Getting to know Emily
Illustrator

FW: Give us a glimpse into your career and how it looked in the years leading up to the pandemic?

Emily: I graduated from ACAD (AUArts) in 2011, Illustration major. Like most artists, it took me a while to find my path. I worked a few odd jobs the first few years of graduating - From marketing, to part-time work at a print shop as a designer. I also spent many years creating surface design collections for the home/furniture market. I dabbled in comic books and conventions for a few years as well. I joined the Royal Bison Art & Craft fair community from 2014. In some ways, I've been slowly building my client list and networks since 2011. From 2016-2018, I took on a teaching position in illustration at a local art college - which was a challenge, at one time essentially juggling 2 full-time jobs. Since 2018, I have been working full time as a freelance illustrator. Before the pandemic, I worked partially at home and partially at cafes. And I later shared an office briefly with the talented Andrew Benson at Timbre in early 2019, up until summer when I had my baby. Since the pandemic, I have been working from home again, sharing a make-shift office with my partner. I currently work in commercial illustration (magazines, murals, identity), and I am exploring community driven work, public art, and visual fine art. I also help organize the Royal Bison with the wonderful Vikki Wiercinski.

FW: Can you summarize what your journey into motherhood looked like ?

Emily: Motherhood is something that I've had to "learn along the way". As a single child and also an immigrant to Canada, I did not grow up around many children. I didn't really have any expectations of what motherhood would be, or what it is like to be around young children 24/7. But I was happy to learn during pregnancy and now motherhood. My mom also has a similar disconnect, as she was separated from me between the age of 1-5. She came to Canada at that time through an exchange program. So my journey into motherhood started with a lot of disconnect and naive expectations. And having my son has helped me find my inner child, which is lovely. It turns out that I am just a bigger baby - I have no problem drawing pictures, making messes, and singing/dancing all day long.

FW: What does your current work/life situation look like balancing roles of mother and designer?

Emily: Much of 2019/2020 was a sensitive balance of multi-tasking. I am self-employed, which meant that I had no EI/paid mat leave, so I mostly worked through the first year, starting at 2-3 weeks after my son was born. I started balancing work pretty early on - Partially because I was naive and unprepared for motherhood, but also due to internal pressures to continue my business. After working many years to build my client list, I felt like I had no option but to keep working. I was afraid of potentially "starting over", and having no paid mat-leave was also an incentive to keep working. So during the first year, I snuck in power-work periods during naps, and late at night after my baby's bedtime (anxiously, as he was a very sensitive sleeper). Sometimes I had to hire help for production/printing. I also tried sharing a part-time nanny with a friend at one point in early 2020, until Covid. Overall, lots of walking, bouncing, and phone meetings/emails outside. Although I was tired and often stressed the first year, it somehow all magically worked out! Looking back at 2020, I wish I was able to enjoy the first year more. But the reality is that my stress did not cancel the wonderful times of bonding and being present with the baby. And at the end of the day, I only remember the joyful milestones.

FW: What inspired your Mother’s Day graphic?

Emily: The first graphic is about my work/life balance. It's really just a silly depiction, because a lot of the items are not literal - I don't tie my baby to my back with a string, and I haven't found the time to exercise yet, haha. What's more realistic was a sleeping baby on my left arm, and a partially-free right arm trying to draw on a wacom tablet. That illustration was originally made for Maclean's Magazine about work/life balance, and I took a personal spin to it. The second graphic is my stubborn determination to make my son laugh around the 6-10 month age. He was a bit of a serious baby and was very independent. I would spend hours jumping, singing, goofing around, trying to get his attention. Sometimes he might give a chuckle, but most times he would watch quietly and eventually decide to do something more interesting.

Parenting through the pandemic

FW: What does a typical day for you look like right now?

Emily: A typical work day will start with my son waking up around 7:30am. I change his diaper, he sits on the potty for a while, and we brush his teeth/hair, and change his clothes. He sometimes likes to colour and draw pictures while I change and prepare his food. We eat breakfast together as a family, and then we go see his friends at his (new) dayhome. I spend my mornings answering emails, providing estimates, zoom meetings, packaging online sales, and starting some illustration work around 10:30am. Lunch is with my partner, who also works in the same home-office with me. And my afternoon is usually pretty quiet in production mode. I pick up my son around 4pm, we wash our hands/change clothes, and often go on a walk. I cook while dad watches the baby, and we eat dinner together. After our meals, my son likes to go for an evening walk to try to spot some fire truck at a fire station nearby. He gets really excited if we can spot one pulling out of the station (which is actually pretty often). His bedtime routine starts around 7pm, and he goes to bed at 8pm. When he's in bed, we clean the house and I often spend another 2-4 hours in the evening to finish up work for the day. On the weekends, I generally unplug and we go on adventures in the ravines, or explore different neighbourhoods and playgrounds.

FW: What are the best and worst pieces of advice you’ve gotten as a working mother?

Emily: Not necessarily best/worst, but I've heard a lot of "don't work so hard, it's ok" throughout my first year of motherhood, and that was difficult for me to figure out what to do with that. I find self-forgiveness-centred advice to be easily given, but actually very difficult to implement - especially for self-employed mothers. Self-employment situations are all so unique, and work/life is also often hard to separate. I've also found that most online advice is often not applicable to my situation, or is just there to cause unnecessary stress rather than providing relief. For example, "sleep when baby sleeps" was never possible for me. Most of the time, my son would not sleep unless we were bouncing or walking (which meant neither of us slept). And after 45 minutes of bouncing, if he would grant me 30 minutes of sleep in his crib, I would be too worked up to rest anyways, so I'd catch up on work instead. I found generic and unsolicited advice to be challenging. Rather than figuring out how to "take it easy", what worked for me was learning to ask for help, in very specific ways, and to not feel guilty about it. I've had to ask for more help from my partner, hire an intern from time to time, and also re-design all aspects of my personal and work life to be more efficient. In asking for more and being upfront with my work/life balance, I've also experienced many positive and supporting reactions by my clients - Sometimes offering resources, but also just communicating their support and understanding. I'm still in the process of creating a more sustainable/healthy business practice and work/life balance.

FW: How have you managed balancing your workload in a time when childcare has been sometimes unavailable or sporadic?

Emily: Childcare has been a challenging factor for our family, and we're still figuring it out! Prior to March 2021, we had a lot of anxiety and uncertainty around childcare. My partner is employed and working from home, and I balanced parenting and work for a lot of the first ~18 months. We had to assign childcare shifts as well from time to time when I had trouble juggling deadlines. During the very stressful times, we had to ask for help from our parents in Calgary a couple of times in the form of longer-term stays. In terms of Covid, I recognize the privilege of my partner and I working from home, and our parents both being retired, so our risk has been low, and we are grateful to have an emergency childcare backup option when absolutely needed. But for most of parenthood so far, my partner and I shared childcare shifts, and accepted a new normal of "work as much as possible when the baby goes to sleep", and thus accepting more flexibility with work schedules. Recently, we started at a dayhome with a small number of children. We feel comfortable with this new setup, and finally have a relatively-steady routine going! Our little one is very happy, and is turning out to be a very social little guy. So we are feeling optimistic.

FW: What supports and/or resources have made it possible for you to take on both career and child-rearing responsibilities?

Emily: I really valued the mom and baby program by AHS. This was just before the pandemic started, at 5-8 months. It was a wonderful break and I found it comforting to hear from a large range of "normal" experiences. It was a relief for me to talk with real moms, rather than fear-driven resources online. Through the program and as well as in my personal life, I have met many self-employed and creative parents through online/community networks. That has been really helpful to talk to other moms who juggle self-employment and motherhood, sharing resources, etc.

FW: What have been some of the biggest challenges or changes to your work life since the start of the pandemic?

Emily: Since we do not have family in the city, childcare has been the biggest challenge. But I'm grateful to work in such a supportive community - Fellow artists, clients, colleagues have all been very understanding and flexible. My processes has changed, but so has the entire illustration industry. I've shifted my work to be outcome-orientated, rather than follow a more traditional process in creating. I've adapted even more to online tools, apps, programs to help me be more efficient. I also now buy my groceries online! In some ways, motherhood (even without Covid) has made me a more efficient artist, and has challenged me to be more clear in both my communications as well as my visual language. It has also challenged my drawing style as well - Finding a healthier and happier balance between commercial work and the simple the love of making personal art, sketching, experimenting, etc.. I'm grateful that my small business can adapt quickly. And I am excited to see how these changes shape my work in the future.

FW: Has the pandemic impacted how you parent your child/ren?

Emily: Kai is my first and only baby, and he was born in the summer 2019. So I don't really have a reference point to parenting before the pandemic. My first 6 months of motherhood was also very isolated, so the pandemic just extended my experience of early motherhood for a little longer than expected. I'm grateful to have so much time spent with him, but I also wish that programs and resources (such as library programs or music/swimming class) would have been options at this current age. Like many other parents, we are sad that our little one has not had the opportunity to meet most of our extended family, or make more friends. So I'm sure that my role as a parent has been impacted due to the pandemic. If anything, at least in being more creative to keep him busy, interested, happy, and entertained.

FW: How have the demands of motherhood impacted your career?

Emily: At first, I was afraid that the impact would be negative to my career. But honestly, motherhood has only been positive in every way. I've learned to be more creative, more aware of my time, make more impactful art, be more direct about what I need, and in many ways more inspired. I now have a new perspective as an illustrator when working on projects, but also in my overall career path. Over these past 2 years, my illustration work has grown. I also began to expand my role as a visual artist - Pursue more work with communities, work to create impact beyond the commercial art lens, and also not limit myself as a digital commercial artist. I've been increasing my role as an organizer at the Royal Bison, I'm currently working on a few community-centred murals and public art projects, and I've also been putting on a sketch project in Chinatown to bring more attention to issues around cultural erasure. I've also turned the lens around to do more introspective work, learning about myself, my family, and culture. So I feel that motherhood has naturally helped my career in bringing in more balance, authenticity, and happiness.

FW: Have you formed a personal motto or philosophy surrounding your recent experiences?

Emily: I don't have a pandemic or motherhood motto that I've formed or live by. But my mom has taught me from a very young age that "anything is possible". She is an optimist and hard worker, and that positive inspiration has resonated with me as well. That concept challenged me in art school - believing that there is always a visual solution out there and I just have to look for it. I'm naturally a problem solver - And that is how I navigate creative work as well as my personal life. With motherhood and running a creative/non-essential business during a pandemic, I've been reminded that anything is possible once again. I'm very grateful for this inherited optimism - And it's helped me get through many challenges.

FW: Has the pandemic positively impacted your career/life in any way?

Emily: As a parent, I'm grateful for being able to spend more time with my son. My partner would say the same. I'm fortunate to have a small business that can adapt and change quickly as needed. As a freelance illustrator, I've worked quite independently in the past, so zoom meetings and emails are not new to me. In some ways, people are more understanding of my work situation now that many have experienced working from home. Most are even more mindful in booking my time for meetings over simple things that can be easily resolved through email. So for me, it's been more efficient. The pandemic gave me the motivation to be more present online, and to change up some inefficient processes in my work. It's also allowed me to connect with people outside of my usual circle, and I am hopeful that these new connections and relationships will result in stronger communities once the pandemic is over.

FW: If you had to pick, what would be the biggest thing mothering through the pandemic has changed your perspective on?

Emily: The pandemic itself has revealed inequalities for marginalized communities. As difficult as it is to mother through the pandemic, I also am grateful for having the choice to stay home, work from home, and keep our household risk low. This realization inspires me to create with more purpose, towards community-driven art initiatives, for a more fair future for all children. Although I am still early in my journey in community arts, this past year of pandemic motherhood has changed me, my parenting style, and my career goals. All for a better perspective.

Check out Emily’s apparel + print contributions to our Mother’s Day Collection with The Branded Good!