Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Stanislav Osipov. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Stanislav, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Finding my purpose took a lot time. Pretty much my whole life. I never knew what I wanted to do with my life besides drawing or making things with my hands. The thought of for what purpose never entered into my mind because I was always too busy getting drunk or high. For a few decades I was very selfish with my time. I thought, its my life, so I’ll live it how I want, and I wanted to live like there was no tomorrow. As far back as I can remember I was always a bit sad for one reason or another and I think it comes down to the fact that I was just lonely. Its so nice to be able to share your time and experience with someone and I think deep down we are all hard wired to strive for companionship. It was only after I met my wife that I was able to free myself from the grasp of substance abuse and let my mind wander into new realms of possibility. I began to think what my art could mean to other people rather than just to me. I realized I wanted to help inspire other young artists and show people that there were alternatives to drowning yourself in drugs and alcohol if you felt lonely or depressed. Now I know what my purpose is. I know I want to create work that resonates with people from all walks of like to show them that life is indeed precious and that time is not a commodity to be wasted.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I have been working on Beebosloth since late 2017. Beebosloth is my art pseudonym and also the name of my personal brand. I used to focus quite heavily on designing merch and making prints and other physical object for sale in my shop but slowed down in the last few years because of social media changes and other time constraints. Now I have shifted focus on making larger art pieces in my spare time and not devoting so much time to just trying to monetize my brand. I am a one man show so it can be pretty overwhelming running a small business when the only aspect I really enjoy is making the art. I am currently working three separate design jobs to save money for living expenses and do not have a lot of time to focus on my own art. The most recent project I completed was my first children’s book which will be available to buy on my website by the end of October 2023. I am also trying to get a gallery show together to show the works that I have been making over the last few years. I have around ten large canvases I’d like to show and almost a thousand pen and ink drawings that I have made over the past 5 years. I hope to get ahead of these design jobs in the near future and free up some time because I have some big plans in store for what I’d like to do next.
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?
There are lots of important lessons I have learned along my journey but the most important by far is to stay curious. If your mind stays inquisitive you will never cease to find inspiration all around you. The moment you stop thinking for yourself and just taking information you hear and see as fact without questioning it is the moment you cease being beneficial to society. The second most important thing is to never give up and to learn from your failures. Good things take time and no one gets rich overnight. Anytime you hear of someone gaining notoriety or success in a short period of time, there is usually a decade or so of work that you don’t hear about that got them to that point. The third most important thing is to not take things too seriously. Remember every once in a while, that humanity is just a freak accident on a random planet in a random solar system floating in a chaotic universe with a giant black hole in the center. At the end of the day, you will die and no one will remember you and thats fine. You just have to enjoy your life and not stress out about it. Wake up and have fun every day. If you aren’t, then change your life.
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?
My number one challenge, as with many artists, is social media. In the days when social media was young and monetization and ads hadn’t been implemented onto many platforms, getting eyes on my work was easy. There was no need to pay to promote a post, it would just get whatever engagement it got based on merit. In the last few years all social media has become pay to win. What I mean by this is, if you are posting your work as an artist and getting no engagement, its not because your work is bad, its just because you aren’t the flavor of the week or you aren’t paying enough money. Nowadays posting on social media just leads to headaches and heartbreak. Especially if you spend a lot of time on your work and post it only for it to get a couple likes and one comment from a bot. The sheer depression just from that alone is enough to get people to stop posting altogether. To get around this problem I have decided to just make art for myself and put it into a portfolio that I send around to galleries. If people want to display my work, great, if not, no worries. Since I have money coming in from my jobs I don’t rely on selling art and therefore am not worried about wether or not I’m selling my work. I try not to spend time on social media these days as I find I am much happier when I am not comparing myself to others.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.beebosloth.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beebosloth/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beebosloth/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beebosloth/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/beebosloth
- Other: tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@beebosloth?lang=en
Image Credits
Ayumi Hanaoka-Osipova
