Today we’d like to introduce you to Apo Avedissian.
Hi Apo, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story, just as almost all Armenians’, starts with struggle. My paternal grandparents and maternal great-grandparents had ended up in Iraq as they survived the Armenian genocide and had to restart life without most of their family members. They were children at the time they had witnessed the Turks killing their families, and were passed through orphanages many times within their lives after making it out alive. My parents, and eventually my brother and I, were born in Baghdad, Iraq because of that, and made the move to Los Angeles in 2005, two years into the Iraq War of 2003.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Each and every obstacle feels like the end of the road, but as soon as you find a way and move past it, you will face another obstacle, perhaps a bigger one. The good news is that this process will eventually teach you to look back, understand your feelings and how huge the previous obstacle looked, and how unimportant it became when you went past it. It’s all a bit like finding out how a magic trick is done. The reveal of its secret will destroy the joy of the trick, but in this case, it will destroy your anxiety of the unknown and fear of it. My road has been filled with many of these but I use them as tokens to energize me further rather than have something to complain about and waste energy on and with.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I enjoy making. Getting creative has been the hobby, while painting, photography, filmmaking, and writing have been the tools of my choice. At the moment, I enjoy photographing and then turning my photographs into paintings. I stencil my work and then spray paint them onto canvas. I’ve grown from 2-3 layers of stencils on a 16×20″ canvas to doing over 25 layers on a 48×60″ canvas now. This is a process that takes weeks of my time, despite what the less-than-a-minute-long summary videos my social media show.
In the summer of 2019, I started a one-piece commission for the Crypto.com Arena, then known as STAPLES Center, of course, which grew to 6, 12, and eventually to almost 50 commissioned works, from canvases to skateboards. Some of the artwork have been signed by the portrayed artists and hung in the arena today, while others were gifted to performing artists on their performance days. I’m grateful for the opportunity which pushed me to where I am today. There’s nothing better than seeing a historic establishment, ran by amazing-to-work-with folk, supporting local artists this way. So, so LA! I also got to work with many other companies directly or indirectly because of the exposure I received doing the commissions for Crypto.com Arena, like Professional Bull Riders (PBR) and the Microsoft Theater.
I continue to experiment with my craft. A few years ago I started a completely new process in which I paint by exploding spray cans live onto canvas using firearms (done in a controlled and safe environment with years of experience). Many showed a lot of interest in this method and I continue to perfect my craft to this day.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Discipline. Self-control is the absolute hardest skill a person can learn if their environment doesn’t provide it. To go against your nature and re-code your mind; controlling your emotions, time, and the sense of importance of everything around you and their temptations, is the ultimate artistic dream. As an employee in an entry-level job, you learn to take your time in completing tasks, miss certain days, and don’t care much about the overall outcome of your personal achievements. As you learn to do better, take your job a bit more seriously and get promoted, you start to treat tasks differently and grow to have a new vision and outlook of what’s at stake. You have a dedicated team with specific skills who handle different types of work with or for you.
When you are self-employed, however, you aren’t born with these luxuries of an already-experienced-company – not many are, at least. You have to schedule your day, budget your life, and sell! You have to plan, consider, analyze, and make. You have to feel and follow up on those feelings by canceling all temptations of spending time on video games, going out, seeing friends, and/or even purchasing food. The importance of every 15-minute increment becomes so vivid that you start rationing your day. This is not a recipe to hold to infinity, but it definitely is a must when you start and are at progress level zero.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.apoavedissian.com
- Instagram: apoavedissian
- Twitter: apoavedissian
Image Credits:
Apo Avedissian, Mariam Pushian, Shant Avedissian, Meghrig Zaki
