NEELIN VIEWS: Plante at home in commercial art world

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This article was published 20/12/2022 (1232 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Taking a leap of faith to become an independent entrepreneur can be a daunting task. Alex Plante, a local artist residing in Winnipeg who graduated from École secondaire Neelin High School in 2009, has done just that. Since graduation, Plante has lived in Australia, earned a degree in film, worked in radio, become a mother and started her own business. She currently operates a website and digital store where she sells her art and has also done a lot of work to enrich her community. Plante’s story is nothing short of inspirational to aspiring entrepreneurs and artists. (Some responses have been edited for length.)

Q: How and when did you figure out an artistic career was right for you?

Alex Plante (AP): I always knew I wanted to do something creative. For a long time, I was like ‘Oh, maybe I’ll go into musical theatre, acting, or singing.’ And then I thought ‘Oh, maybe I’ll go into film,’ and then that didn’t really work out. I’ve been drawing my whole life. I was always the person who had to design the choir posters and stuff at school and T-shirts and stuff like that. So, it just kind of hit a point where I was [thinking] ‘This is my one marketable skill that I have ready to go, and I need to quit all my jobs and just start doing something for myself.’ So, it was more out of necessity, and I [thought] ‘I hope I like it because we’re gonna do it,’ and [it turns out] I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

Q: What kind of schooling did you do for art?

AP: I have not actually ever taken a proper art class. I almost decided to go to school for animation and to get into a school I was looking at the application and I needed a Grade 12 art credit. So, I came back [to Neelin] actually. And Tara Leach, I took her art class at Neelin. So, I’ve never actually [taken one past high school] other than I’ve done lots of studying online.

Q: What was it like taking the entrepreneurial leap of faith from a safer, secure path into the unknown?

AP: It was really hard, but at the same time it was the obvious choice to do because I was passable at all of my jobs. I wasn’t great at any of them. I stuck in radio for a little bit because I could make my own schedule. It was fun [being] surrounded by a bunch of weirdos. But making the leap into … working for myself and doing the entrepreneur thing — it was hard for a couple years, and [I] was very poor the first couple of years. And after I kinda broke through and started actually making profits. It was so freeing.

Q: How is it managing a store and basically all the parts that are anything other than being creative. For example: marketing, promotion, supply or legal?

AP: There’s not a lot of legal. Taxes are the main legal thing. And it’s very, very boring. I have an accountant that does most of it for me, and I feel bad for him every year because I just hand him a stack of unsorted receipts and I [say], ‘I’m so sorry, John, but please help me.’ Taxes suck. I try to have a spreadsheet that I update through the year. I always stop updating it by May. [For marketing], social media is important, probably 40 per cent of my job at least. And it’s probably the most important part of my job other than actually drawing and selling stuff because without it, you don’t really get clients. People who broke into the industry years ago, they don’t really need it, but anybody new very, very much does. You can schedule things through official apps now and [schedule] things quickly on your phone. You can quickly make a post and repost something. So that is OK. The shop part is a weakness of mine because I am not a naturally organized person, so I set up shelves in my office. Then I have all of my prints on the shelves, too, so I can see what I have in stock. I used to have them in a bin, and [didn’t] know what I had. I don’t know what I need to order. I try to have a little bit of everything on hand so that I can just send it to the post office. But it’s especially [challenging] with this one [child] now. It’s a big juggling act, a lot of work. Like, I’m self-employed and I’m like, yes, I’m an artist, but really, I’m [doing] six jobs.

Q: You have some big-name clients. How did you achieve that? And what advice do you have for aspiring artists regarding networking?

AP: For marketing and networking, No. 1, I’d say draw or find your market and find that niche that you can fill, but you’re only gonna find that by drawing things that make you happy, drawing things for you first of all. And also look around at other people who are doing work similar to you. And make sure you’re on their level or above because if you’re not at that level, you’re not gonna get those clients. You need to be at that professional level and you also need to have something that sets you apart. So, something, I don’t know if it’s just a style of colouring or your subject material or if you have something that can be recognizably yours, that is a big help. As far as networking goes, shoot your shot, but don’t be like somebody who’s only trying to get things out of people — make actual friends. Make friends with co-workers and people that you meet and people online. That is a big, big help. The big thing that got my career started was when I worked in radio. I worked with Ace Burpee, who is like the most well-known radio person in Manitoba. People know him everywhere, and he shared something of mine and that kind of made everything take off and I wouldn’t have been able [to get to this point]. I might have gotten here eventually, but it went way faster. Only because I just happened to be friends with somebody. Be genuine. It would be my advice.

Q: What’s your advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

AP: You can’t do it all alone. You need people to help. [To] teach you how things work. You need to have a village around you. You need to have people who support you. I wouldn’t be able to do it if my partner wasn’t so supportive. Be kind to everybody you meet. You never know who is going to be a help. It could be the most innocuous person. But also learn to recognize because there are signs where people who will actually just hinder you as well, and you need to learn who those people are as well. It’s all about people. The technical stuff. You can hire an accountant. You can learn how to organize things, but the people skills are the most important thing.

Q: What’s your general advice for students looking to pursue art as a career? Where should they start?

AP: Start by getting good. Practise the fundamentals. Learn colour theory. Like, really, really practise it because there’s a lot of beginner art out there that looks exactly the same. And if you maybe want to, for example, write and draw comics, if your drawing isn’t up to scratch, make sure that your writing is very, very good. The only way to do that is to just do it all the time. You just have to. Perfection is the enemy of done, and there are so many pieces even for clients where I’m like, I could spend more time on this and make it perfect. But [they’re] not gonna care because it’s perfectly fine as it is. It’s good enough. And so, I just turn them out and I get them to the client, and they pay me. And then I’m on to the next. And that’s really the only way to get through an art career. So, you really need to pick and choose what you’re going to be a perfectionist about. And a lot of deliberate practice. And then after that, I would say just start sharing it. You probably have to do it online now. But start sharing it, start networking with other artists online, follow them, comment on their stuff. Eventually people will start checking you out [too, so] make sure you know your hashtags. You will eventually get noticed if you’re good, that’s just how it works. It might take a long time, but you will eventually get noticed.

Q: What projects are you currently working on or have planned for the future?

AP: Well, I’m very part-time at the moment. I’m doing the full-time, stay-at-home mom thing, and then I’m working evenings, weekends, whenever I can, whenever she’s napping. I’ll probably do some more work for … a bank here in Winnipeg. [I’ve done] a lot of their ads, website stuff, billboards and illustrations for them. I’ll probably continue to do some more in the future. I really want to write. I really wanna write some comics. I’ve been working on it for years [and] I still haven’t figured out how to do it because it makes me nervous. But I do wanna do a memoir comic about working radio or write a fluffy little romance comic. I wanna do, maybe, you know, a series of comics about being a mom, having a baby, when I lived in Australia, there’s so many stories I wanna tell. I wanna write children’s books. Like there’s so much I wanna do. [I’m currently producing] calendars. I did a calendar series of tourism posters going back to my [roots], showcasing Manitoba. So, I started doing a bunch of vintage tourism poster-style pieces at various locations around Manitoba, trying to get as many places as I possibly can. But this year, I finally had enough to make a calendar out of it. So, I do have calendars for sale. I’m closing my shop probably around Dec. 20. I can’t even guarantee that you’d get things by Christmas past like the 15th, but I do have those on my website.

Q: I’ve seen that you’ve been involved a couple times in some community beautification projects. Can you speak to your participation in that?

AP: Yes, so a couple of years ago, I made it a goal [to] paint a mural. I’ve never done them before. And then, by chance I was very lucky. Someone I know was running a program called Cool St Winnipeg. Cycling [and] pedestrian activism, that’s kind of his thing, and he chooses to do it through city beautification to make the pedestrian bridges popular and bring awareness to bike lanes and all that kind of stuff. So, we’ve done a bunch of murals together now and because I am good at what I do and I’m very quick and on the ball — which is something you need to be able to do in this industry, tailoring your projects for the budget and everything like that — I’m a go-to person for him. I’ve done four projects with him this summer alone. The coolest one I did was the corner of Osborne and Stradbrook in Winnipeg here. And it’s just a corner that was by the bus stop and it was always dirty and dingy and never used for anything. And then somebody like the neighbourhood planning board for Osborne hired us to go make it nice. So, I painted it rainbow and bright and colourful and everything, and people started using it for events every Friday. They would have people come down and do dance lessons or workouts, and people would go and like, do skateboarding stuff on the stairs, and it became a neighbourhood community space for people to actually use. When in all my years living here, I’ve never seen it used before, and I do think there is something to that. When you make something accessible and inviting and everything, you can really change a lot of your community, just by making things look nice.

Q: Any final pieces of advice for aspiring artists?

AP: I just think it’s important to laugh at yourself. I don’t like people who take themselves really seriously. You know, if I fall on the street if [I] slip on some ice and I fall and I’m like, I hope somebody saw that and laughed because otherwise I fell for nothing. There was nothing gained out of this, you know. So many problems in this world are caused by people who can’t laugh at themselves, and I think that’s one of the most important traits that you can have.

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You can find Alex Plante’s art on her website at aplante.com or her Instagram and Twitter @alexplantewpg.

» Renna Kelly is a Grade 11 student at École secondaire Neelin High School.