Featured Creative: Anna Forrester
Meet Anna Forrester!
Creative Medium: Illustrator
Dream Projects: Map murals, children’s books, illustrated national park + scenic trail guides
What would you consider your biggest source of inspiration?
Foot travel! Walking for hours or days on end is really nourishing for me. I’m at my best and think up my best creative projects while I’m walking on long trails, and usually end up making art about them in turn.
How has the Athens community shaped your creative experiences?
I’ve been in Athens for a decade now and have had lots of time to fall in love with it. I love its green spaces, festivals, events, coffeeshops, any place that fosters togetherness. My relationships with these spaces have come to mean that they show up in my creative work: I have a series on the greenway, local trails, and green spaces; a series on our town’s coffeeshops, neighborhoods, breweries, and the university; as well as a series that focuses on the greater communities of the southeast and Appalachia. In these ways, the communities I belong to locally and regionally both motivate me toward creativity and become the subject of it.
What have been some of the challenges you’ve experiences as a creative? How have you overcome them?
I struggle often with longing—longing for more time for more projects; for more education or resources on a subject; or for a path that wasn’t strictly self-taught. In those moments I try to remind myself that my untraditional path is also what brought me to the subjects I create around (and care so much about!) today.
How do you explore new creative community in Athens?
Creative Athenians is a great place to start! Another great way is to plug into micro-communities around town. For example, I am not a performer, but I’ve found so many welcoming, interesting, passionate, and supportive folks through Work.Shop, Flying Squid Comedy, and the Studio. It’s a joyous and invigorating thing to watch other members of my community be passionate about their own creative world while also supporting and delighting in their work.
Learn more about Anna and keep up with her work!