April Ricafort-Custodio: Illustrator, Designer, and Maker [TCL 11]
The Creative Life is a mini series where I sit with emerging creatives and seasoned professionals to know and share their stories. They show a side of the creative life that we don’t often see: vulnerability, mistakes made, questions about the way their industries work, and lessons they’ve learned, both the painful and the eureka moments.
April is an illustrator and designer, working on client projects while running her Etsy shop Hunahuna (“thinking” in the Bisaya language). She and I collaborated on a T-shirt project back in 2011 for my freelancing blog, The Freelance Pinoy. After the blog folded, we continue to be friends connected via social media.
Let’s begin with your journey. How did you get started as an artist and a craftswoman, and how did you arrive at where you are today?
Since I was a kid, I knew I’ve always wanted to draw and create things out of scraps.
I remember my father bringing home stacks of paper from the office so that I can doodle on them (we have limited school supplies). A huge part of my childhood was spent sketching, painting, making paper dolls, sketching dresses, making paper crafts.
Growing up, I’ve handpainted on shirts for friends and relatives. I also made handmade cards during special occasions. Eventually, I taught myself graphic design, so I became the family and friends’ go-to person for invitations, posters, logos, t-shirt designs.
I loved creating, so I thought I would take up Fine Arts in college so that I can get paid to do those things. Unfortunately, all artists in our family became doctors so I eventually pursued BS Computer Science and a lucrative career in I.T.
The thrill of developing applications and “creating” utilities and services for clients — plus the prestige, remuneration, trips abroad — made me stay in the corporate world for a decade.
However, at the back of my mind I knew I had to do something about the creative pangs. For a time, it felt like a curse leading a double life, only doing creative work when time permits.
Eventually, I took a leave of absence from work to try freelancing gigs initially as a virtual assistant, project coordinator and WordPress designer. I did that for a few months but went back to I.T. to try becoming a database admin thinking I just need a lateral career change.
After a year, it still didn’t feel right so I resigned and went back to freelancing. That was when I got referred to a volunteer team of a senatorial candidate.
It was my first truly paid gig as a graphic designer and I loved the experience. I continued to look for art-related clients: company branding, vector designing, formatting ebooks, watercolor designs for kids’ shirts, etc.
It was also during this time that I married and had a daughter. When she was a toddler, I discovered felt toys and made a felt toy sandwich for her. Someone saw the photos on Facebook and suggested I start selling them. I got a few orders, so I started my online store.
I’m hoping I can find a way to earn passive income so that I can stay at home and be with my daughter (the inspiration for Hunahuna’s logo).
Tell us more about Hunahuna and the toys you make.
Our toys are all handmade so it takes several hours and effort to design and produce one as we use original patterns.
That’s where I am right now — trying to find my niche as we sell create all sorts of plush toys and bespoke items. I’m still figuring out how to price our products (I’ve often been told I price them too low) and to improve our online presence.
Pricing handmade products is hard because I need to compete with the mass-produced China-made products. I recently read (not sure if this is still accurate) that Toy Kingdom only has one Filipino brand (Plush and Play)!
I wish that Filipinos would appreciate local products/craftsmen/artists more (which led me to create LocaLove Philippines). More importantly, I hope that with the advent of makers and small businesses from all over, this will change soon. We’re in exciting times!
Who inspires you? Who do you consider as your mentor/s?
Nature, paintings, books, movies and music all inspire me. I’m not the religious type but I know The Great Architect exists.
I look up to a lot of artists since childhood, so it’ll be difficult to enumerate. But I was lucky to have met Komikero Artists through Jonas Diego, Johnny Danganan and Gerry Alanguilan, a group of comics artists and enthusiasts from UPLB who helped me “unlearn” my corporate ways and adapt to my new world where there was no steady paycheck.
There’s also an illustrator Yuko Shimizu. She was so kind, responding to my inquiry when I asked how she was able to pursure her dreams from working in a PR firm for 11 years into becoming an award-winning illustrator.
There’s also Ed Tadeo who I begged to teach me the basics of watercoloring. I can’t call them mentors because mentors choose their mentees — so I guess you can call me their “true fan”! 😀
On your creative process: What goes into each piece of work?
They say that if one has to be truly professional, he must not wait for the muse, that he should be able to produce without needing to be emotionally attached to the process or the output.
So I’m not yet a professional then — hah!
It takes some time for me to really get into the actual work. At first, I try to research and then talk to everyone involved. Then I try to get a feel of what they want, balancing it with what I think they need. And then when I present the work to my customer, I say a prayer and hope that they’d fall in love with it.
So in short, a piece of me is in everything I put out.
Do you have a piece of work that you consider particularly significant, that you have an emotional relationship with?
I painted this tuyo (dried fish) for my mom’s gourmet tuyo bottle packaging.
I think it was the first time I’ve painted something that looked like the real thing, so it was really hard for me to let go.
But since I needed to come up with more products (for the bazaar we joined), I had to frame it. A buyer took notice and she also snagged up the sinigang na hipon as well as the pork adobo paintings.
I was hesitant to let go of my beloved tuyo, thinking I should just return her money. She looked at me and said, “Well, I just liked it because I thought it looked like a tinapang bangus!” (smoked milkfish). Clients can be brutally honest sometimes.
One of the best things about your store, Hunahuna, is how varied and visually appealing it is to both kids and adults. What went into the process of setting up and running your own online store?
On Etsy, they encourage store owners to come up with a story.
That wasn’t hard for me because I do have a story, and it was very long.
The initial challenge was pricing my handmade products. Even a small felt toy like a banana will take 1–2 hours because of the preparation and hand sewing involved.
A sewing machine can be handy for large items but with toddler toys, we often do it by hand. It helps that I live in a developing country so I can afford to charge competitive prices.
I’m also lucky that my products are light and small so the shipping fee is still affordable even for customers overseas. I couldn’t find local Etsy sellers so I joined this Facebook Group called Etsy Sales — a very helpful bunch! Got a lot of feedback from them that I should apply soon.
What is your biggest struggle or fear as a designer and maker? More importantly, how do you manage such challenges?
My recurring fear is that I am running out of time.
I started during my early 30s and I now have a young family to take care of. There are still so many things that I want to try and so many people to learn from.
In the book Outliers, it was mentioned that to be an expert, you must have practiced 10,000 hours! I’ll be a deranged middle-aged woman by then!
Another reason I feel this way is that our parents are in their senior years. I’m seeing first hand how life will be during retirement and the importance of passive income. And on top of that, the day will come when it’ll be hard to create.
My husband has a grandfather who used to be a painter/illustrator. His grandfather said he stopped painting while he was in his 70s because his hands could no longer do it. I’ve also read about an artist who had to stop painting around 60 because he could no longer see well.
When fear starts to take over, I’m no longer productive. I take break from work and focus on the present, my husband and my daughter. They remind me that they’re happy so I should also be happy and stop worrying.
One of the biggest roadblocks creatives struggle with is finishing what they’ve started. What pieces of advice can you give to start and finish a project or product?
Uh oh. I’m guilty of this… I am a scanner/polymath and always coming up with lists of ideas. I write them all down on a notebook, on two Workflowy accounts, on my cellphone’s notepad, on my Trello boards, on my Moleskine planner and I have two Gmail accounts. On a good day, these tips do work for me:
- Before you sleep, plan your day ahead and keep a routine. If you don’t believe me, believe Haruki Murakami, Maya Angelou, etc.
- Try the pomodoro technique. This works well but I’ve started gaining weight since my workstation is beside the fridge.
- Rely on technology to save time and to work smarter: iPhone/Android apps, tools like Google Drive/Calendar, task management tools like Trello, crowdfunding, Xend, Uber, GrabExpress, the Internet — I love them all!
What’s it like running a business and raising a child all at the same time? How do you manage both responsibilities without burning yourself out?
Every family has their own way of making things work, so what can work for us might be difficult for another.
I guess I’m lucky in a way that I married someone who happens to share my passion for art and who believes that I can be a work-at-home mom. (So kids, choose wisely. Choose the one who understands the crazy in you.) I also had to let go of being a control freak and to let go of the concept of being a supermom.
After a year of doing everything by myself, we re-welcomed our helper, Bebeng, so that I can delegate her the chores that usually take me 6 hours to do everyday. This means I can have the time and energy for freelancing, my art, make products, and wife and mom duties. It was a great move actually! In fact, I taught Bebeng how to make felt toys and she earns a part of the profit for every product that she makes.
Last Christmas, she proudly told me that she doubled her salary because we had lots of orders. This is the reason why I strive to continue Hunahuna even when sales are slow and the profit minimal. I have a feeling that I can help more moms like Bebeng if we get to the point that we can increase our production and be able to accept more custom work (we’re going to launch something in the next few weeks!).
When I start feeling like I’m burning out, Bebeng and I switch roles. She takes on the sewing, while I cook for the family and play with my daughter. And when I get tired, or my daughter gets tired of me, I go back to work.
What is the most important thing people should know about you as a creative?
Creatives need time to be alone, to process their thoughts.
This is the hardest thing when you have young kids. You need to take care of your own child but you also have to give some time to the artist child in you.
What do you aspire for? What steps do you intend to take to get to that point?
To get to the point of success where I can focus on designing more products, have time for practicing watercolor painting, while at the same time helping people while generating enough passive income for my daughter’s education and our retirement plan.
To get to that point, I should act faster and be disciplined because I need to execute and test a lot of ideas in order to fail enough times and finally figure out how to make it work. I’m also thinking about hiring a life coach who has actually done this.
How do you spend your free time?
When Tala’s asleep and I don’t have an urgent deadline, I spend it with my husband, watching movies and our favorite TV series.
Recently, I enrolled my daughter into ballet because she enjoys it. In a way, it’s a scheduled hour of “free time” for me. You really have to schedule your free time otherwise you’ll easily get sucked into the vortex of motherhood.
What book would you recommend to fellow creatives?
These books come to mind:
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
- The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
To be honest, I haven’t fully finished the first two. They’re meant to be slowly digested as you need to apply the concepts and be open to change. They’ve both helped me let go of some of my oldest beliefs.
What is your favorite tool to use when creating work?
The Internet. I can’t always afford to buy books, travel, meet like-minded people, seek therapy, and attend workshops, so I’m grateful for technology. The other day, I heard someone say, “You know what, Van Gogh would’ve flourished in present times.” And I agree.
What advice can you give to the young creative starting out?
To always believe in yourself no matter what, even if your own family won’t believe in you. See book #3 above.
It’s actually my daughter’s storybook that we’ve grown to love after reading it a hundred times. If ever there’s only one thing that she can remember about me, it’s the message from the book that she should spend her life believing in herself, no matter what her parents say.
How can the community best support you and your work as a designer and maker?
I have a couple of ideas:
- Do not support the notion that artists should work for free. We exert the same time and effort as any other professional so we deserve to be paid.
- Discourage crab mentality. True progress can only be achieved if we all help each other.
- More affordable coworking spaces/studios. I know Filipinas Heritage Library is a good option but we can’t sew there (or can we?). I hope someone can rent a huge building and allow low rental fee for makers. That’s my dream passive income vehicle, too.
- This one’s for the next president: have a separate tax regime for micro and small startups so that we don’t need to go underground just to survive.
The Creative Life is a series of stories of artists, makers, and entrepreneurs on the how and why behind the work that they do. At the heart of this project is my personal mission to listen and share both aspiring and experienced creatives from around the world. If you enjoyed this story and want more, you can get the latest release in your inbox by signing up here.
