Today, we published a blog post announcing the winners of our recent competition where our alum shared their successes! We have more to share with you in the post below.
JENESY CLAIRE
I wanted to share a quick story about how MATS brought me to where I am today :
In 2014, I had finally quit my job running restaurants in NYC to pursue my dream illustrating children’s books. I went to every conference, workshop, and meet up group I could, showing my portfolio to anyone who would look at it. A generous tip from a mentor suggested I look at MATS to beef up my skills and portfolio, and I was off. I tore through the classes, and I thought, improved a lot. Art directors did not.
At the same time, my husband and I were relocated to Singapore for his work. I was thrown into a whirlwind of new colors and inspiration, and especially TEXTILES. I remembered the home decor course, and jumped in. I was getting good responses at Spoonflower and a few contests, but nothing was sticking. In 2017 I posted a collection called “Aloha” I had made for one of the classes on Instagram, and was overwhelmed by the response. In Singapore, all the moms kept saying, “Gosh, we can’t find any swimsuits in Singapore we like. I would love these on my kids!”
Fast forward to April 2018, I found a factory in Thailand, gathered a bunch of moms to hear what they wanted in their ideal kids’ bathing suits, and King of Redonda Children’s Swimwear was born.
I am now on my second collection, and set to branch out to the US and UK this year! It started with MATS. The supportive community, the helpful feedback, the amazing range of instructors and mentors, truly gave me the confidence to begin this amazing journey.
LISA TRAVIS
I wanted to reach out to the MATS team to let everyone know about my most recent breakthrough in my art career. I have been creating and licensing my art part time for three years now, so reaching out to potential clients no longer causes anxiety and second guessing. Sometimes my work is accepted, sometimes it is not.
At the end of 2018, I was starting to feel burnt out, so instead of looking for more jobs/assignments, I gave myself permission to enroll in the MATS Bootcamp course. The MATS courses have been on my radar for four or five years now, but to be honest I was intimidated by the beautiful work people taking the courses would post to Instagram. I’m so glad I jumped in and ignored that horrible inner critic saying I was not “good enough” to participate. Lilla’s instruction, guidance and examples have been just what was needed to re-ignite my creative fire.
ANNABEL TEMPEST
I’m a total MATS Junkie. I definitely feel like I’ve found my tribe!
At the beginning of the year, I completed MATS MBA (Money Badass), which was a surprising revelation and I enjoyed it far more than I anticipated: it’s an excellent way to get your head around business if you aren’t especially business minded!
It made me reflect on unexpected income sources and the somewhat circuitous route I came about a lovely job. Back in November 2014, I was doing MATS Hot Markets for Your Art Part B and in Editorial week I designed a map of Somerset with no thought of making money from it (I was going to print it onto tea towels as a readymade Christmas present for my Somerset family!). I loved doing it: it absolutely came from a place of joy and didn’t feel like work. A friend saw it and asked if she could have a copy and from there it sort of snowballed. Within a couple of weeks I was at a Christmas market selling prints of it! Fun, slightly scary learning curve.
We have a tea shop in our village, and the owner asked to stock them. I then did some artwork for the teashop, and when it came to her new project, renovating and reopening the village pub, she asked me to do that too! Having never done anything like this I was properly terrified, but Kate is a business woman and knew what she wanted and had faith in the fact that we could do it together. It turned out to be an amazing project and she was a dreamy client to work for, pretty much letting me loose on all the branding.
When I started doing MATS, I had no expectations of where it might take me. The MATS MBA (Money Badass) course has got me thinking about so many new and exciting things. I’m currently doing Bootcamp and have signed up to do Editorial Live in June. Hurray for such a brilliant MATS community!
APARA MANEY
In 2015, I signed up to do MATS Hot Markets for Your Art Part B, and week 4 was map week. I had recently moved back to South Africa after many years in London and chose to do a map of my mum’s new location: Umhlanga near Durban, South Africa. I made the review (this was back when there were weekly reviews in MATS B)! I can’t tell you how amazing that was! It was so motivating and gave me so much confidence.
When I moved to Cape Town, I was inspired to develop a map of my new town. I’ve since printed them on fabric and created a range of tea towels and zipper pouches. They have been really well received and I am now stocked in six local stores!
I could not have done this without that MATS B class all the way back in 2015. I’ve recently finished a map of South Africa and just sent that off to the printers.
It is also so wonderful to be part of an online community of creative people especially when you are far away at the southernmost tip of a continent and feel quite isolated from the rest of the world.
Thank you Lilla and the MATS team for the support and inspiration.
DENIS ORTAKALES
I wanted to share my recent success story. I’ve been illustrating for over 20 years using 3D cut paper, but lately I’ve wanted to change up my style. I’ve been taking MATS classes since spring 2016. Life was particularly stressful at the time so I didn’t participate much but it was the distraction I needed. Gradually, as I completed more assignments, I saw improvement. Many of the assignments are in my current portfolio featuring my new style. I credit Lilla and her relevant and trendy assignments for my improvement. But I also think the quality of work by the other students is so inspiring and sets a high standard. It really pushed me further than I thought I could go. But was my new art good enough to attract new clients? YES! I recently entered a recipe in They Draw and Cook’s March Challenge. Not only was it picked as one of the top four to be featured on their website, but I was contacted by Spirituality and Health magazine to license it for their May issue. Yay!
CLAIRE ELSWORTH
I was on the first MBA course a while ago.
I can’t even put into words just how much MATS MBA (Money Badass) has helped me to focus and take the steps I needed to realise my dream and get my business going. From the amazing course content, information, videos, discussions and continued support from the MBA community, I formulated my business plan and haven’t looked back. MBA also helped me to get to grips with day to day business, such as book keeping, pricing and costing, and gave me the confidence to approach and test manufacturers. I’ve achieved a lot of things along the way, including overhauling my website twice and gaining some freelance work, but I wanted to tell you about two big achievements that I’ve been working away on for some time now. Firstly, I’ve now got two British manufacturers behind me to produce my luxury wallpapers and cushions, and secondly, I’ve been accepted to exhibit at Pulse Trade Show in London later this year.
Thank you for such a brilliant course!
Don’t forget you can drop us a line at [email protected] or complete and email back our fun #myMATSsuccess worksheet any time and share your amazing successes with us!
SOPHIE COLEMAN
It is a tiny thing in the scheme of things, but I have finally emailed my artwork off to a company!
For me this is HUGE, because it has taken me so long to get to this point. I realise it may not be the best board ever, but I have learnt so much doing it and hopefully I will improve every time I do one. I did Creating Collections for Home Décor nearly two years ago and have been reworking parts of it that I thought weren’t so good ever since, alongside various part time jobs.
Now, with increasing courage, I plan to send it out to many more companies. Then I want to start working on the next home décor collection that I have in mind, and the next! Nothing will stop me now!
KIM MALEK
