Today we’d like to introduce you to Violet Shin.
Hi Violet, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I think I was drawing a lot as a kid, more than I read for sure (although I read a lot of picture books growing up..)
When I was in early elementary school, I remember I was reading so many graphic novels (Totally Spies, Winx Club, and a lot of Korean novels) that I was completely neglecting “actual” books. My dad confiscated all of my comic books. I got so bored of reading wordy books that I started creating my own graphic novels (heavily inspired by Powerpuff Girls), and I based the characters on myself, my sister, and my friends. I think I drew almost 10 stories.
I was directly inspired by the graphics of the time- marketed towards girls (Barbie, Bratz, Polly Pocket…) and then as I got older, Paris Hilton, Mean Girls, chick flicks with cool costume design like Legally Blonde and Clueless. Whenever I doodled, which was often, I always drew girls, women, the things around them like clothes, shoes, bags, I think I loved how detailed everything could get. Then I started preparing for my college admissions portfolio in high school, which was an incredibly tumultuous and dark time in my life. While my life was falling apart due to a snowball of shit that happens to an angsty teenage girl, I painted for hours every day to have options to send to schools. I lied to my parents that I would apply to a variety of art schools across the East Coast, and I only applied to a couple in NYC only.
I hated my suburban town. I couldn’t drive, I had so much stupid beef with people I did not look up to, I was so over it.
I was so pretentious, like I’m going to NYC and I’m better than you (most of my graduating classmates went to really great schools but no one was really going to art school from my academically rigorous town in Virginia.
I was not excited to go to NYC for the purpose of learning how to be an artist or to find a career. I actually had no direction at all. All I knew was I wanted to draw, but that’s usually what everybody does before moving onto something more functional like graphic, product, fashion design… architecture, interior design. Only knowing how to draw and paint didn’t feel like it would be enough. The weight of my traumatic high school experience was why (to put it simply) I wasn’t too focused on “How am I going to hone my skills and learn to be an artist who can make a living?”
I was absolutely boy crazy for the first 2 years of Parsons. I sabotaged so many friendships and school wasn’t even on my mind. My self esteem was so low, I hated intimacy but was so sexually preoccupied.. I mean if you think about a college freshman at any other campus school that’s like an actual American college experience, it’s pretty normal to just want to party and hook up with people when you get to college.
At least that’s the kind of American culture I consumed so I felt very out of place. Parsons kids were so locked in, so intense and serious and my brain was literally jello. I have very few memories of what I was like because it genuinely felt like I was sleepwalking through life at that point.
Then I joined the Illustration program, by accident because I actually stumbled upon the Illustration floor of the Parsons building while trying to get to my counselor, and I remember being so wowed by the projects the students had been working on then. All these cool cute figures and drawings and comics.
The second half of my college experience, I actually started to explore what kind of art I wanted to create but I struggled a lot finding a subject. But honestly, looking back, all of the blob-like animations and drawings with no focus, looked pretty good to me.
Summer of 2022, right after graduating university, I had a severe mental health episode and couldn’t hold down the few job I managed to get by by lying on my resume…. Paralegal at a personal injury firm, customer service rep for health insurance company..
Then, Evelyn reached out to me asking me if I could make an animation for her sister’s Youtube channel. The Ha Sisters at the time were rapidly growing their following, blowing up everywhere (I had met Evelyn through mutual NYC friends while clubbing in Korea a few summers before)
That was when I created my first Youtube intro for Erica. I didn’t really know what I was doing, just her liking my drawing style at the time was enough for me. I worked day and night for almost a week to put together a short sequence for Erica, and she loved it. Although at the time I didn’t get much attention, I didn’t know how many doors this project would open for me. I spent another year working odd jobs and barely drawing, and then at exactly a year after my graduation, my former professor reached out to me to tell me that my thesis project, an animated short film about my experience getting an abortion in high school, had won 8th place at the Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship competition and a winner for the International Motion Art Awards 11 for AI-AP (American Illustration and Photography)
I had hated my thesis film and hadn’t looked at it in over a year, let alone posting it anywhere. I visited the Society of Illustrators museum on the Upper East Side and saw my film viewing there. It was an eye-opening moment for me, to see that people saw value in my work. Around this time, I went to spend a year in Korea to save money on rent and focus on seriously building my portfolio (2023-2024). This was a difficult year for me, as my mental health had been declining, I felt extremely isolated and out of place living in such a conservative society, and everyone around me wondered what exactly I meant by “working on my portfolio”.
I wasn’t making much money, besides from my English tutoring and nannying gigs, so to my family and friends it looked like I was just messing around, not finding a job. I slowly started posting my work on Tiktok and got commissions here and there, and over the course of a few months, managed to build a solid following and consistent income from the freelance work.
Summer of 2024, I moved back to NYC, and was able to support myself living in a studio apartment with a roommate, drawing and doing video editing gigs on the side. I also briefly worked at an art gallery and even went to Art Miami fair and sold some paintings to people with obscene amount of money. At this point I finally felt stable with my work, only 2 years out of undergrad. Despite having felt like i had wasted my years at Parsons being depressed and unproductive, everything I had subconsciously absorbed during my time there had manifested into something real, and mine. I’m on year 3 of being a freelance artist now, and gotten to work with big brands like Fenty Beauty and OPI. I’m definitely living above my means in this crazy expensive city but I’m always working. I take every project that comes my way, sometimes getting paid way less than I’m worth, but honestly, when you know you can really only make $20/hour with a “real job” with a BFA in Illustration, any opportunity to get paid to draw is something I’m grateful for.
I’m still just getting started. All of the work I’ve been doing for brands and influencers have been incredibly fruitful and so, so much fun. Every project is challenging in its own way, and I love it. My next big goal is to save up some money so I can take some time to work on a personal project, something narrative like a short series or a comic. I feel so grateful every day that people all over the world see my work and think it’s cute enough to like it or share it. There’s a girl that messages me quite often asking me to post more tutorials. That’s also something I want to do, is help other people create art. I don’t care if you’re printing my drawings out and tracing it to practice (just don’t sell it for profit, obviously)
As long as you’re not using AI, it doesn’t matter how rough or “amateur” the artwork is, it still has value because somebody put thought and effort into it. I actually see art accounts more and more online that I can see have been influenced by my style and voice, especially if I can see that they’re following me. It warms my heart every time to see people practicing and putting themselves out there. Even if you’re not making a career off of it, I think there’s a lot of inherent value in the human creative spirit. I think it brings people joy, and it’s really special.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As fun as it is to be a freelancer in a city like New York, it definitely has its challenges. I think once this becomes your job, you have to train yourself to be on creative mode all of the time. I don’t really know how exactly it affects us to be creative all the time, but I think it’s easier to get burnt out. I guess you can feel that way about any job out there. I think the inconsistency of freelance work was, especially in the beginning, very nerve-wracking because I was also learning how to budget supporting myself here. I also like to live comfortably, which means I’m always on work mode. I have finally achieved how to turn my drawings from things I was doing for fun, into paying my bills. That means you don’t really have time to think about how being on creative mode all the time is exhausting. You just kind of have to do it if there’s a certain life you want. I’m sure I could move someplace cheaper and smaller and get to work less and maybe have more time to really relax, but I don’t think I would be happy. It helps to live in NYC where a lot of people kind of have that hustler mentality and it’s not really a negative thing to be over-the-top ambitious. It’s for sure tiring though.
The other more concerning challenge is the rise of AI. I’m not opposed to AI inherently- I don’t think it’s all horrible and can probably be helpful streamlining a lot of repetitive tasks, even in the art field. But when I see “art” like illustrations or animations, that are made completely by AI.. it does make me feel sick. I can’t put into words how much I hate it, and how much I hate the people who will eat it up and not care at all that it’s AI-generated.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work centers around femininity, as broad of a topic as it may be. There are so many things you can cover when discussing femininity and girlhood, and I think my work kind of wraps it up in a nice present that shows you all the cute, aestheticized aspects of being a girl or woman. I like how my work can instantly speak to people who get it. I don’t have a grand artist statement about what my work means to me, really.. I think it’s fun to see people react to the things I post. I don’t think I’ll ever stray from the feminine perspective when I draw, just because, well.. I’m a girl and these are the things I think about on a day to day basis.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
I have one vivid memory of my dad taking me to daycare when we were living in Seoul. We were walking out of the apartment complex when my dad had this genius idea to skip daycare and go to the movies. We went to see Spirited Away at the theater, a film I love so much even as an adult. We walked around the mall and I had my portrait drawn by a caricature artist. I was wearing a pink dress I think.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sourviolet.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sourviolet/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/violet-shin-77761815b/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sourviolet
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@sourviolet_
