We’re looking forward to introducing you to Ed Vargas. Check out our conversation below.
Ed, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What makes you lose track of time—and find yourself again?
As an artist, I’ve noticed it’s very easy to become overly invested in professional work and forget about our own creative spark. For me, my personal work routine has been the way I keep myself motivated and focused on the wonderful joy that is the simple act of making something. It’s just a little too easy to forget that just making time for ourselves and slow down is the key to keeping that inner voice alive.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Ed Vargas, and I’m technically a visdev artist (designing the look of a movie, show, etc) for the animation industry. More importantly though I’m just a grown kid that loves making art. As for my story, it is quite unusual because I was born and raised in Costa Rica so I didn’t even have a clue that the animation industry would be a possibility for me. It was pretty late in my art journey (26 y/o) when I decided to move to LA and do a total career pivot trying my luck on the entertainment field. If there’s anything I’ve learned from that is that it’s never to late to give life a chance and test the odds.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who taught you the most about work?
I was born a quadruplet, so I have 3 twins and maybe because of that my parents were very lenient with doing whatever we wanted to do professionally. My dad once said something that really stuck to me when I was 7, he was talking to the 4 of us and he said: ‘You can work or do anything you want, but whatever you end up doing, give it your absolute best! That is all I ask.’
Of course at that point I didn’t know I would end up being a professional artist, but through all my many different career shifts and diversions that has always stuck with me. Whether I was doing photography, art history, volunteering, doing graphic design or concept I always tried to honor those words. I think that’s really the key of how I’ve gotten here.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
This question really resonates with me because this year has mostly been about reassessing uncertainty and understanding the value of suffering. I think my life was in many ways marked by an inner feeling of being different and weird and through the past decade I’ve been learning to embrace that, and use it as a bridge to connect with people. This past week I went on a big trip and it made me appreciate all the love, relationships and beauty that that search has now brought to my life.
I’ve come to understand that what we mostly perceive as curses or challenges are just as much the biggest opportunities we have and embracing uncertainty is the path that lets us see them anew. It changes the framework that keeps us stuck. So even though it feels safe and nice, certainty is also the shackle that binds us to our own preconceptions.
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 are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
This has been on my mind lately because I’ve noticed in animation in particular, artists tend to have this ‘grinding’ mindset and we all feel like we MUST keep working all the time or else we fall behind. There’s this looming pressure, where even when things are good, tells us we need to push ever harder.
I think that whole framework is a trap, because we end up losing our own voice, our own joy, in pursuit of that creative greed. Worst of all, it doesn’t even work.
In my experience, embracing slow work, enjoying the act of creation and fostering our own curiosity is a much more healthy and also much more fruitful path. The more we let go of that compulsion for progress, ironically, the more progress we’ll make.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
Haha absolutely! That’s pretty much what I was hinting at before, the more we focus on the action itself, on giving it our all, the more enjoyable things get and ironically the better we usually do. I think that’s the best way to live life, to remind ourselves that the only thing we’re entitled to is our own actions, not the fruits of our actions. Everything else is simply out of our control.
Once we see that, we are free.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.edvargasart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edvargasart/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardo-vargas-illustration/
