Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Rivera.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Joe. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve always had a deep love for drawing since I was a kid. My Dad had a close friend who was the only other Puerto Rican family we knew growing up in South Carolina. His friend Mel and his brother Frencci were artists and made comics together I always loved their work and passion. I would try to draw my own versions of my favorite characters to try to impress them anytime they came to visit my parents. From then on drawing was just something I loved.
Growing up, most of my friends were athletic and wanted to participate in sports but my best friend Fray and I always loved telling stories. We would write and create our own characters and universes together. As we got older we pushed each other and helped each other build our own worlds. By the time I reached my senior year in high school I decided to go to SCAD to get a degree in animation. Drawing and telling stories was all I ever wanted to do.
I originally attended the SCAD Savannah campus but transferred by senior year and graduated here in Atlanta. I’ve worked full time as a graphic artist at a custom t-shirt shop for the past few years since graduation. For awhile I was pretty burnt out on my own art and just didn’t have any drive. Work in the industry didn’t seem very promising and my career in storytelling felt pretty bleak.
After a few years, depression and self-doubt I went through a pretty hard end to a long term relationship. It was the kick in the ass I needed to start getting focused. After the initial shock, I realized I’d just been so sad and it was the first time I acknowledged my own mental illness and battle with depression. The only thing I knew how to do was to draw about it and try to express it. So I started doing that.
I began a daily webcomic called Lunch Break. It was inspired by the idea of actually taking time during my workday to meditate and assess my thoughts and emotions. It was an effort to practice taking time out to be mindful of myself every day and to work on my art everyday. I’ve done this for the past year and a half now and it’s taken a few different forms over time. From single panel to multiple pages, from daily posts to weekly posts, just all over the damn place. It’s essentially become a public visual diary of my life covering everything from my depression, to just news about my personal life, and even just shit I think my cat would say in response to my existence haha.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Not so much no. I mean I’ve had periods where things came pretty easy for sure. You’d think as someone who calls themself an artist that making art would be easy because as an artist, it’s “in my nature”, but that’s not always the case. Growing up, I didn’t have any hang-ups with it, I just made art. But after deciding on going to college for an art degree it started to take on a much more definitive meaning for me. Succeed or fail the thing I loved was going to be my livelihood. It sort of put pressure on my desire to create art. Rather than being a thing I use to express myself it turned into make or break, eat or starve if that makes sense? Over the past year working on my Lunch Break comics has made it easier to re-embrace my love for just creating art for me. I’m not so much in a place for it to be lucrative just yet but I’ve managed to get over the hump of pressure into just creating for the sake of my love to create.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Currently, I’m just working the occasional freelance job. Character design commissions, portraits, once and a while I take on some logo design jobs although graphic design isn’t really my specialty. My primary focus in building a career is to freelance as a character designer and write/publish my own comics. As a company or an online brand or entity, I think what I’m most proud of and what sets me apart is the level of transparency I show in my work. Given that my comics and my art are mostly autobiographical in nature, there’s a level of sincerity with my work that I don’t see as much online. With the work I do and the stories I tell I offer my specific experiences, thoughts, feelings, and whatever else up to the public eye to hopefully see themselves in and hopefully be inspired to be a little more transparent with their own feelings.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is a tricky thing for me to wrap my head around. I just associate good and bad luck with just good and bad experiences. Successes and failures. Trial and error. I’ve been fortunate enough to live a pretty privileged life and haven’t had too many terrible experiences in my life. The ones that I’ve had have ultimately led me to where I am now which is honestly the most solid place I’ve been in terms of where my career is headed. I’m working a lot and I’m working hard on developing my skills as an artist. When it comes to good luck, I’ve just been fortunate to know the people I know who support me and my work and it’s helped hold me up and inspire me to work better and to work harder on building a career for myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: joerivera.art
- Email: art.joerivera@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/joeriveradotart
- Facebook: facebook.com/JoeRiveraDotArt
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