Roxy Blazey Summers shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Roxy, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Before we jump into your intro and the heart of the interview, let’s start with a bit of an ice breaker: What is a normal day like for you right now?
Normal days for me have absolutely seen a shift since this time last year. I’ve moved on to freelancing for my storyboard work through a work at home position and this gives me the flexibility to wake up at a more appropriate time for my rhythm and do a semblance of a morning routine (I practise affirmations, tapping meditation and generally try to tidy my space a little) before my first client meeting where we discuss projects, progress and set assignments. I take notes after I am done and make some mental steps forward for where to go next following feedback.
I then have some food and switch gears to schoolwork, checking what is due today and in the upcoming days and organise how to tackle this efficiently. Since starting freelancing I’ve had to prioritize being a person who deals with school efficiently rather than buried myself in study the way I do when I don’t have the pressure of employment. Instead of taking the time to redo my notes for a pretty flashcard, I end up colour coding and highlighting the long notes in my exercise book.
I try to get a hike in three times a week and usually get to it in the morning or late afternoon. I aspire to attach more intense exercise to this in order to improve fitness but my motivation and energy levels have not accomodated for this so I am building up to it by taking a moment to stretch my body, do a little tai chi and once in a blue moon lift a weight or two.
I work pretty consistently until I hit my wind down hours which tend to consist of a lot of scrolling that I am hoping to replace with more active and engaged hobbies, even video games. Books and music practise are also on the table but require me to be in a more energetic state to get to them. Towards the evening I try to calm my body down with aromatherapy by diffusing essential oils and having a bath as I naturally struggle to sleep and need to make an effort to get my body ready.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
When I started my independent business in 2019, my biggest goal was to have this brand identity that not only aligned with my aesthetic senses but also one that I could use to broadcast my messages and values to the world. I wanted to create products and projects that resonated with people in my community that made them feel seen and have their interests and values be respected and catered to. This shows up a lot in my media content where I try to make pieces and characters that simultaneously speak to a timeless aspect of the human experience but also find ways to reach those niches and complexities of communities I am fortunate to be interlinked with. One of my first big offerings was a short film about seasonal affective disorder that also intended to speak to how powerful connecting with others going through a tough time is. Not everyone might experience seasonal affective (thank god) but a lot of people still found the secondary message just as effective.
I also try to make merchandise that’s useful in some way, whether that’s decorating clothes or my first products which were stickers to help indicate names and pronouns or ones to help people with invisible disabilities indicate visually where their pain levels were at.
Nowadays my focus is on items like zines as I feel like they’re the most accessible way to share stories but I also have plans to create specific packs of items targeted towards folks with differing neurotypes excel in real world tasks.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
Self comparison truly is the thief of joy. I got my first huge multi national client doing my dream job first thing this year and instead of holding to the overwhelming pride that gives both current and child me, I’ve spent far too much time moping about my peers seemingly doing better because they’re also blessed with opportunities this new year.
I am ready to release that need to compare and get bitter about the alignment of others, especially when it’s THIS irrational. I need to abandon the mindset of scarcity and thinking that I’m constantly competing with other people on the best life opportunities. Projects can just not be for you regardless of your skillset and that’s okay.
I think the competitive spirit appeared from moving to Los Angeles and wanting to excel and I’m grateful it kept me reaching and trying to hunt this opportunity. But I no longer need to be a hunter. I need to nurture both my work and my connections, and for that to happen they cannot be my enemies.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
I have zero fear in spilling the tea that my experience in my animation school in the United Kindgom (University of the Creative Arts) was one of the most disgusting experiences I have ever been trapped in and still feel a hot angry flash of red cover my eyes when I consider how deeply myself and my peers were scarred by the actions, behaviour and unreasonable choices made by the leadership of people meant to be in charge or growing artistic minds.
Getting critique is a tough process for anyone to endure and you have to enter the space of criticism with an open mind and a sometimes conscious lowering of the ego. Yes, we all want validation, so feedback can often be misinterpreted and tone can get misread. It happens. But the faculty in charge during the time I attended deliberately targeted students as targets with hazing, emotional abuse and unproductive, unnecessary commentary that was intended to crush the self esteem of myself and fellow targeted artists. Myself and other students were pushed to tears and worse due to our work getting so fiercely rejected under the guise of “this is how people will treat you in The Industry.”
This is not how people treat you in the industry. People in the industry are your team mates. They want to see you improve, not feel like never drawing again.
I had to heal by taking a new shot at animation education entirely. I literally had to start from 0 and go through it again to realise the treatment I had faced was a fluke and that in a healthy environment, I wasn’t just tolerated. I was celebrated! I won awards, got shown on television and had to opportunity to gallery my works because I was asked to. I had been led to believe I was hopeless when I instead became someone young me would’ve looked up to. My biggest healing of that wound was around pitching. The perpetrators at my first attempt truly made me fear the idea of having a room full of attention solely on me as I went through a story while getting interjected by unproductive critical heckling. When I tried again, the room was enchanted by my work and the feedback was actually items I could work on easily.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I think my closest friends would be inclined to say that my proximity to my career and the health of it, whether that be the health of my own personal body and mind or that of the industry on the whole. I get pretty passionate about things like workers rights within the animation space but that definitely also expands outwards to human rights, which is why I’ve been so disturbed for the past few years with worldwide events.
For a long time my friends also seemed to know me as that one person who drew every day. I aspire to still be that individual. Burnout is something I hide from my friends so I think they may instead come to the conclusion that avoiding being lazy is important when it’s more a part of my self regulation.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What will you regret not doing?
Working on my desire and habit to disassociate earlier and recognizing what exactly that was. My mother disassociates a lot in conversation so I assumed it was just a regular thing and to an extent, it is a human trait in neuroprocessing. But an over abundance of it is a most certain problem.
I have lost so much of my life to just not being able to be present or wanting to escape the present moment, let alone appreciating it. I wish I could’ve realised that it was a medical problem associated to post traumatic stress instead of me just being spaced out for most of the day.
I regret not bringing it up. I regret not seeking help till when I did. I regret not taking care of myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Roxyblazey.com
- Instagram: Angelino.in.progress
- Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/roxy-blazey-summers
- Other: @roxygen.bsky.social
Image Credits
Skylar summers
