Melissa Sue Stanley is a Chicago artist, working in a variety of media to create paintings and soft sculptures. Her work is collected internationally and has been exhibited in galleries across the US.
Max Bare is a Chicago artist and designer. He creates and self-publishes comic series Mystery Afoot, Sour Milk and the upcoming Scally-Ho!
Together Melissa and Max collaborate on fun projects such as handmade zines, murals, and live-painting. Their current project is a comic book series for local brewery, Revolution Brewing. They also manage and host the Chicago Drink & Draw Social Club.
Full shownotes: http://yourcreativepush.com/202
In this episode, Melissa & Max discuss:
-How they choose which mediums to work in and how they balance them all at the same time.
-The value in your Patreon patron’s opinions as well as your closest fans.
-Max’s journey and what it took to get him to quit his job and become a full-time freelance artist.
-What led them to create comics for Revolution Brewery.
-Hosting their Drink & Draw group.
-Being on a panel at C2E2.
-Collaborations and the difference between working with other people and working with each other.
-Knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
-Their advice for getting out there and finding people to collaborate with.
-Taking matters into your own hands if there isn’t a local meetup group in order to find people to collaborate with.
-Tackling the feeling of needing permission to do the things that you want to do.
-Being motivated by the fear of having to go back to your old job.
-The realization that you’ll feel better mentally the more time you invest into your creative passion.
-Designing their home to be a work space in which they are always surrounded by their projects, and how that helps them to maintain a creative lifestyle.
-Melissa’s plan to save up money to pursue her passion and the mantra she told herself, “There is no montage.”
-Max’s encouragement to just keep creating, even if what you are creating isn’t good, just keep pushing through those bad drawings.
Quotes from Melissa:
“It’s been really great for me because I’m getting into a world that I’ve always wanted to experience and be a part of, and I have a really great helper getting me get into it.”
“If you’re living somewhere and you can’t find that group of people, then you should really try to start it.”
“The focus of our home is just all work space.”
“There is no montage.”
Quotes from Max:
“I got wrapped up in a lot of these bright lights that were steering me off this path.”
“It was also a really good relationship test, us butting our creative heads.”
“If you want to do that thing, just do it anyway. Just keep doing it and if you’re good enough at it, then eventually someone will pay you.”
“This notion of just do it anyway was the propulsion for me for the past five years.”
“If there’s a certain passion that you want to follow or an idea that you want to put out there, just try to get it out there as soon as you can.”
“You have to live through all of this to get to where you’re going, so you might as well live it.”
Links mentioned:
Your Creative Push Facebook Group
Connect with Melissa:
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Patreon
Connect with Max:
Website / Instagram / Tumblr / Twitter