Dare to embrace the confidence rollercoaster - Kelly Anna

0:08When I do a piece of artwork and someone wants to buy that, that alone again, that's that feeling of like validation that someone else sees what I see and they connect with it the way I have felt it in my body. like I've felt that feeling to create and make this piece but then to have another human connect with it is just yeah it's amazing and that's why we keep doing it it's a human connection thing for me as well it's like someone else feels what I feel and they felt what I'm trying to get across that's what I find really beautiful and and you know when I always say like when someone buys a piece of your work and puts it in their home.

0:54When people have artwork in their home it almost becomes part of their DNA.

1:08Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, the show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection, it's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I'm talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that inspired lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:56Today I'm speaking with Keliana, a London-based artist and illustrator whose vibrant, movement-driven work has taken her from independent galleries to global campaigns. A career shaped by childhood spent sketching Latin dancers from the sidelines and years of breakdancing and gymnastics. Her journey spans the space between wanting to be a dancer and becoming an artist From years of quiet, behind-the-scenes work in print and apparel To the two-year stretch of blind faith that finally unlocked her unmistakable visual style and voice In this conversation, Kelly talks about a confidence rollercoaster of freelance life Why personal work is the only antidote to create a drought And what it means when colour becomes a language everyone can feel It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Kelly Anna.

2:54Hey Kelly, it's great to have you here. How are you doing? Good, thanks for having me. I'm actually good, I'm cold though. It's great to see you and as I've just told you in our pre-conversation, I've been very much aware of what you do, how you do it. and as a fellow lover of colour, it's always whenever you create something, I am equally amazed and kind of a little bit envious about what you can do and how you do it because it's just full of energy and style. But for someone like me who knows your work, who's Kelliana would you do? How would you introduce yourself? I find that really hard when someone asks me that.

3:32But hi, my name's Kelliana. Yeah, I'm an artist, illustrator, designer. I'm trying to still figure out what I call myself but we'll start with that so yeah my work I do a lot of kind of work predominantly in sport movement wellness female empowerment I feel like female empowerment it's kind of it's gone for a ride hasn't it but my work is all based on that and I love to storytell and a lot of my work kind of comes from storytelling I guess so yeah I like when people so it's difficult to explain because it's been changing every year because it's funny like how you see yourself and how i would see yourself because yeah i would say illustrator artist and that's how your work could be potentially perceived for clients by audience by let's say art collectors but it's amazing that to you it's more complicated to how we see it on the outside because people i guess don't usually see the inner struggle the war within going what am i doing but But I mean, is it a good thing to still be figuring it out?

4:35Because I guess you never finished, right? I think so. Well, I've been freelance now for, I think, coming up to 10 years. I haven't figured it out. And I don't think I will ever figure it out completely. You get more confident with things and then you lose the confidence and then you get it back and then you lose it. And I think it's the same with our practice and developing. I think it's just a constant figuring out. because things change and I get really bored. So if things didn't change, I'd just, yeah, I'd want it to change. I have to ask you, you said you have a confidence, you lose a confidence, you have a confidence, you lose a confidence.

5:14How does it happen? I think it's, I always used to talk about confidence because I used to struggle with it a lot. And when I was kind of building my work, I didn't have the confidence because I hadn't had any jobs then, hadn't had any work. And then I think, you know, the more jobs come in, then you start to get a bit of confidence and you're like, oh, okay, maybe there's something in my work. And then it goes on and then you become freelance and you go into the world and then you start losing jobs and you lose your confidence and then you get a job and then your confidence comes back. I think a massive part of it is probably just being freelance.

5:51It's just this rollercoaster of emotion. it's just like you're up then you're down then you're up i think over the years i'm slowly learning to just accept that and just find ways to deal with that those highs and lows i'd say like i'm good at it i'm definitely not good at it i mean if we can stay on the topic of confidence for one more second it's just it's really interesting how you say that the confidence is actually just tied to commercial results if i've got projects i'm confident and if i haven't than I'm not. But technically, creatively, you're not doing anything different. It just depends on external validation.

6:28If someone says, yeah, we want to do with you or not. Yeah, it's funny, but that's interesting because I used to be more like that, whereas now the way I get my confidence back is because I think a lot of us tie it, the confidence to our commercial work. But the only way I really, in those moments, the only way I actually get my confidence back really is when I go okay work's a bit slower I'm going to work on my own stuff and that's then where the new work starts coming out and then I get work again so it's a push and pull and I think that's just to be honest I think that's quite normal with most freelancers but it is hard to disconnect that you know your level of I guess confidence with your work because as artists like our work is us It's so, so personal.

7:18So when it is that link to commercial work, it's hard to cut that, basically, and just, I guess, yeah, feel that it's not personal. Don't know if that made sense. It made sense. And it also made me join the dots with some of my previous guests when I talked to them and I've spoken to some really incredible names. I would assume that they're working all the time. You know, some people who, let's say, define particular trends and styles in the 2000s, some people who've been working and then lettering at the forefront of it and you speak to them and they don't work for six months or they haven't got the pipeline that you would imagine because I guess what you're creating and I think because your style, in my opinion, is so ownable, so unique and recognisable that it's not always applicable for everyone because otherwise we would need to live in the world of Kalyana because let's say everyone's commissioning you all the time.

8:12Where is the trade-off? I think it's really hard because as a freelancer you've got to you're really a business but it's almost like having a business but being an artist as well and separating the two is really difficult but you have to do it because it's the same with style as well like you know what it's like especially as an illustrator you get your style and then that is what you're known for and those are the jobs you get and it's just an ongoing you know you're almost it's like a push and pull of you want to pivot a little bit but you're like but I need this work and it's the work I'm getting but I think that I think it's really important to say no to I've always been very careful with what I take on and what I don't and I say that from a privileged point now because I know at the very beginning it was harder to say no to jobs because I needed the jobs and I needed the work but now definitely I think it is important to yeah just making sure you're taking on the work that actually aligns with you a lot more and then in those times that you're not just basically working on your style and working on how you can develop I always talk about how important it is to develop even if you've got your style i mean there's so much that you said because you talk like how you separate the business from the artist and how we do that because i've said it before and i will say again it was ozzy osborne who said as soon as you start booking your own gigs you're a businessman and i feel we are in the business of creativity like i think the vehicle that we want to do that expression is ultimately what drives us forward like that that's where we start but I think it's really difficult just to be an artist and not worry about business I think it's just because it's inseparable these days right it is absolutely inseparable and you absolutely can if you've got a lot of money behind you but we are if you are in this for business which most of us are it's how we live it's our business you absolutely need to be a business I think it's really important especially when you're speaking to younger people is to help them understand that because also if you see yourself as a business also your worth should be going up as well because I think sometimes we think of artists and you know oh we're drawing all day from outside that that's what it might look like but behind the scenes we're the same as any other business we've got to get our clients we've got to keep pushing we've got to do marketing we've got to do all of the things that businesses do accounting all of the really I'd say the boring side of business but yeah that it's for me I have to say 50 % of my what I do is business and the rest is yeah creating but if you don't look after the business then you really don't know what your baseline is what is your foundation and how strong you are How many people do you know who says, I feel like I'm an artist, but I'm going to start a creative business first, and then I'm going to learn how to paint or draw or express myself.

11:27And it doesn't happen that way. Oh, at least if anyone is that way, please get in touch because I really want to know. But when you said, when you were younger, you were taking on more of the jobs that you now say no to. And this is that sort of washing machine of that creative business and life and expression, which is like, what is the thing that aligns both of your values? Because that's what you know, that's one of the things you said just a second ago, like jobs that align with me and align with my values and what I want to do. So when we take you back those 10 years ago, when you started your own business, here we go, career, freelance.

12:03What did you find out that was almost that sort of rude awakening going, oh, is this what this is all about?

12:14Kelly Anna:We'll be back after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Lax Coffee Co. The first creative speciality coffee company, building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond. Lax Coffee Co. offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. And you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins, coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel head laxcoffee.co.uk. You can use the code podcast to get 15 % off your first order.

13:04I think for me it wasn't so much the going into the first few years because that first few years I just I remember I got one job I was working freelance at the time but I was contracted in with a company so I was working at the time I was working like four days a week for someone else and I had been working on my portfolio and like developing for the previous two years before I then had the guts to finally leave the employment but so I remember I got one of my first jobs and I thought it was a good amount of money and it gave me the confidence to go okay right this is your you've got a little bit of time now if you just want to take the leap and I took the leap and so that first few years I just went mental like I did everything I could get my hands on I not saying that I took on jobs with no pay I never did that but I more just was just wanting to get my stuff out there and you know contacting people and asking if I could take over spaces and it was more of that rather than letting people come to me and be like can you do this for no money it was more just me going to them being like look I've got this idea can we do this it will cost you this I mean what you described I think it's a unique time in our lives because you know a parent you whatever different responsibilities as you said who happens to have money behind them to start a career like it's again you know it might be an anomaly and again if it's you get it touched so you pushing yourself in every possible corner and every possible space every possible commission it's a unique time because you will never be potentially ever so hungry as you were that time so determined and so pushy because life changes and it changes into different chapters and those chapters are necessary because we learn about ourselves different things then we re-evaluate and say okay maybe I'm going to live the rest of my life in this way I had so much energy I'll try to know if my energy is the same well I mean it's not the same story when you think about it it's a developing plot because yeah I mean I wrote a book about how I used to work 18 hours a day because I loved it because it was like everything and now you realize if I work two three hours a day that's a bonus because it's just like life changes but you spend more time thinking about what you do because i think it was obama who once said look i'm not as young as i used to be but i move with purpose i'm actually by the way butchering the quote but he says but i move with purpose i don't jump as far i don't go as fast but i know what i'm doing and that's the more important part because when you got energy what do you do you burn it off by doing everything and anything and not doing it right so true so true and also when you I've got a kid now and I always just say especially in those first few years like everything I did had to have purpose because I didn't have time to mess about so anything that I was doing I was like right I really need this needs to work in this amount of time that I've got so you really do you have to change the way you work the way you design the way you concept everything has to yeah that's a really good saying actually because it's true yeah before you went out freelancing before you did the work before you discovered who kelly and is creatively where'd you come from what was the background what was the influence in your life that made you be you know so colorful so expressive so you know, extravagant through your shapes.

16:41I always say was an artist. My dad is an artist. And I always say was because he never went into art himself. He still paints, but he never went in and worked as an artist. But he is an artist and he was very, quite influential when I was growing up. And he used to teach me. We used to draw together, paint together. My dad was one of those ones that was born with the skill of, he just was born with the skill. Whereas I loved art, but I couldn't draw like him. He will look at a figure and draw the outline and it's perfect. Whereas I loved art. I loved the feeling that it gave me, but I didn't technically have the skills that my dad did.

17:23I know obviously he was older than me, but so he was also quite a harsh critic. Like I always say that he'd teach me to sketch, but I wasn't really allowed to look down at the paper because he always believed that you've got to focus on your subject. And the paper in your drawing has nothing to do with it. You should be focusing on what you're drawing. So I'd be drawing and I'd be looking down too much and he'd take the paper away and tell me to start again. So he sounds really harsh. He wasn't at all. He wouldn't hurt a fly. But he's just, yeah, he was very big on focusing on your subject. And my mum and dad are also boring with Latin dances.

18:02That's actually how they met. My dad was a dance teacher and my mum came in and they fell in love. And then obviously they had four kids. And so we all did Boreum and Latin as well. So yeah, my background from the age of literally from the age of three, I was dancing. And we used to go to a lot of Boreum and Latin competitions growing up. And so when me and my dad would be drawing, I'd be taking my sketchbook to these competitions. And I'd sketch all the dances moving around the floor. I think it was that very early on of sketching that movement that kind of influenced me going forward. And even though there was a huge gap in that and what I did throughout my career, I think that really set something off in me.

18:53And also, I was saying to you before, my dad, it was really big on colour. he always spoke about how important colour is and he always said that colour is a language that everyone understands. Wherever you are in the world, everyone understands colour. So, yeah, I think those two things maybe have gotten me to where I am. I love that story. I love that story. It literally explains everything I've been seeing in your work for the last 10 plus years. Now I'm glad to tell me exactly what happened because when you were describing your dad and when you were describing technically your confidence, like I wasn't as good as he was, I will never be as good as this, only to realize that the space between what you want to do and the tool is gradually going to get shorter and shorter because it's like how far do you have to go between this?

19:46Because your analogy or your reminiscing about your dad sort of focused on the subject, when you think about the best musicians, they don't really look on their neck on a guitar going, I think F is somewhere down here or the A is here. Like, you know, they're looking at the audience and performing some obscene things on their guitars. I'm like, that's hours and hours and hours of doing this because, yeah, they're focusing on the subject and they are at one with this. And I think it's that thing about how you almost encourage someone. In your case, it sounded quite harsh, but I think if there was a great way of focusing on what you're trying to do, you know, you might hopefully don't have any traumas from focusing on the subject.

20:26No, not at all. He's a character anyway, but I always just used to even watching him draw. It's like he will honestly, when he's sketching figures, he'll rip the paper because he's that. He just believes so much in getting the lines correct. And yeah, he's very, I always say actually one day I would love to collab with my dad because when he's finally retired and yeah, has the time, I definitely would love to do something like that Do you know why he's never pursued Curating at heart? Yes, because he had four children and he actually was going to go to Camberwell he went to when he was 18 he went to go and have his I think he even got into Camberwell or was it Camberwell?

21:11I can't remember but then his mum or my grandma fell sick so he had to stay home and then he married my mum and had four children so and he just took the life that you know was not the creative one, but he does still paint to this day. And I have said, as soon as he retires, that's when I'm going to start his business. I've already got ideas. He's always, Kelly, just leave me alone. So your dad walked into a Latin ballroom and met your mum. We're going to spend half of the time talking about your dad and your mum today. But where did you love for music? Like where, how, do you know why? He was there.

21:54I mean, we kind of know why she was there because she was part of the earth. My dad, there's pictures of my dad of when he was like eight, nine. He was a Boreum and Latin dancer. He did it from a very young age. But yeah, I don't actually know why he got into it. And we used to kind of host these family dances where people would come and would host and the whole family would dance with everyone. And yeah, we did that a lot, which was nice. so you were sketching the dancers the poses the silhouettes how did you then marry out with the style or how did you develop your style of expressive figures proportions silhouettes the curves and everything because it's in my way obviously and as i told you before we started recording i see this as very a latin american inspired style this has got everything the vibrancy the shapes the movement and i kind of want to find out like you know now i know a little more about you think okay i can join these dots together but is the development is those hours between you drawing rudimentary sort of dancers and then coming into this with a commercial style which is so recognizable and so expressive so how do we trace it from start to now so it's funny as well because growing up as well I did a lot of sport I was a gymnast and I was a gymnast coach for a little while as well my uncle was very big into sport so I also grew up with that as my yeah childhood really and then I got into kind of my teenage years and I got into almost like commercial dancing as well and then through art college I had this weird I basically wanted to become a dancer that was what I wanted to be and then I went to art school and back then it wasn't it really was not cool to be into I did like hip-hop break dancing all of that but back then for some reason it was I don't know it's like that indie time where it was all about like indie music and I actually throughout art college I kept it a secret that I did break dance and hip hop and all of that because it just at the time didn't seem that cool and so I felt like I had to just choose one or the other and I chose the art path because I closed that door really.

24:17I still carried on for a few years dancing but I decided I was like no I'm going to close that door and go into art and so I think there was always a part of me that felt I missed out and I've always wondered what my life would be if I actually went on to be a dancer and so I think a really important thing for me to do when I was developing was to connect those two worlds and actually when I started I actually when I left uni I ended up going into print design so I did a lot of print design for clothing like apparel footwear and even when I was working in apparel there was a connection to dance and music I did a lot of print design for yeah different kind of singers and whatever but so there was that kind of link there and also when I worked in footwear there was the link to dances and things like that and performing so when I was doing that when I was the print designer I always had this idea I knew that I wanted to be my own artist and somehow do my own thing so whilst I was doing that I had to develop my style and try and figure out how to piece all this together and do something that felt right to me so I used to I started out actually by kind of sketching I started very early sketching I know this sounds really weird but I would go to gyms and kind of sketch a little bit and also my friends they were all dancers and I used to go to their rehearsals and sit in their rehearsals and sketch them dancing so that was kind of my connection to that world a little bit I knew that world and I felt really comfortable in it and I just had to basically try and find a way to yeah to connect it and figure out a style that would work with it so yeah and I also did when I was at uni I did fashion illustration so and that is all about exaggerating forms and you know it's the forms are always exaggerated in some sense so yeah it was kind of an amalgamation of all of that put together this is amazing because you said i had to choose one i had to go between either the one or the other and then you kind of sat on the outside of sidelines watching other people doing what you what did secretly and it was seek the story of a secret break dancer it's just like don't tell anyone you know there's indie kids but i'm a break dancer i know when i look back i'm like that's so so odd because now nowadays like with the way the world is that would have been amazing but it just shows how different our world is now because yeah just would have been a different different world i think you're describing the time where like being one thing you know when people say do one thing and do it well that kind of works but what really amazes me there was one strong advocate which i will name who that is and let's do one thing and do it well and i'm like you do like seven different things what are you talking about this you do seven things you do them fairly well oh i wish i could be like that i get too bored i wish i had that brain i wish i could do one thing for the rest of my life and become the best at it but i just i get too bored writing a book called daring forever which is partially based on this podcast season and looking into ways of how we for example decode things like know the lack of confidence and how we do stuff and why some of us are looking for more colorful life, more varied life, more intricate life, rather than some people just keep it straight.

27:50And it actually comes down to genetics. Some people are just good at one thing and they stick with it. I wonder that in everyday life, even when it comes to relationships and people that have been together for two years, I just look at things and I'm like, how do people do that? It must be genetic and it must be to do with our brains. And I'm looking forward to reading your book. It also comes to understanding of the psychology, general philosophy, like how our childhoods really create the foundation for who we are who we become and some people get similar childhoods to yours and they're like you know you know what i'm going to go into finance this is going to be good i'm going to be an insurance i don't need more latin music in my life whatever apparently we have different sides of dopamine receptors so some people are more motivated some people are less motivated happiness is 50 genetic you know some people are just not happy just you know just not as jolly as some others but we have this societal measure of understanding okay happiness should look like this and are you happy as this you know are you as creative as this whereas what you're describing here so beautifully so far it's just like look you just became your person who wanted to be your own artist and like this is what i'm doing and to be honest i think the secret breakdown sir it's a great story but from what i'm seeing selfishly can say that you know it's great that you've gone into visual art because it's fantastic It's been like such a beautiful, unique way of expressing yourself.

29:10There's made so many brands and so many projects so much more colorful and so much more georier to look at. So let's put some more color into your sketches because I'm sensing that so far it was a fashion illustration. You were sort of trying to find yourself. And I want to know how much patience did you have till you realized that you finally hit in on something that's unique, your own. And then you can say, I'm going to fly my own flag tall and proud. It did take a while because, like I said, I was working behind closed doors when I was working with other people. There was literally two years where I was just working and trying things and it just wasn't clicking at all.

29:49and then I'd say like in at the end of that two years just something started to click and I was slowly putting my work out into the world literally with no likes but I was just I don't know there was something that I weirdly just I knew something was there and I guess I just had this blind faith that I just if I just kept doing it kept putting it out that something would hit and it did in the end eventually I yeah I got my first job which was with Nike so what was that feeling of validation that you spend time developing and 10 years ago am I safe to say that the world was slightly more patient less noisy but I don't think it was like we already we were all on Instagram but it has changed I think the I think if you're joining Instagram social media now is harder in some ways i say that but depends what your output is now it's much more video and short form so yeah just depends what your process is i guess i would say i think you need to have a real pot of gold now to really stand out because somebody somewhere said the the craft has gone so much better what some i think a lot of people have caught up and realized they can do really good work or push themselves to do better work you know that distance between the paper and themselves or the tool because i think the craft in all areas have gone incredible but i think it was sacrificed in a way of expression like how unique some of the stuff is because lots of people and we talked about instagram from 10 15 years ago it was like It was easy to jump on the hashtag and be another of, be part of something creative.

31:40People are liking my stuff because there are also 25 or 30 other people doing the same. But finding that uniqueness, which is so hard to now find because everything's remixed of something, everything's influenced by something, how do people do it? Because you gave yourself two years, which can seem like a lifetime in 2026. Even now, it wasn't just two years. It was because I that's when I decided I was I wanted to be on my own. But before that, it was still eight years of me working for other people, knowing that I wanted to do my own. I just didn't have the I didn't have the money and I didn't have the confidence.

32:19And I hadn't figured out really my style. I had my style, but I just hadn't figured it out completely yet. So it was a long I always say like when I left uni, I didn't go out on my own until I was about 29. so it's like nine eight nine years of just yeah working behind yeah the scenes when you think about it some people think they need to retire at 29 these days it's like do one thing and do it really well what is it no but you know that you see some people i want to get to the final finishing line as fast as possible it's like why no i'd get again i'd get so bored if i had to stop working I some people that's there and you know if they can get on them but my brain wouldn't allow it I think I'll be trying to start a new business when I'm on my deathbed I just I think I just I say that now as a young star I don't know what I'll be like when I'm old and I think again people have different motivation and it comes from environmental inputs their backgrounds their trauma their childhood because ultimately it's an external validation what I want to get to now is you start you got your commission with nike and it just looks like the confetti cannon just exploded and you go commissions you started working across different formats different exhibitions all of that stuff if you can remember what did it feel like when you realized you know what i put my money on 32 black and it worked actually in your case you put your money on whatever number and all the colors there was a time i did i think because i struggled so long with confidence there was a time I remember I think to myself gosh this feels really good it felt so good to have something that you'd worked on not I don't think it was even that night I think my whole life I had wanted to be a creative an artist and yeah to get validation from someone that isn't yourself because you can you can big yourself up as much as you like and you have to as an artist you have to be your own fan club but to have someone outside want your work next to their brand name that's another level of that's another feeling and it's something that we chase we go on chasing and it's just an amazing feeling that's why we do it that's why we do this freelance work because it's you know when someone when I do a piece of artwork Like someone wants to buy that, that alone, again, that's that feeling of like validation that someone else sees what I see and they connect with it the way I have felt it in my body.

35:06Like I've felt that feeling to create and make this piece. But then to have another human connect with it is just, yeah, it's amazing. and that's why we keep doing it and because that's a nice I guess it's a human connection thing for me as well it's like someone else feels what I feel and they felt what I'm trying to get across that's what I find really beautiful and and you know when I always say like when someone buys a piece of your work and puts it in their home when people have artwork in their home it almost becomes part of their DNA it becomes I have pieces in my home that the more they're in my home the more I fall in love with them because they're just part of me now that they are part of my personality and I so it's that connection to that artist that I love me and my partner we are constantly looking for new pieces of work and whether it's ceramics or paintings just something I guess yeah that says that speaks our way of seeing the world I guess I mean if there was a beautifully eloquent artist statement that was it we've had too many coffees this morning no I think what you said with no hesitation is how it makes you feel and how you appreciate if somebody almost reciprocates that feeling because it really goes into the most beautiful ways of telling stories and someone receives those stories exactly as you intended yeah it's nice because like when I'm I'm the biggest fan to a lot of artists and when they post something like I remember someone posted something the other day an artist I love and they literally just posted an ink drawing and I just I connected so much with it I was like it almost like it's like they it's like he gets me so it's just and it's so weird he doesn't know me I'm like he gets me and he gets my vision of the world and because I love that piece so much and it's just yeah I love it I love that's connected us even though he has no idea who I am what you just said made me actually think of the stuff that you have artists musicians writers authors they produce something and people go like I wasn't expecting that I'm thinking what were you expecting are you a mind reader because it's like that person does something at their moment in time when that's true to them and you've got a amount of time to either tune into it or not be on the same path because that expectation it's just like when you are so like wholesomely into their journey you appreciate every twist and turn and every surprise whereas if you're expecting something for yourself to validate other person can't give it to you can they yeah that's actually why i always love seeing artists and creatives pivot a little bit and start I love it when someone shows me something new like I love seeing an artist who's got their style who's got their thing and randomly they come out with something so different and I'm like you know what good on you even though you will not get the validation that you want online right away I just know that I am there fangirling you on because i love it i find it so empowering as another creative to see another creative go do you know what pack this i'm gonna go and develop it and i'm gonna try and i'm gonna keep moving so yeah i'm there fangirling you on so this is interesting because i was going to ask you about the world of brands and what does it mean to be associated with certain brands and potentially being limited by limited by your brilliance in a way what i want to know is how So would you have said that your style has been your biggest asset, but has it ever been a negative to the fact that you can't be everywhere with everyone at all times?

39:15Yes and no. I wouldn't say a negative because I guess that's on my choices, I guess, of who I've worked for and not. And you're right, like you can't be everywhere at once. I wouldn't want to be for one. I think it is important in this capitalist, like in this commercial world as an illustrator and artist to have something that connects you to, I guess, your style because, or you have to have some sort of style to start with because you're easier to find. It's like I always say to people always ask, how do you get work with different these different brands? And I think it's really important to know what the way to start is knowing what interests you.

40:06And for me, what interests me and has always interested me is everything, sport, movement, kind of that world. So I've always linked my work to that, which for someone who works in sport, for instance, they'll go, we need a female artist. We need someone who works in sport and we need someone who does whatever. And so it's easy for then brands to come and look and say, oh, Kellyanne, sport, like it almost packages it up for these brands ready to go. And I know that sounds, again, very like maybe just business and not so much creative, but as if I guess younger people want to get into that world, I think it's much easier if you start from the very core.

40:54What is it that you really enjoy and really believe in? Start from there and work around that. And then that almost becomes your thing and it's much easier for brands to find you. Yeah. yeah i think that makes perfect sense i'm looking at your rafa collaboration this is on your website and i spoke to lucas and david carson's son how they made their collaboration happen with rafa and obviously what's gone into it how did that collaboration go how did you put it together because i always say that cycling and cycling audience is such a tricky target audience because everyone's got opinion not everything is the same i'm gonna see your capsule collection it just seems absolutely amazing and it's just perfect way of sort of marrying those two worlds together because you said we need female we need sports we need illustrator we need artist that's where you happen to be how did that go for you like in terms of the validation of the style free reign like what went to it it was funny because this was such a full circle moment when i was younger i started a girls c-cycle crew it sounds so funny when I say it now when I say that it basically I loved riding my bike around the city and I loved my riding my bike around the city with my friends so I decided to start a girls c-cycle group and to the point where I would literally ride up to a girl on a bike and be like do you want to join our little group and that and we just became this little group and we'd go on like little cycling trips around the city literally that was all it was it kind of became this little community we even did like little Halloween rides and things like that and so I had that for a few years and I'm still actually friends with a lot of the girls in from that little group and then and in one of the pictures we took I was actually wearing my favorite rafferty so I was always a massive fan of raffer I love everything that they put out they're just genius and then a few years ago my agent was like we were kind of speaking and we're Like, should we reach out to them?

43:00And then he did. And they immediately rode back and were like, yeah, she's actually been on our radar for a while. And actually something's come up, the Women's 100. And that's how it kind of came together. And just working with them, they're just honestly, they're honestly the nicest team. I can't say it. They are one of the nicest teams I've ever worked for. Really just lovely. Yeah. They've got a great feeling in their head office. It's lovely. you mentioned just a second ago that you're always looking to keep moving how you develop like what is next what is your style of work do you have a studio where you know look into new ideas how do you experiment what is your scrapbook you know are you influenced by the art on your walls how do you keep living i so a while ago basically i told myself to do a sketch at least one sketch a day but then that became really hard so I was like look just when you get that fire feeling because you know we all get it comes rarely but when it does you just got to capture it so I make sure when I get that feeling I just get out a piece of like a new bit of material so like at the moment I'm on oil I told myself for years I want to learn oils so now I'm actually doing a course in oils and that's right now is my next medium but I love trying I think trying different mediums I work with charcoal paint oil any anything that for me feels like something I love textures and yeah for me developing is just sitting down and just getting a piece of something whatever that is whether it's paper collage and trying different mediums I find experimenting with mediums the most exciting thing.

44:53So I guess that's how I develop. I just, I'm trying new things all the time. I think that makes sense. When I see your work, some of the stuff looks as a digital illustration. Some of the stuff is painted shopfronts. And it works with your brain going, you know, I need to shake it up. I need differences and I need different experiences. But it's funny how it then connects back together. it does all connect because for instance I was doing these charcoals and then I started doing these like charcoal birds because I was kind of relating it to a project so then I went through literally two months every day of doing these charcoal birds I just became obsessed and then I took those birds into my graphic work and they ended up on a shop front in Paris so it does and I would never have done that just by drawing it the way I usually draw.

45:46I would never have drawn those birds, but because I was just became obsessed, then that went back into my work. So I think it's just that layering and ripping up and trying something new and then putting it into your other work and that, yeah, mixed media, I think is really fun. I think you've spotted your birds on your website and they're incredible. I think I know exactly which ones they are and they look fantastic because they are still you but they stand out so much as we're looking towards the future obviously the subject of ai comes up in so many conversations so many articles and i kind of feel like it's almost it would be a redundant question to ask you about it because what you do very hardly ever touches the element of digital in a way like you're an expression of a person who is you know longing for finding ways of like how to tell love stories and how to make them colorful and very human in a way as well but how do you see your career and i know this might be a slightly sort of a big and sort of heavy question but like how do you see what you do that you can potentially find new pockets of excitement new ways of expressing yourself because we do have more tools we have more ways of production we have more ways of making things with your theme of keeping moving like how do you visualize the next half a decade of your career I'm an enthusiast I love learning about new things and I'm also a realist and I absolutely know AI is here and it's not going anywhere I don't know how I will use it moving forward I've absolutely used it for mock-ups and things like that but for instance I'm launching my I don't like talking about this because it's very behind the scenes at the moment but I'm working on my own kind of brand on something else going on and there's one bit where I wanted to show this product and I'm working with a 3D artist to kind of animate it and create this work and I was trying want to explain how I wanted it exactly and then someone was like oh why don't you put it into mid-journey and I was like oh what how do I even do that put it into mid-journey and it came up with what I wanted obviously really badly because I'd just barely done it and so there was that I was then you know up against what we are all going to go through it's like human versus this and I guess I've got this tool that does it but right now for me I don't want that as my output I want to work with this amazing artist I love his work so right now what I feel is even though AI is there and that tool is there for me to use I there's something missing in that for me right now and I guess what is missing in that is that interaction I'll have with another human and I guess yes AI can do it for me very easily but then maybe something will be missed and something you know maybe me and this guy will come up with something and it will just be a real mistake and we're like actually that mistake's really nice we like that and I think that's something that AI even though AI has a lot of mistakes.

49:16I love the fuck ups and the, you know, how we mess things up and we're like, oh, actually, I really like that. Let's try that again. And yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm like every other artist. We know it's here. We know it. We're walking into this world. We can't ignore it. And I guess I think over the years, we'll just have to figure it out, figure out how we use it. I, for one, I'm not going to judge anyone for anything. I think the judgment in anywhere is, I think it's good to have judgments. And I think, yeah, I think we all just need to figure it out slowly together. Again, maybe I'm wrong in that, but I do.

49:53I think it's something that no one really knows the answer to. You can tell by how I'm answering that I'm still figuring it all out. I don't know. But the one thing I do think people are yearning for is human connection. I don't think that will ever go. I think we are, like you say, we grew up in tribes. I think that we used to be in tribes. And I think that that's just something really important that we all yearn for. I think it really shows onto brands, like, who do you want to be and how do you want to conduct, you know, your audience? Like, how do you want to obviously run your business and how you want to do it?

50:29Because I've seen something on a TV the other day, which was like a TV art for some car. I've never heard of a brand before. and it was so blatantly ai and not the good kind it was like there were sheep running through other sheep on the tv i'm thinking what the fuck it's very odd it's very odd i do find it strange like when i was doing a talk and they had i won't say who it was but they had an ai company there talking to a room of a thousand creatives and it was interesting because he was you know, come on, you know, when you've got that fire and you can create, and he had 20 different chair designs behind him, just floating midair, you know, and I was just sat there and I was like, oh, that's lovely.