Meet Anya Carolyn of Karocrafts in Little Tokyo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anya Carolyn.

Anya, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started taking art seriously once I realized it was necessary for me personally, as an outlet to stay sane. It took longer to acknowledge that my art could be larger than just my sketchpad, however. Taking yourself seriously is a really brave thing to do. Putting myself out there to friends and family that sometimes had never even seen me make art was absolutely terrifying but in turn, extremely rewarding.

I have always felt the need to materialize thoughts and feelings into something tangible. The first mixed media I ever created came during a point of my life when I used to exclusively create overly realistic and “pretty” pieces. Out of a fit of feeling like a failure as an artist caused by my constricting perfectionism, I finally just chilled out and let my mind pick colors and shapes and let it spill out on paper. That piece is still my favorite to this day, it’s titled Persecution if you want to check it out.

Since that mind shift two years ago, I fell in love with multimedia and collage art and its powerful storytelling. To begin crafting a brand for myself, I made the decision to create an alias [Karocrafts] to help distinguish the identity and concept of my art. I hope it allows others to focus on that as an overarching idea for future work as well.

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?
I think that anyone that has ever put themselves out there can relate to the feeling of “Oh God, what have I done”, or Everyone thinks I’m such a freak”, or even “Am I even a good artist? At all? Jeez”. I receive the most impactful and heartfelt reviews from my followers and those around me and still fall into pits of doubt every once in a while. It has been difficult for me to allow myself to feel genuine pride because I never want to settle into a “comfortable” place in my career. Not while I’m young.

Where I’m at right now is juggling being a full-time student, two jobs, and having other outside projects. The past few months, art has had to be lower on my list of priorities. It feels like a long-distance relationship. I’ve created my 2020 schedule to give me more time to create and go to showings for my art. I couldn’t be happier.

Please tell us about Karocrafts.
Karocrafts is the artist alias I chose to represent me and the concept I want each piece of art I create to relate back to. Karocrafts is about materializing random thoughts you have in the middle of the night into a tangible piece of art. It’s about feeling joy, or love, or sadness so strong and feeling like you could explode but allowing it to flow from your head to your hands to a canvas.

I used to roll my eyes in grade school at English teachers over-analyzing elements of a book; “the author chose the curtain in the room to be dark red to represent his repressed sexuality”… like what? I thought it was bullsh*t until I realized I could point to a specific and unique reason behind every detail in my art if someone were to ask. Thank you Ms. Letter, you rock, I knew you were onto something.

People will submit their stories and thoughts to me on my website for me to create into art, as I have done for myself many times before. I wanted people to feel the same healing it brought for me. My collages are also different from other collage artists I see blowing up in popularity because of the unconventional materials I use. I source a lot of my materials from vintage Playboys, Cosmos, maps, stamps, books, old photographs and journal entries. I also hand-stitch everything.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m extremely lucky to have such amazing friends and family that repost and spread the word about my art. I could never have the confidence to advertise myself the way that I do if it weren’t for knowing there are people out there that love me and have my back.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.karocrafts.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karocrafts/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karocrafts/

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