Life & Work with Asher Bingham of Atwater Village

Today we’d like to introduce you to Asher Bingham

Asher, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
So I’ve been a documentary/reality TV editor for over 15 years now in LA. I went to an art school in Georgia called SCAD, but my BFA was in Film & TV because I always wanted to work on movies. I loved the idea of crafting a story that can emotionally connect with an audience so I focused my studies on editing and fell in love with it. Then moved out to LA in 2007 to become the best editor in town, I worked my way up from assistant editor to full on picture editor constantly refining my craft, studying others, and really enjoyed it for the most part, but I never found my way over to feature films. I fell into documentary editing but since those jobs where few and far between, I edited mostly reality TV. 15 years fly by and 2 kids later, spending 10-12 hour days in semi toxic edit bays of reality TV, I was fighting job burnout. I wanted to be more present in my kids lives and find joy in my craft again — and I thought that was the crux of my problems until the writers strikes and Hollywood’s epic slow down hit in 2023. I almost immediately ran out of work, and even a staple production company I worked for often shuttered doors completely. 2020 had already eaten our savings so we were still rebuilding financially and I would say this was worse. My story is not unique in that manner, as there are hundreds if not thousands of us in production right now that have been out of work for going on 2 years. We thought it was ludicrous that we might be out of work until 2024, and then it quickly became “survive until 2025.” I just saw a post on an IATSE wall of a man who’s about to get evicted from his home with a wife on disability and kids. He just found work as a ranch hand that pays $300 a week and thats all he has. I digress, but it was and still is such a dire situation for many of us. Now since I was a kid, I had been drawing. I took drawing classes in college, and after long days in post production as an editor, I would come home and draw portraits for stress relief. Once I realized work wasn’t bouncing back and I would have try to find a new career overnight, I decided to try and build an art business around my life-long hobby of drawing. I have primarily drawn portraits, as I’ve always been obsessed with how adding tiny details can really bring a person to life, and it’s such a bespoke and personalized piece of art, I know how important it is to the person I’m drawing as well. I dove into an entirely new world though which is art, and then art marketing, so I have been learning much about a completely different industry as fast as I can in hopes to support my family. Especially since my husband also works in reality so ever job he gets, we just hope it’s not the last. This past winter going into the holidays was the first time I had actually had a hand full of commissions and was able to buy xmas gifts for my kids. It’s a slow process to change careers but at this point I’m convinced the industry is changing, and how it was before will never return. Now after new years, the fires broke out in LA. A friend of mine lived in Altadena and we woke up that Wednesday to the news that she had lost her home in the night. I was devastated, and didn’t know what to say, so I sat down, looked up her house and decided to draw a little ‘portrait’ of it – really light hearted and simple, just pen on paper, but I thought maybe she’d like the little memento. I texted her the photo of it, and then turned around to a group text chain with other girlfriends and asked them if they knew anyone who had lost a home in LA, because I could draw their home. I had no foreseeable commissions in the future as January is always a dry month so I figured if I could find 10-20 homes it would be a lovely little gift. A friend quickly suggested to make a reel on my Instagram so they could share the idea around, and so that’s exactly what I did. I said something like “If you’ve lost a home in the #LAFires I will draw your home for free.” And posted it.
Within 2 days, I realized it was going viral. My offer to sketch homes hit 1M views, then 2M, then 3M, it’s past 4M now. Requests poured out of the wood work. I was inundated with DM’s and emails. So much so, I started begging friends to help, I made stories on IG asking for volunteer artists, and volunteers to help with spreadsheets, and I got many responses. Then the news started calling. NBC, KCRW, NPR, Spectrum, The Guardian, and many small offshoots picked up the story. Now a month and a half later, I have over 1400 drawing requests sitting on my spreadsheets, I have volunteers helping me answer emails, and 15+ volunteer artists that I’m managing so we can tackle this project. I am drawing or fielding emails around the clock, 7 days a week. So that’s what my life looks like right now. For the drawings that I have completed and delivered, I get big hugs and lots of tears. People are so thankful to receive a tiny memento of their home lost and it feels so good to be helping others that have just had their lives turned upside down. The outpouring of support has jut been amazing and Every drawing I do feels like I’ve given a tiny ray of sunlight to someone and it’s the best feeling on the planet. A simple gift with no strings attached, I know that’s a rare thing these days, but these communities need it. My next step is trying to find funding as I can’t hold out just working pro-bono for what looks like months of work ahead and I desperately need an assistant or dedicated set of hands to help with packaging, scanning and mailing of pieces to people that have lost their homes, but for now I’m just taking things one day at a time. I can pay rent this month, so that gives me another month to figure out the one after it.

Alright, 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?
Ooh pretty sure I answered that in that last massive essay of a paragraph 🙂
The biggest struggle and stressor for me is to look at how far in debt my little family has gotten just surviving this time- especially after surviving Covid and assuming we could build our savings back up. I’ve learned never to say “I’ve hit rock bottom” as I think the universe takes it as a challenge to prove me wrong, but in all honesty. If I didn’t have my world fall apart, I wouldn’t be in the position I am to help a thousand others who just had their worlds fall apart. So I feel like it’s all happened for a reason and I’m exactly where I need to be right now for this project.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
So before the LA Fires, I drew dark and moody, sometimes whimsical and surreal charcoal and graphite portraits. I am really quite skilled at them, but it’s a difficult business to start as they take many hours – sometimes 40+ – and therefore they can be costly. I also have 2 kids so I really love drawing children and their many expressions, or putting them in a setting of make believe. Like last summer my husband got a job working on a ranch in Montana, so we lived out of a 1 room hotel for a month and my daughter loved the pond near the hotel that was full of geese. So I drew a portrait of her face surrounded with like 20 Canadian geese heads, and it turned out so great and such fun. I would love to draw out there black and white portraits for anyone really. I’ve honed the craft for 20 years now and don’t really see anyone else creating portraits like I love to do.

What does success mean to you?
When I moved to LA in 2007 I would have said it was working on big blockbuster films and owning a house and having a big savings account.

Now nearing 40, having 2 amazing kids, and success to me would be having a work/life balance, where I love what I do but also have time to see my kids grow and take them on random adventure days or travels to fully experience life. Also, I would be debt-free and never worry if we can afford groceries again. 🙂

Contact Info:

• Website: https://asherbingham.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asherbingham.fineart/

Image Credits
All mine baby! 🙂