Entrepreneurship and the Artist
Allyssa Lewis was a former animator on “Archer” and now the founder of “My Animation Life”. One of the skills she’s putting into practice in her professional life is that, as the founder of MAL, she dedicates this as a career advancement and placement for artists within animation-related industries. From what is said on her website, she helps recruit and uncover talented people from every aspect of the animation pipeline. MAL offers many things like animation maps, classified listings, and portfolio reviews. Their classes and workshops help provide hands-on career path planning to artists in whatever stage they may be in.
Back when she was in college, she created a list to help her get by: where she is, where the students are, and where she needs to be to get in order to get where she wants to go. She would make another list of things she wanted to do and add value on what she can do. She started the United Student Forum in SCAD. She helped create SCAD radio, SCAD newspaper, and SCAD magazine. She worked hard to get the organizations up and running so that she and others could have stronger resumes and more opportunities later on. She learned about production process, how stiff deadlines can be, and how important they are in order to get things done in advance. She was able to interview professionals and bring them to her school to speak and present to other students. It gave her the opportunity to hear what they had to say but also have them speak to other students. This, in advance, helped her figure out how to network and interact better with others. Being in so many organizations helped her to create her own company and step down from being vice president in one of the organizations she worked with.
What I learned from Allyssa Lewis is to be bold and not be afraid to fall on your face. It’s okay to fail hard. If you are going to fail, fail with your best effort. Powerhouse through it. That if you fall, you get back up. I will incorporate a lot of this advice into my own artist pursuits and professional goals, especially if I want to make myself known in the industry. Her coming from an average background, having average grades, and average social skills really reassures me that if she can make it, so can I. Especially since I feel average myself.
