Podcast Feature: A Career in the Arts

This month, I had the honor of chatting with NC State Professional Development Director, Marcy Bullock, on my experience in a creative arts career for her incredible podcast, ‘Pack Career Chats. Pack Career Chats highlights career readiness tips including wellness, professional development, overcoming obstacles and reaching one's potential.

In this episode, Marcy and I discuss the unique challenges and triumphs of an arts career, tips and tricks of starting your own business, and how to confront and overcome the F-Bomb (Fear) when deciding to pursue a career in the arts. Listen to the full podcast below or keep scrolling for the full transcript.

Thank you again, Marcy, for having me on your podcast, and thank you for all you do for your students to prepare them for their post-college careers.

Marcy Bullock: Hello, this is March Bullock. Welcome to Wolfpack Career Chats today. My special guest is Veronica Vale who has started her own business using her talents in the creative arts. Welcome, Veronica.

Veronica Vale: Thank you! Thank you for having me, Marcy.

Marcy Bullock: We’re so happy to have you today! I have to say, some of my guests are hand-picked and you are a person I’ve know since you were three, so we go back a long way. You’ve grown into such an amazing woman, so successful in your career. I’d love if you could just tell our audience a little bit about your journey to where you are now.

Veronica Vale: Thanks so much. Again, my name is Veronica Vale. Marcy has known me my entire life just about, and for that entire time, I’ve always known that I wanted to be an artist. That was always my answer whenever people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. So, naturally, I majored in Art and English at Appalachian State. I then started pursuing a career in art galleries. I worked as a Fine Art Consultant in Park City, UT. I then moved back to North Carolina to be closer to family, where I worked in the art museum realm. I was an Event Coordinator at an art museum for a couple of years. Just this August I decided to officially open my own business, launch my website, so now I’m an artist and freelance writer.

Marcy Bullock: Congratulations! That is quite a journey. Going back to college, when you studied art, did you have any idea that you would be an entrepreneur with your own business in your mid-20s? What were you thinking back then?

Veronica Vale: Well I know I certainly hoped so, but I didn’t know what the reality of that was. There are a lot of misconceptions within the creative arts world to be honest. There’s this myth of the “starving artist,” so I was lucky to have a supportive system that really encouraged me to go down this creative path despite the misnomers that there’s no money in it and that you’re not going to be successful, or that if you are successful, it’s a rarity. So I was really delighted to see once I left college, how that just simply wasn’t true. The arts are a lucrative field, there’s an abundance of opportunities. I was delighted to kind of play in the creative arts field for a while before I decided to launch my own business. But I certainly hoped I would make it to where I am now. I wasn’t sure what the timeline would be, but I’m definitely grateful to be here now.

Marcy Bullock: Let’s go back to that transition to working in art galleries that you mentioned before starting your own business. What were some of the biggest things you learned through that experience that helped you to get to this current job.

Veronica Vale: I think one of the things that I learned is that the creative arts field is very unique in that there is no particular set path laid before you like in some other careers. For instance, if you wanted to become a doctor, there’s a path laid before your feet that many have walked before you: you go to undergraduate school, medical school, residency, get placed in a hospital…For a creative career, it’s wildly different in that everyone’s experience is going to be unique. So I knew going into this that my path was going to be different than others before me, so it’s a little bit difficult to give advice on that transition for that reason. There’s a novelist who writes that “writing a novel is like driving at night: you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I feel like that’s a good metaphor for a creative arts career in that you never really see the full path laid before you, but you have to trust that it’ll get you to where you need to go. Trust your intuition, trust your instincts, follow what interests you, follow your curiosity.

When I first entered that art gallery field, is was almost an accident. I was just applying for a job to make a little money while I waited for my then-fiance (now-husband) to graduate as he was one semester behind me in school. I applied for a job at an art gallery, not really knowing what it was like, not really knowing what that world was like, but I just thought I’d give it a try. I ended up loving it. I got into art sales for a while. That opportunity led to another opportunity at a high-end art gallery in Park City, which was one of the best experiences of my life. I actually still work with that art gallery. So, my biggest advice to anybody transitioning from college to the art world is to take whatever opportunities interest you because you never know where they’re going to lead.

Marcy Bullock: Wonderful! Moving to Park City, wow, that was a big change. I know a lot of our listeners have grown up in North Carolina similar to you and kind of had these wide eyes, “woah the world is out there.” Did you enjoy that transition in Park City, what was it like? And you mention coming back closer to home, tell us about that whole transition.

Veronica Vale: I absolutely loved it. I’m a very outdoorsy person, my husband and I actually met rock climbing and we just love being out in nature. We wanted to go somewhere that felt really wildly different than anything we’d known growing up. I think that’s how you grow the most is stretching yourself outside your comfort zone. So we really wanted to go somewhere far away from home so that we couldn’t rely on our support systems, to kind of force independence in a way. We loved our experience there. We were really lucky to have a very wonderful experience. We did decide to come back simply because we missed family and we knew that we wanted to start planting roots somewhere closer to the people that we really love.

Marcy Bullock: And that also ties back into your values like you said, feeling like family is important to you and making choices that align with those values by coming back to North Carolina. But I love that you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone, and even now, starting this business, let’s talk about fear. I think a lot of people have ideas about something, that they could own their own business, but there’s this big “F-bomb” standing in their way, and they just think, “wait, I don’t think I have the courage to do that.” How did you overcome that?

Veronica Vale: I’m not going to say that I don’t have fear, because I still do struggle with fearing fearful. Really what it comes down to is just being vulnerable. Art in itself is already a very vulnerable profession because sometimes you feel like your self-worth is so intertwined with your art that it’s hard to separate the two. If someone criticizes your art, it can feel kind of personal. So you’re already feeling this sense of vulnerability, but I think that honestly college does help prepare you for that level of criticism and rejection. I know if you’re going into an arts field or have an arts degree, you’re accustomed to regular critiques of your work, and that kind of allows you to get comfortable with that sort of rejection and confronting any fear of criticism.

So I have to college to thank for my tougher skin, but I think also it’s just important to remember how when you do feel most vulnerable, it’s usually when you’re growing the most. You have to remember that your deepest connections, your deepest relationships are the ones where you’re the most vulnerable. I think people are drawn to that authenticity. You endear others to you with your vulnerability. So although it’s a scary thing to do, a lot of times, people will see that authenticity, see that vulnerability in you and respond very positively to that. It’s when you’re growing the most.

Marcy Bullock: So I’ve personally seen your creative art, and I think you’re amazingly talented. We will absolutely link to your website so others can see that. What do you see in the future for yourself? What kinds of goals do you have for where you would like to take your creativity?

Veronica Vale: That’s a great question. Every year, rather than making a resolution, I set a word of intention for my year. It’s something that I look towards as a guiding light to what my year is going to look like. This year, my chosen word was “grow.” So I really want to focus on gradual growth and gratitude. I know that in this world, we’re fairly accustomed to viral moments, viral sensations, overnight successes, so it’s hard to avoid comparing yourself to others, but “comparison is the thief of joy” as Theodore Roosevelt would say. I believe that need to celebrate the little successes in order to find the gratitude for all the progress that I’ve been making.

Marcy Bullock: That gratitude is so important. It’s so easy to get dragged down by problems in your life and just to remind yourself that you have this business and you’re successful and you’re moving forward. I think with entrepreneurship, comes this problem of “how do I separate my personal and work life?” I wonder if you could speak to that because it’s always there. How do you make time for yourself so that you’re creative side doesn’t become so overwhelming in your life that it’s not fun anymore?

Veronica Vale: Well I think that college does prepare you for that in that sense as well because I know in college you’re juggling so many different things. You’re balancing extracurriculars, your classes, your relationships, your clubs, what have you, so you kind of learn to strike a work-life balance early on. That’s especially important going into the creative arts field where you are doing for work what you love to do for fun. So I think if you are working freelance or if you become an entrepreneur, one of the most important things is learning self-discipline and learning when to be your own boss in a sense. With that, you want to be the kind of boss that you always wished that you had, meaning that you know how to set goals and keep yourself accountable to those goals and you know how to make a schedule and stick to that schedule, and in some ways, be protective of that schedule. But you also want to strike the balance of being kind with yourself and remember that you need to take breaks and that it’s okay to take time off. When you’re doing something you love, it is worthwhile, but you don’t want to blur the line between work and passion too much.

Marcy Bullock: Yeah, I know one of my friends loved soccer and started a career around soccer and now they’re like, “I hate soccer now.” So it’s tough for people who have a passion, how do you think you should decide if that should be your vocation vs your hobby. Like I know you said you like rock climbing, so you do rock climb, but not for money. What are your thoughts on passions? And you use the word curiosity, which I thought was an even better word than passion, because passion sometimes makes people feel a little scared that they might not have one, but everyone has curiosity.

Veronica Vale: Right and I think that goes along with what we were talking about earlier about inspirational podcasts. I recommend that your students listen to this one podcast by Elizabeth Gilbert, where she distinguishes the difference between following your passion and following your curiosity. I think that’s a really important distinction for people who feel like they don’t have one particular jackhammer passion but want to follow their curiosity to where it leads them.

Marcy Bullock: With art, you’re doing that a lot during the day, so is that still fun for you?

Veronica Vale: It’s actually very fun for me. I’m really grateful to have a job where I truly love what I do every day. There are days where it’s certainly more challenging than others and days where it’s difficult to gain motivation for something. Art is one of those things where you feel you need inspiration to strike you before you start on it, but in reality, sometimes you just need to start and inspiration will follow. And that’s one of the difficult things to understand is that it’s not just entirely passion and inspiration, it’s also hard work and discipline that will hopefully lead to that passion and inspiration and enjoyment.

Marcy Bullock: Ooh that’s a really good tip. When someone’s trying to start their business or idea, what would your tips be for beginning an endeavor and having the courage to jump in and open up your social media, your website, hang up your shingle and say, “here I am ready to be your artist?” What is the advice you have for beginning to market yourself?

Veronica Vale: Before I began to market myself, I had to think about what exactly I wanted my brand to be. How did I want to represent myself? Do I want my brand to be more whimsical, playful, sophisticated, etc.? I like to think more holistically about what I want my brand to be, and everything else will fall in line with that. So before I actually launched my business, I - probably unnecessarily - created an entire brand guide for my business before I ever launched. I had color schemes, words that I wanted my brand to be associated with, different fonts and texts, different descriptors, all of these different designs, etc. I had all of these ready because it was something that I wanted to keep in mind and use as a guiding light for how I wanted to present myself to the world.

Marcy Bullock: That’s amazing! I never thought about all the behind-the-scenes work involved in your brand. If you were to describe your brand in an elevator pitch, how would you sell it to someone wanting to know what you stand for?

Veronica Vale: I would describe my brand, or my particular style of work, as peaceful and cheerful. That’s something that was really important to me. I want to make art that makes people feel inspired, feel happy, feel excited, but also just feel really at peace in this world (especially during this time, I think it’s something that we all really need.)

Marcy Bullock: So important. I mean we’re recording this at the start of a new year. People want to be inspired. We just went through nine months of a quarantine. We all want to be hopeful about vaccines and being out in the world again, and here you’re bringing forward these beautiful pieces that bring people so much joy. I know when my family go our paintings over the holidays it brought us all so much happiness to see all these wonderful creations. So I’m so impressed with you, Veronica. We’re at the point now where I’m going to ask you my “time machine” question. So we’re going to zoom into the year 2040, and I would love for you to share advice with Veronica Vale of 2021 that you currently need to hear from your wise self who will be in her 40’s at that point.

Veronica Vale: I think one of the things that I really need to work on that I would like to give myself advice for is being protective of my own schedule and learning to set better boundaries for myself. I know that schedule flexibility is one of the pros of starting your own business and being an entrepreneur but I also think in order to accomplish everything that you want to or really need to, you need to set a schedule and stick to that schedule. And that involves sometimes saying “no” to people and having the courage to set those boundaries for yourself so you can accomplish everything you need to get done. Because if you don’t respect your schedule, then you can’t expect anyone else to.

Marcy Bullock: That is a fantastic tip. It was so great having you today. Thanks, Veronica!

Veronica Vale: Thanks so much, Marcy!