Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Farmer.
Lauren, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Ever since I was a kid, I knew I was destined to live a creative life. I am the second of four girls in my family and we were constantly using our imaginations to keep us active. We especially loved making up stories and performing for an audience, and could often be found dressing up in costumes and using our parents’ bed as a stage, or writing scripts and recording ourselves with the video recorder. So, it’s no wonder I ended up pursuing acting later in life.
I also was in love with art classes growing up. From kindergarten through college, there wasn’t one year in school that I was not taking an art class. I loved to sketch and draw and realized I had a natural talent for it. I kept pursuing art growing up and eventually wanted to make a career out of it in some way. I debated majoring in photography after taking classes in high school and falling in love with it. When I got accepted into Purdue University, not because of their amazing art school but because we were die-hard Boilermakers in our family, I decided to major in Graphic Design and was very happy with that choice.
When I was 18, I had a lot of dreams for who and what I wanted to be. I wanted to pursue modeling, acting, and design but was only able to tackle one at a time. I decided to go to college and in four years graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree. By my senior year, I finally had my first opportunity to model. I modeled in a runway show for the Fashion Design Departments Senior Show and it gave me so much happiness that I knew I wanted to keep doing it. Since then, I was able to make it to Chicago and was signed by a modeling agency. Once I graduated, I had a job with an advertising agency in Indianapolis as well as a modeling agent. I loved that I was able to do both.
A few years later, my immediate family decided to move south to Atlanta. I saw this as a great opportunity to move there myself and to expand my experience in all three of my passions: design, modeling and acting. Since moving to Atlanta, I was able to make those dreams come true. I started freelancing as a designer and was signed by Click Models of Atlanta. Without any knowledge of how the film industry worked at this point, I decided to try background work. After doing this a few times, I finally got a huge break and had a small role in the movie Passengers. This now allowed me to sign with a talent agent. For the last couple years, I have been constantly working on myself and my acting by immersing myself in the acting community, taking classes and workshops, and making the most amazing, supportive friends within the industry. Now I am balancing working as a freelance graphic designer, a model, and an actor. I take every day as a blessing and am so grateful that I have made it this far.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’m not sure if life ever gives you a straight clear path. There are always some bumps and turns and roadblocks to get around. I will say that my childhood was very normal and filled with love. I have always been close to my family and was encouraged to live up to my best potential. I was given good opportunities and grew up in a middle class, suburbanite family. If there was a hiccup in the road that I dealt with often, it was that we were constantly moving. There was definitely hardship in having to leave family and friends and lose that stability you crave in childhood. I had to adapt to new environments and schools and make new friends which can be hard for a young girl.
Choosing to be an artist is also not the easiest path. I had almost considered becoming an orthodontist before admitting to myself and others that science was the opposite field I should be pursuing. Growing up in Indiana did not provide great opportunities to be a model or an actor. I had always dreamed of that lifestyle, but at the time, I believed it was unattainable to me, so I brushed it aside for a while. Luckily, I never gave up on those dreams. Still, juggling three career paths is a struggle in itself. I worked as a full-time designer for seven years after college. It was hard to incorporate everything into my schedule. I would have to turn down auditions and modeling gigs simply because it was during normal work hours, or I couldn’t request off work with enough time and had limited vacation days. It was very hard to balance and sometimes I had a sacrifice to make one way or another. However, life will push you and what seems like a horrible thing at the time can actually be a blessing in disguise. When I was working as a full-time designer, I was unfortunately laid off from my job due to economic reasons. Initially, it was devastating and I was worried about being able to afford bills and rent and other necessities. Though this new unknown brought many questions, it also was a push for me to consider freelancing to be able to control my own schedule and allow more space for acting and modeling.
Life can also throw you personal obstacles. Sometimes I still suffer from “Impostor’s Syndrome.” There are times when I still don’t feel confident in what I do and second guess my talent or my self worth as a designer, model, and an actor. I often think ‘Well I’m not as talented as that person. They book more than me. They are way prettier than I am, why would I think I could make it in this field?’ It’s a constant battle to make a purposeful effort to believe in my self-worth, and some days are better than others. However, I’m sure everyone can relate to this on some level, as I do believe we all judge ourselves much more harshly than perhaps others do.
I will say I have come a long way in managing these insecurities. A couple of years ago through networking and taking acting workshops I met Katelin Chesna, an actress and acting coach who runs an acting studio in Atlanta called AMAW or Anthony Meindl’s Actors Workshop. Most acting classes will teach you scene study and character development, but AMAW teaches you more about self-study and self-development. This was definitely a life-changing event for me. Since meeting Katelin and joining her classes, not only has my acting improved tremendously, but I’ve learned so much more about myself, opening up to vulnerability, and accepting who I am and believing that I am enough in who I am and what I do. Finding a community that is accepting and uplifting has definitely helped me live a more creative life and has made going through those bumps and hills much easier.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a Freelance Graphic Designer, an actress, and a model. As a designer, I have gone from working for another company to working for myself. This has been a great transition but also a tough one. Essentially managing your own business and schedule comes with a big learning curve. I learned that you have to seek out your own work, make connections with clients, act as the designer, the account manager, and the accountant. I take pride in being able to say that I approached this challenge head on, and feel successful in what could have been a negative situation. When it comes to my work, I also pride myself in specializing in branding design. I find the most joy during the creative process of turning a clients idea into a their ideal visual representation of their company.
What I love about art in general, whether it’s designing, drawing, acting, etc. is that every artist is unique. Two artists could be painting the same image, creating a logo with the same company name, performing a scene as the same character, and neither outcome will ever be the same. There is only one you, and no one else will ever be able to replicate what you can bring. Every artist has a different brush stroke with which to paint the world, and I believe that we can make it a better place by simply putting our craft and our hearts out there for others to enjoy.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
It’s so hard to look back at my childhood and pick one memory to call my favorite. Most of my favorite moments involved being outside. Like camping out in a tent in the backyard with my sisters, riding bikes throughout the neighborhood and playing kickball and other games with the neighbor kids in the cul-de-sac, our visits to the mountains when we lived in Colorado, on snow days when we would gear up in layers of clothes under our snowsuits to make snowmen and sled in the yard and then returning indoors where my mom had hot chocolate waiting for us to warm us up, and that is just to name a few of them. Honestly, I am very blessed to have had the childhood I had. I definitely have to thank my parents, especially my mom who stayed home with us and encouraged play and creativity and gave us a fun-filled childhood.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.laurenrfarmer.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurenrfarmer
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/lauren.r.farmer
- Twitter: twitter.com/laurenrose05
Image Credit:
Rich Meade, Maggie Harrison, Collective Energy Photography, Corryn Goldschmidt
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