THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hello my passion maker. This is Miriam Schulman. You’re listening to episode number 153 of the Inspiration Place Podcast. I’m so grateful that you’re here. Today we’re talking all about going all in with your art. In this episode, you’ll discover why an art career is best when you jump in the deep end rather than just dipping your toes in the kiddie pool. You’ll also learn about how to balance an art career with other commitments such as motherhood. Today’s guest is the artist and owner of behind Love Lettering, a studio based in Toronto, Canada, dedicated to the beauty and potential of hand lettering. Fascinated with type and calligraphy since childhood, our guest is an Illustration graduate from the Ontario College of Art and Design University and considers herself an illustrator that focuses on letters.
Her passion has led her to become a published author of extraordinary hand lettering. Her work is featured in numerous magazines, such as Uppercase Mag, Flow Magazine, WedLuxe and more. She also had her first solo gallery exhibit called Bottled Feelings in 2020. As an NFT artist, her clients include Sephora, Hallmark, Michaels Canada, Moet & Chandon, HGTV and more. Please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Doris Wai. Hi, Doris. Welcome to the show.
Doris Wai:
Thank you Miriam for having me.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m so excited to have you. Then just reading your bio, you’ve done even more than I remember. You’re doing NFT art as well?
Doris Wai:
Well, that’s like a new thing, isn’t it? Right? As an artist, I always like to explore all the platforms of where I can take my art. Hearing about the metaverse in February, I looked into it and it was very, very interesting to me. I know that it’s a place that’s going to exist moving forward. I will definitely put myself in the metaverse as well.
Miriam Schulman:
Good for you. The reason I invited you today is I was listening to an interview you did on a different podcast. I really resonated with what you had to say about when you decided to go all in with your art. You just jumped in the deep end of the swimming pool. I know so many people who they’re so afraid of letting go of their current life and they hold onto it, that they never get to experience a more extraordinary life because they’re not ready to commit and go all in. I just felt this was a very important conversation to have and that’s why I invited you to the show today.
Doris Wai:
Thank you. One thing about jumping into the deep end of a swimming pool, I literally don’t know how to swim myself, so that frightens me to the core. But I was 35 when I decided, you know what, I’m going to take my life and do with it what I feel like I was born to do. Right. Before that moment, I was very scared. Scared of failing, scared of not making it, embarrassing myself. But I just knew that I was a hard worker and I knew I was meant to be creative. I just thought to myself, if I took the time and dedicated my life to my craft and what I think that I’m supposed to do, what would happen? I don’t feel like I would have been able to be successful doing it halfway. Jumping into it fully allowed me to not have a safety net to fall back on so it was like you had to fight to make it work. The fear is what drove me to succeed. The fear of not having something to fall back on also is a driving force.
Miriam Schulman:
Take us back to what were you doing before you decided to go all in with your art? I know you have a degree in art, but you were working for somebody else. What is it that you were doing before?
Doris Wai:
This is the thing, I’ve always been creative to the point where I graduated in illustration. Right? I knew what I was supposed to do. Growing up, you have this thing about being a starving artist, so you can’t make money being creative. That was always something that was implanted into my core as a child listening to all this. But at 35, I was working for an import export company. As an office manager, it was not creative, not in the least. But from that job, I wore many different hats. I manage people. I did accounting. I did many, many different things. I had my daughter. At that time, when I was 35, she was about three years old. I decided that I really wanted to spend more time with her, be in her life more.
I just thought to myself, how am I going to make that happen? What can I do for myself where I can work from home and also be a part of her life, be the biggest influence in her life? I knew right away my niche and my skill and my passion lies within lettering. At that moment, I was like, it’s going to be about lettering but I had to figure out who is it do I feel like needs my skill and my talent and like what I love. At that moment, Love Lettering was created. From that moment on, I had to show people what I was capable of doing. Then that’s how the business grew. That’s how I got a book deal. Everything that I do always revolves around lettering and what I feel I could do with it. I like to show the world what lettering can possibly be.
Miriam Schulman:
I want to circle back to a few things you said there that was very important. First of all, there’s this mythology that you can’t be an artist and a mother, or you can’t be a successful businessperson and a mother. There’s a lot of people who continue that myth, which is why I love having somebody like you on the podcast, because not only are you proving that wrong but the fact that you became a mother is actually what lifted the veil on your life to show you, you weren’t even living your life purpose. There’s something that is, once you have this, you have a child and your time is more limited, sometimes you need to think. Okay, well, what is it that I’m doing with my time and my life? Is it the right thing? Because every moment is so precious.
Doris Wai:
100%, Miriam. The way I view my life is how I think my daughter will tell a story about me. I live my life the way as if my daughter is telling a story about me. Like, what am I going to do with my time? I know that every moment that I dedicate to creating something, to making something, to lettering something, she’s able to see who I am in what I’m doing. But I know that if I worked at that office for the rest of my life, I know my daughter would say, my mom worked at this place, but that’s not who I am. Right? Every minute that I dedicate to Love Lettering and what I love and letters and drawing and creating, it’s part of me. She can see that. Whatever I do, I think as a mom, we want to live by leading a good example in all aspects. Right? I can only lead by being a good example. That’s what I try to do.
Miriam Schulman:
I love that.
Doris Wai:
Make a good story for her to tell about her mom.
Miriam Schulman:
Be sure our children are proud of us.
Doris Wai:
Yeah, definitely. I think being a mom is the toughest job, but it’s really, really rewarding. I’m just thankful that I get to do both in tandem. Right. Obviously some days, the business gets more of my attention. But I know at any moment I can be there for her at any moment because of my job too.
Miriam Schulman:
I assume that your studio where you work is inside your home. Is that right?
Doris Wai:
Yes. Yes. That’s definitely right. Because you know, I bring Melody home. That’s my daughter’s name, Melody. I bring her home for lunch every day. I take her to school in the morning. I bring her home for lunch. Then I bring her back to school. I work from home and I work all the time. I don’t have a mindset where I only work these days. I don’t work these days. I work whenever I can work and I take time off whenever I need the time off. I work well like that. I know some people, they need the Sundays off. I just like to keep myself busy all the time. If I find a free moment that I can work, I always work. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Sunday, it doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday.
Miriam Schulman:
Now, do you have help inside your business?
Doris Wai:
I did have an assistant, but since the pandemic, I’m so low at the moment and that’s totally okay. There’s a little bit more pressure when you do have a staff that you’re minding as well. I like having the freedom. My life is at my own discretion. Be creative when I want to be. I am on no schedule, no timeline. I’m at the hands of my daughter and what we want to do. I’m a night owl as well so I work a lot in the night. In the day, I answer to emails. I do interviews. I run errands. I go to the post office and all that. At night is when the lettering comes out and I’m really, really creative and I come alive.
Miriam Schulman:
By the way, I wanted to make sure that you knew that as of this recording, there’s just one spot left in the Artist Incubator Mastermind. Now, the mastermind track is for you if you’re already selling your art but have been disappointed with your current sales. If you’ve been listening to this podcast and you found my tips helpful, maybe it’s time to take the next logical step and work with me on a deeper level. If you’re ready to invest in your art career and join a dynamic community of artists who are all doing the same thing, go to schulmanart.com/biz as in B-I-Z, letter B as in boy, I as in ice cream, Z as in zebra. See if you qualify. That’s schulmanart.com/biz. Now back to the show. I know my listeners are going to be interested in some of the very interesting type of work that you do. I understand that a lot of it got paused because of COVID. You do a lot of event lettering. Is that right?
Doris Wai:
Yes, definitely. I do a lot of weddings and big celebrations. This is why I love my job so much. Everything that I create most of the time, it’s for something happy. There’s something joyous going on and I get to be a part of that. That’s one aspect of my work where my lettering gets to be part of all these joyous occasions. My lettering is always used with a purpose. Is it for a marketing campaign? Is it for branding to make something beautiful? Create a logo. It’s always for something positive. I call my lettering like creative communication. You’ve got to tell somebody a story. Can you do it where it’s visually beautiful as well? My job is to capture an attention with the art of lettering. I always come from that angle where it’s art before purpose, but in the end it’s together. The point is for it to work really, really well together.
Miriam Schulman:
I would love if you could share. I know a lot of this is inside your book, Extraordinary Hand Lettering. But you do a lettering on a lot of unusual surfaces. Tell us about some of the unusual projects you’ve done.
Doris Wai:
Oh, I think that that’s really my niche, the creative side of taking my lettering beyond paper. I wanted to call my book lettering beyond paper, but my publisher was like, “I don’t think people are going to understand what that means.” But to me, it’s so clear and so concise. It’s like taking the beauty of lettering and applying it onto different types of things, and then that creates something totally new. But if you choose the right words, that even creates an extra layer of creativity. I have this one luggage like this vintage luggage. I love vintage things. I love vintage things because it’s not like anyone can find it and do it, that’s why I love vintage things. It’s like a treasure in itself to begin with. With this vintage luggage, I wanted to create this piece for my daughter where it says, “Oh, the Places I’ll Go,” from the Dr. Seuss book. Those words, it can mean so much.
Is it places where your life is going to take you? Like where you’re going to travel to? Is it your dreams? There’s so many different aspects where those words can take you. Those are the words that I chose to letter on this luggage. But then you have to take into consideration the artistic side of the lettering now. How are you going to do the composition? What type of fonts and typography do you want to use within this art? When these three things are combined, that’s when the magic really happens. What you’re lettering on, the words you’re choosing, and then the creative lettering style that you want to use to create this one of a kind magical piece. I always love working with creating things that I’ve never seen before. That’s what I’m always chasing, the thing that I’ve never seen before. That keeps me really, really creative when I’m able to create some things that I think the world will be like, wow, that’s really special.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s beautiful. I know, and I took a peek at the book and I know that you do explore. You do share your secrets of what techniques and tools work on unusual surfaces. If you are someone who is interested in taking your lettering to the next level, I definitely suggest you check out her book, Extraordinary Hand Lettering. I’ll be sure to link that in the show notes, but it’s also available in bookstores. Is that right?
Doris Wai:
Yeah. It is. I’m in Canada, right? I don’t know all the craft stores there are in the states. I know it’s available at Barnes & Noble. It’s easiest to find on Amazon.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. We’ll make sure we link to her book, schulmanart.com/153. I do want to ask you about the book deal because I’m sure my listeners are interested. How did you get a publishing contract?
Doris Wai:
I got an email from a publishing company. At first I was like, is this a scam? You know what I mean? I did some research and I’m like, it’s actually a publisher in New York. They just said that what I was doing was so different. In 2014, when I started, hand lettering was just picking up and hand lettering is still going really, really strong in terms of calligraphy and brush lettering and whatnot. But what I do is a little bit different because it’s more creative, right? Like I said, it’s lettering on things as opposed to just creating things for your bullet journal or sketch booking and things like that. The person said to me, “Have you ever thought about writing a book?” I go, “Of course, I have.”
Miriam Schulman:
That’s what I would say if somebody presented me an opportunity. Of course.
Doris Wai:
Honestly, I have. When people ask me, was it hard for me to write a book? I say, no, because I’ve had these ideas in my mind my whole life. This just gave me an opportunity to put it on paper. At that point, they asked me to do a manuscript. Write a little bit of what I would write about, what would the book look like. I submitted that. Then within a day, they’re like, “Yeah, we want to publish your book.” It was probably like less than from when they contacted me to when it was published like I had a physical book in my hand, less than two years. I wrote the book in like a month. My book is very visual. There’s a lot of photographs and stuff. There was a lot of styled shoots and stuff that was involved. The styled shoots and everything was what took longer than the writing. The writing was easy because like I said, I had that idea in my mind my whole life.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s great. If you’re interested in following Doris, you can go to her channel on Instagram @lovelettering_doriswai. She also has some YouTube videos. Visit her website because she shared with me that she’s going to be offering online workshops in the near future for those of you who want to learn how to do her kind of lettering. We’ve included links to all these places in the show notes at schulmanart.com/153. Don’t forget, if you liked this episode, you have to check out the Artist Incubator Mastermind. It’s my private coaching program for professional and emerging artists who want to take their current art business to the next level. The program is by application only. So to see if you qualify, go to schulmanart.com/biz, that’s biz as in B-I-Z. All right. Doris, do you have any last words for my listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Doris Wai:
I love this thing I called the lettering lifestyle. I know that lettering has made my life so much more beautiful and it brings me so much joy. I want people to not be afraid of things looking perfect. It’s in the act of doing where you’re going to find the joy. It’s not the perfection. Just pick up the pen and do the thing. Don’t think about the results. Just concentrate on the creating.
Miriam Schulman:
Do it for the process, not for the perfection.
Doris Wai:
Exactly.
Miriam Schulman:
Awesome. All right, my friend. Next week we have on the one and only, Jo Packham. She’s the publisher of the popular magazine, Where Women Create. Trust me, you are not going to want to miss it. Make sure you hit the subscribe or follow button, whatever your podcast app is. If you’re feeling extra generous, I would love a review. If you pop your Instagram handle at the end of it, I’ll even give you a shout out over on my IG Stories. All right, my friend, thank you so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart. Of course, on schulmanart.com.
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