79 - Transforming Yourself with Virginia Hein

🎙 new podcast episode + 🔑 the idea of permission

👋 Hello.

Today I am sharing the new episode of the SneakyArt Podcast, a conversation with LA-based artist Virginia Hein. Also some ideas from the conversation, and in particular the idea of permission - that which we seek from others, and that which we withhold from ourselves.

🎙 Ep 31 - Transforming Yourself with Virginia Hein

In this episode, I speak with LA-based urban sketcher and educator Virginia Hein about her education to be a fine artist, her work in the toy industry, and her discovery of urban sketching.

Despite intending to become a painter, Virginia found herself working in the toy industry fresh out of art school. Was she conflicted by this? How did she equip herself for the subtle differences between commercial and fine art? As an educator at Otis College of Art and Design, how does she communicate these distinctions to students today, and what skills do toy designers need to enter this market?

We also discuss urban sketching and how it transformed Virginia's idea of herself as an artist when she became a sketch correspondent on Gabi Campanario's Urban Sketchers Blog.

Follow Virginia's work on Instagram.

Listen to the episode on your choice of streaming service, or pick one below:

Spotify | Apple | PocketCasts | Google | Web | Gaana

🔑 Seeking Permission

A consistent theme running through our conversation was the idea of permission. One would think this word to be antithetical to the working philosophy of an artist, or any kind of creative person. Audacity and stubborn independence are almost essential job requirements.

But permission is a funny thing. Not only do we seek it from others, consciously or subconsciously, often we withhold it from ourselves. Until something comes along to break these barriers. Until someone grants us permission.

🔑 Permission to back yourself

In early podcast episodes, I discovered I had as much to learn from guests sharing ideas that had never occurred to me, as guests saying things I had already thought about. Instances of the latter are crucial in their own way.

For example, before I went to my first Urban Sketchers meetup, I used to be embarrassed by my urge to sketch city scenes from observation. What an odd thing to do, I would think. What will people say!

But after meeting with other Urban Sketchers, I realized that this was a legitimate practice to be a better artist. In fact it had been essential for many artists I admired very much. And thus, I gave myself the permission to do this thing I really wanted to do, without shame or embarrassment.

At a USk Meetup in Chicago. (2019)

🔑 Permission to steal good ideas

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” - Picasso

Whether or not you think of yourself as great, it is useful to get into the spirit of ‘stealing’. This does not mean theft in the traditional sense of the world. Stealing here means imbibing another person’s idea in such a way that it melds with who we are, and thus becomes our own. It no longer belongs to just them.

This kind of stealing is a positive sum game. It does not take anything away from the original. The idea grows bigger the more it is ‘stolen’.

I was inspired by Jason Polan’s quick NYC portraits, to create my own similarly effortless style. This became TinyPeople.

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Good ideas need all the sunlight they can get. If you like what you read, share it with someone else.

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🔑 Permission to make bad art

Maybe the biggest permission we need to grant ourselves is the permission to do a lot of work. A lot of writers and artists put a high premium on the act of putting pen to paper. They hesitate because a lot of work inevitably means a lot more bad work. We do not permit ourselves to do bad work. This is a mistake.

While I was still giving in-person urban-sketching workshops, I would have participants write this header on the blank page -

“Today I am going to make many bad drawings.”

This was a permission I needed them to grant themselves. From this simple sentence would come great freedom. You see, the freedom to do a good job is the same as the freedom to do a bad job. If you stifle one, you also stifle the other.

Brunch (sitting at the counter)

📈 A sense of a trajectory

Virginia Hein went to art school with the idea of becoming a fine art painter. Instead she became a toy designer, working in the ‘lesser’ field of commercial art. Then when she tried to return to fine art many years later, she discovered urban sketching. Suddenly, she was an urban sketching correspondent. Today, in addition to being an urban sketcher, she teaches drawing at Otis College of Art and Design in LA, to future toy designers.

One of my early questions to her was - What was your idea of yourself as an artist when you were in art school? The latter parts of the conversation are all about how so many interesting things happened, even though none of those early ideas panned out.

When we consider artists that we admire, we imagine that their lives were a straight-line pursuit of a particular goal. They always knew what they wanted, and they surely took the shortest path to fulfilling their dreams. They are today exactly what they always wanted to be.

This is a terrible thing to think, not least because it isn’t true. It is a terrible thing because we then impose this unrealistic and unnecessary idea upon ourselves. We use it to berate ourselves, to kick ourselves when we’re down, and to feel like failures even when there is cause to celebrate.

Successful careers rarely follow a pre-determined trajectory.

Speaking with Virginia Hein, with Koosje Koene before her, with Oliver Hoeller, with Tomas Pajdlhauser, with each of my guests all the way back to Paul Heaston in my first recorded conversation, I have found that accidents, happenstance, circumstance, and dumb luck play a great role in all of our lives.

There is no way to prepare for dumb luck. The only thing to do is to be ready for when it may arrive. Give yourself the permission.

✈ Personal Update

Later today I am flying home to India, after nearly 3 years! For the most part, I will be spending time in New Delhi and Kolkata (my hometown). If you live in either of these cities, hit me up and maybe we can meet.

Thank you for your time and attention. I’ll see you next week!