How a random woman on a plane predicted my job a decade in advance and also kinda changed my life

(AKA be nice to young artists: a thread)

I’ve been “seriously” drawing since I was 9, but tbh even before then I’ve always been drawing animals. Even in my “anime phase”, I was drawing both realistic and stylized animals.

I always came back to illustrating the natural world one way or another. Images c. 2011/2012

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Around the time that I was 9, I was on a plane working on an observational caterpillar sketch I had started before my trip.

The woman next to me complimented it and told me that she was a professional illustrator, and that she drew bugs as her job for science textbooks.

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She told me that she hoped I continued because I would make an excellent zoological illustrator one day, and she’d love to see my work in a textbook sometime.

My life was changed. Fireworks exploded. Mind blown. The entire trajectory of my life? Shifted. I was shook.

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Just kidding. I took the compliment but told her I wanted to be a conservationist.

And that was my plan. Undergrad in bio. Masters in wildlife conservation.

Except, money is a thing. And I could only afford 3 years of school. So I finished early with my BA in TESOL.

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But that woman’s words stuck with me. A REAL artist said I was good. A REAL illustrator.

It may not have changed my life in that instant, but it introduced me to the world of scientific illustration. It showed me that it was a job. It was a career. It planted that seed.

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Backtracking slightly—let me just say I had excellent art teachers in high school. They all encouraged me to illustrate and told me that I could have a career in art, even as my parents were telling me the opposite.

We don’t talk about my middle school art teacher.

Anyway..

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Keep in mind, I didn’t think I could have a career in art. Nobody ACTUALLY had a career in art. All of the good zoological illustration jobs were taken, I was told. There’s no room.

This whole time, I was still drawing animals just because I love them.

Images c. 2012/2013

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Even while I was in college (2015-2018), I didn’t take *any* art courses until my senior year when the head of the art department called me into his office for a meeting and asked to put me in 2 senior level illustration courses. He believed in me.

Images c. 2016/2017

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Those courses changed my life. Not because of the content, but because the professor and the art department head both genuinely believed I could have a career in art—they both told me I was good enough, even as I told them I didn’t have the skills for it.

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Even then, I planned to do bilingual children’s books, because that’s what everyone told me my style + degree was suited for.

I had this nagging need to do zoological illustration, but I needed a degree for that. I needed more school. I could settle for any job in art.

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Fast forward to my first convention that I signed up for on a hypomanic whim... I showed up with less than 30 sticker designs, a couple of prints, and some buttons. I was a mess. It was laughable.

... but I completely sold out of my animal stickers. All three days.

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I decided to do another convention the next year. I’d bring more stickers.

But 8 months before my next con, I moved for my husband’s job. I made an Etsy as a side project while looking for a TESOL job in my new city.

Within a month, I was so busy, it was my full time job.

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I think of that woman on the plane a lot. I really wish I knew her name. I may not have my illustrations in textbooks, but I get to illustrate my love of zoology every. Single. Day.

Be kind to young artists. Encourage them. Your words could honestly stick with them for life.