Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Wilkinson.
Hi Andrew, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story starts less with a single moment and more with a refusal to stay in one lane. I trained in fine arts and media communications, and spent a spell working in agency and corporate marketing. I’m grateful for that experience, but it confirmed I preferred working for myself.
Early on, my approach was too radical, rather art-heavy, ostentatious, more repellent than magnetic. So I retooled my thinking, and started leading with listening and observing instead. Ironically, years later, the same people who’d once rejected my younger, more ambitious attitude came back and hired me for the exact creative fuel they’d witnessed. What really got me connected was Trenton, NJ. The community here believed in my work, and I ended up supporting loads of local creative non-profits and more. Eventually, a friend and I bought a building together and I rooted my creative media studio there.
Where I am today is really an extension of that same instinct I started with — choosing whatever medium fits the mood, tone, and message of a project, rather than picking a medium first and forcing the idea into it.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road! Sometimes it’s timing, budgets, technology, life changes. The gods can interfere with your plans no matter how much you’d like to stick to them. So you evolve, emerge, adapt.
Maybe the toughest struggle is the one that’s hardest to see coming: pouring real time into a project that never gets off the ground, or doesn’t go very far. I think it’s called opportunity cost. Every hour you give to something that doesn’t pan out is an hour you didn’t give to something that might have.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I think I specialize in communication problem solving through design, image, and message. But that’s where it splits into two. I do it for myself because I like to, and I do it for commercial clients because that’s the trade. I actually wanted to call this whole practice “Art+Commerce” at one point, (already in use by a different outfit). The idea behind it still holds, though in that each side gives, takes, or borrows from the other. The art side can fuel the business side, and vice versa.
Alongside that, I’ve done a lot of community visibility work, and in that world I’d call myself a community organizer more than an artist. It’s about getting people to join in, support a group, volunteer, be part of something — or just participate — either way, get a positive community experience.
What I’m most proud of are my community development projects, whether I’ve been the one leading them or just contributing to someone else’s. As for what sets me apart honestly, I’m not sure anything does. Maybe my sense of humor.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Never give up.
Pricing:
- Upon Request
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wilkinsonmedia.net/
- Instagram: @data_wolf
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilkinsonmedia/
- Other: https://www.datawolf.net/
