We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rachel Lauver a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Rachel, 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 avoid burnout by prioritizing creativity over competition as often as possible.
The digital age has intensified the demand on creatives for constant output, promotion, and comparison.
We’re taught that success as an artist means finding a trendy, profitable niche audience and competing against the rest of that market. This competition makes us all feel like we’re not doing enough unless we can surpass another artist’s sales, social media posting frequency, talent, revenue streams, or productivity.
Not only does this lead to burnout, it removes the creativity and joy from the artistic process, creating oversaturated markets where everyone ends up making the same art for the same people.
We, as artists, set the rules for the creative industry and we can throw out the rulebook that tells us to prioritize marketability over creativity. Imagine what the creative industry would look like if we all made art that we love, simply because we loved it.
Removing competition from the equation would mean there is enough room at the table for all of us to support, promote, and collaborate with each other. We would no longer have to learn marketing tactics to reach profitable audiences that we don’t relate to and instead we could build genuine connections with people who value our art and share our interests. We could create fulfilling, personal art at our own pace with no pressure to keep up with competitors or stay ahead of trends.
I let fear of failure stop me from pursuing art for years before I finally learned to stop trying to chase success or compare myself to others and to instead find joy in the act of creation, regardless of the outcome. I redefined what success means to me and shifted my focus from external validation to internal fulfillment.
My worth is not rooted in follower count or sales. My success is defined by my personal growth and seeing my skills improve. I don’t need to do more or be better or make more money than anyone else. As long as I am doing something I love and keeping my creative spark alive, I’m doing enough.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My name is Rachel Dawn Lauver and I am the artist and owner of Green Velvet Creative Studio, an online shop of vintage-inspired designs hand-drawn by me and printed on high-quality apparel, home goods, and decor.
Green Velvet recently launched The Fable Collection, a limited edition series of drawings and paintings inspired by Victorian children’s books, bookplates, and naturalist illustrations.
I wanted to create items that feel nostalgic, like hidden treasures you might find in your favorite thrift store, or your cool grandma’s shelves. If you are a book lover, antique-store regular, nature lover, or old soul looking for things that feel uniquely you, check out my website, GreenVelvetCreative.Studio or my Etsy, GreenVelvetGoods.
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?
Finding my artistic style, brand identity, and how to sustain my productivity have all been crucial in my creative journey.
Building up my art skills took a lot of exploration and daily practice. My advice for anyone early on in their journey is to go to as many museums and check out as many art reference books as possible. Learn what you like, what you like about it, and then draw as much as you possibly can.
For me, I love Dutch Baroque still lifes, Art Nouveau lithographs, Hudson River School landscapes, Arts & Crafts Movement patterns, 17th century engravings, Victorian packaging design, bookplates, and printer ornaments. I love art that is dramatic and intricate, that depicts real-life (sometimes even boring) subjects and creates something almost unnecessarily beautiful out of them.
I started drawing every day, trying to understand one technique at a time. After work, I would find a cafe to hangout in, pick a theme- American Traditional tattoo flash, William Morris patterns, things on the table in front of me- and try to fill a sketchbook page. I would go home and do master studies of paintings that I could go look at in person so I could go see the technique up close.
Most of this art will never see the light of day, it was just for me to understand what I like to draw and how I like to draw it.
The most impactful skill I learned before starting Green Velvet was crafting a brand strategy. In my earlier attempts at pursuing art professionally, I thought that because I had a logo and a color palette, I had a brand identity. But I couldn’t have told you my brand values, my voice, or what differentiated me or my work.
I ended up abandoning my earlier creative ventures because I would hit a point where my business felt contradictory to my identity. Since I didn’t do the work to discover what I stood for as an artist and a business owner, my practices weren’t built to reflect my values. Since I couldn’t have told you who my audience was or what benefit my work or services offered them, I instead just tried to be everything for everyone.
This time around, I took the time to understand who I am, what I want to say, and how I can build my business to align with my brand promise.
Understanding how to sustain my own productivity was another reason that Green Velvet has succeeded where my other creative ventures failed. It is really easy for me to throw myself into a new idea, get distracted or lose momentum because I don’t see instant results, and then abandon it. I had read other artists’ advice on how to establish a creative habit but none of it worked until I understood my own motivation.
My advice to anyone starting out is to center your business around what motivates you and avoid creating a business model that relies on doing things you don’t like to do.
For me, Green Velvet is centered around collections and series because I feel the most motivated when the piece I’ll be working on next is already planned. This keeps me focused on moving forward so I don’t get distracted by the million other ideas in my head and it also gives me a goal to work toward that doesn’t rely on any outside factors or results.
Anyone can succeed at doing what they love, so build your business around what you love instead of making your success dependent on something you dread doing. For example, if you’re an introvert who is just starting out, you might not want to center your entire business around in-person art markets, networking, and content creation. You may lose the motivation to move forward if you don’t like doing a major component of your business.
The path forward won’t look the same for all of us. It can be easy to try to emulate someone else’s style, brand, or business model but at the end of the day, what will work the best for you is what is authentic to you. You will only reach that by looking into yourself rather than at what others are doing.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
There is a scene in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar that really changed the way I approach life. The main character presents a metaphor of her life branching out before her like a fig tree, with each fig representing a different future life path she’d considered– starting a family, being a poet, or an athlete. Despite all the options at her fingertips she sits there, paralyzed by indecision as all of the figs rot and fall to the ground around her.
Until a few years ago, I related heavily to this. I would continuously let opportunities pass me by because I was terrified of regretting the path I chose. I had so many dreams, plans, interests, and options but it seemed like indecision was the only thing that protected me from becoming trapped in a life I wasn’t satisfied with.
After reading this part of The Bell Jar, I realized that unless I changed my mindset, my life would pass by and I would have never done any of the things I planned to.
Shortly after, I started following through on the things I had always said I wanted to do. I got a masters degree, moved across the country, lived in Europe for a bit, started a freelance design and photography business for a while, and then launched Green Velvet Creative.
With every new venture I’ve realized two things: I will always be satisfied with my life as long as I am at peace with myself, and no decision has to be permanent. There is a fig in my logo as a reminder that it’s okay to choose a path and invest myself in it fully, it doesn’t have to be forever unless I want it to be.
We can always start over, what matters is that we start.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.greenvelvetcreative.studio/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenvelvetcreative/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greenvelvetcreative/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSCiOOormG0E4I5WVvch2RQ
- Other: https://greenvelvetgoods.etsy.com
