Meet Nancy So Miller

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nancy So Miller. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Nancy So, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I think my work ethic comes from my experience as an art teacher. For the past 12 years, it’s been an honor to teach my students. I wanted to do as much as possible to benefit my students: art lessons, professional development, art shows, competitions, summer camps, art museum visits, and guest artist visits. I get direct results in seeing a smile on my students’ faces from having their artwork in the world. I improved each year I taught and could see improvements in my students’ comprehension and abilities. These things take time and years of relationship building. I started applying the same idea to my own art career as a children’s book illustrator and aspiring author. I try not to focus so much on getting paid work, but how is my skill level improving over time. It’s gratifying.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a Korean American cut paper illustrator that loves to create tiny worlds out of paper. I write and illustrate my own stories for children’s books. Lately, I’ve been expanding into fabric, wood, and clay to add contrasting texture to my work. I use photography to capture that moment with my specific tastes in lighting and depth of field.

I am also an art teacher for the past 12 years. I’ve taught K-12 and even adults. I enjoy teaching as a way of sharing and learning from student artists. They taught me perspectives I had not thought about in the art-making process. I tell my students there is more than one way of doing something. If you figure out something better, please share it with me!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three qualities I think that have helped me: persistence, curiosity, and confidence. It varies for each artist, but I realized I could keep persistently improving my skills as an artist and teacher. We get better the more we do something. Curiosity has helped me to ask more questions, and I was motivated to learn more about something. I don’t hesitate to reach out and ask those in their field how or why they did something. I want to know that person’s story, motivations, and outcome. Confidence to put my work out there. Everyone has their own expertise, trajectory, and thought process for creating their work. Even if I didn’t know how something would turn out, I decided it was ok to have the confidence to try and put things out there. I started podcasting based on these three things. I have been fortunate to have done close to 200 podcasts and learn/share from other creatives. I have had almost 9000 listens to them. I hope the listener is motivated to pursue their creative journey by listening to My Creative Life podcast. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nmillerillustration/

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I block my schedule for the day. It’s easier if I know a day is a teaching, art, or self-promotional day. Within each day, I try to keep tasks specific to the theme. I feel like I get more done. Then I feel less overwhelmed. I look at what my needs are at the moment. I try to stay flexible and adjust based on my business needs. I tell myself it will get done. Some things take longer, like writing and illustrating a book pitch. Once I started writing, things slowed down. That’s normal. I also let anyone I am working with know I’ve received something or followed up via email. I got good at labeling and organizing my emails, creating Airtable spreadsheets for status updates on queries, and sending pitches.

Image Credits
Brandon Miller – photo of Artist Autumn Gary – photo of Artist teaching

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