I do how much it means to me to keep going even when I’m fearful to do so.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Trillasupremacy
• Twitter: Trillasupremacy
• Other: TikTok: Trillasupremacy

Image Credits

Ted Warner