Rising Stars: Meet Rena Kubota

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rena Kubota.

Hi Rena, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Growing up I was fortunate enough to have a family to provide for me. I never struggled financially but I had a lot of trouble finding myself. Attending private school for a great deal of my life, it was troublesome finding like-minded individuals. Everyone seemed to blended with each other, with me to stand out. Especially when I kept moving to different schools, I could never meet a lasting friend. In short, I felt hopelessly loss after high school and wanted to have a fresh at Seattle central college. I studied accounting and was good at it for a time, but it gave me no sense of direction in my life. Instead, a professor in an art elective gave me a sense of purpose, a belonging. In Japan and China, I never had the opportunity to learn art as it was an extra-cost class my parents saw as useless. It blew my mind learning to paint and draw. Shoutout to Dr.Don Barrie and Yulia Chubotin, they were like family to me. Listening to my dreadful stories of growing up and taught me art to paint my feelings. From meeting those two individuals and a difficult time making friends growing up, I’ve become the creative artist I am today through work and talent.

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?
Coming from a traditional household with only a mother in the frame. It was a dreadful moment telling my mom I wanted to go to art school. It was like telling my mom I wanted to go to clown college to her. I expressed every semester to my mother that I couldn’t bare to study anything but art. I felt passionless and no desire to pursue money. My mom gave me a challenge, If I were to get into a top art school in America then I may continue to study art abroad. Of course I did, but not without its recourse in my family. My mom’s family is in a line of ultra-successful politicians and millionaires. She expressed such disappointment and obviously her family followed in resentment, yet she kept her promise. To this day I still get ill-ed backhanded comments from my family and only have the support of my boyfriend.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I take great pride in the research I perform before I draw something. Anybody can draw something ‘cool’. Though it takes a lot more skill to draw something impressive with fine detail that conveys another meaning. For example, culture is the easiest, a lot of artists accidentally disrespect cultures through small unnoticed details. The last thing an artist needs is a small detail to take away from the rest of the drawing. In my time at Pratt, I’ve become adept at using all Adobe art programs. Video editing, motion graphic, photoshop you name it. After graduating college I somewhat lost my direction again. Luckily I was hired by some random lady over the web to become an art director of an entire NFT collection because she like my art so much. I’m so happy now because of our massive following (META KAMI NFT). Thousands of people love my art, I’m now back on the market with a lot of success and a bright future in the NFT art space.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think being an artist itself is already a risk. It is well-known as a hard industry. Only talented people will last. But nowadays, there is a lot of technologies that are risking artists’ career already. AI generator is really popular, and we can see them a lot on social media. A lot of people start using AI technologies instead of paying an artist to create the design already. AI generator, which can generate multiple different designs in a short term. Compared to hiring the artist, the cost is much lower. And the design is editable in short term with a generator as well. So, I think this is a common risk and threat for all artists recently.

But in my opinion, as long as you have your art style and uniqueness, you do not need to be afraid of that. I believe the talented artist is priceless, technology has no way to imitate their uniqueness and it is my ultimate goal as well.

Pricing:

• Illustration (depends on the purpose of using, and the size of illustration)$100-
• Sticker design $40-$100

Contact Info:

• Website: http://shitocho.wixsite.com/lindalovy
• Instagram: @apple_lovy
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/rkubota