We were lucky to catch up with Shan Michael Evans recently and have shared our conversation below.
Shan Michael, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
Breath. Have a look around…within you and without. There is a rummage sale in my head and maybe I will collect a few charms. Say, oh, I remember that old Halloween mask, the night with my younger brothers that seemed almost to last forever. I might take a walk to the corner store. I am surrounded by dying trees and dirty streets. Vintage action figures, old comic-books. I will pull ideas from sounds, music, and from colors. From faces. Armchair philosophies. Good art. Bad art. I take it all in and dwell there. Some infinite falling away. Realize all these fleeting moments. I tend to think about G-d, compassion, and circus show-posters. I think just being alive is a good start to keeping creativity alive (laughs).
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I thought myself an artist but maybe a lowly illustrator these days. I don’t know. Self-taught and dreadfully so (laughs). Plagued with self-doubts and I suffer from what is known as impostor syndrome. I can only hope that might allow me to approach the work differently, somehow uniquely. There is so much that I cannot do that I just have to focus on what I can do. I look for ways of getting these designs into the real world. I do murals when I can and that is simply amazing to me, fretting the whole way through. I put small prints onto blocks of wood. I call it them Small Block. I look at them as toys or collectable cards. A modular art system where you could, say, stack them and create a narrative. Seeing a batch of those finished and scattered around my room is something I can be proud of.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
So have something to share with others or should I say be willing to share, to communicate. In my case, that was only terrible drawings. I worried if my work was ridiculous and not the least bit important, but I chose to share it anyway. Take even a small step of faith. Then take just another. Find a café or a small shop, ask if you could display your works. It needs to be said, I obviously would be nowhere on this journey if it wasn’t for the love and support of nearly everyone around though. We’re all in this together. There are good people out there. If you’re sincere, and if you just keep trying in some way, I think they will notice. Look at calls for work coming from your city. Fill out those applications. Ask about local art events. Get involved somehow. Get discouraged but don’t give up. Be kind. Just on principle alone, be kind. For humanities sake. It’s a silly thing, all that we do not saving a life, might as well be kind doing it. Take it all seriously but not too seriously? I am not sure I know what I am trying to say anymore. I don’t know much, and I have zero skills (laughs).
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
Trust. Faith. I value myself as considerate so just let me have a go at it. Allow whatever visions to simply happen. Trust the process. You like what I do? I’m amazed. I am not going to let you down. I might trip if you get in the way though (laugh).
I never say any of that out loud.
Never.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shan.michael.evans/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRbp7hdfrII
