Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Pearson.
Hi Anna, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I sometimes think I became an artist twice.
The first time was as a little girl, before I had any idea that being an artist could be a career. Once I learned to hold a pencil, I drew everywhere. Books, doors, wallpaper – pretty much any surface that stayed still long enough. My mother raised me on her own and was always supportive of my creativity, but like many parents, she wanted me to have a secure future. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that art was something I could love, but not necessarily something I could build a life around.
So I studied, went into sales, and actually became quite successful at it. From the outside, I was following the sensible path.
Then life disrupted that plan completely. I went through a difficult divorce while raising a toddler and found myself without a job or a clear idea of what came next. Looking at the pieces of the life I had built, I realized I had an unusual opportunity: I could either try to rebuild the same life, or I could finally ask myself what I actually wanted.
California had always been a dream, so I eventually arrived in the United States with a suitcase in one hand and my child in the other. I wasn’t arriving with a business plan or a five-year strategy. I was simply trying to breathe, start over, and figure out who I wanted to become.
During that transition, I started drawing again and sharing my work online. One connection led to another, then someone asked me to create a mural. That first real opportunity changed something in me. I realized that the thing I had treated as a hobby for most of my life could actually become my livelihood.
Since then, my career has grown into a combination of murals, commissioned paintings, illustration, and fine art. I’ve worked on projects ranging from intimate private commissions to large public murals, and I’ve had the opportunity to create work for businesses, cities, hospitality spaces, and community projects.
But the biggest change isn’t really the list of projects. It’s that I finally gave myself permission to take my own creative voice seriously.
I sometimes think I became an artist twice.
The first time was as a little girl, before I had any idea that being an artist could be a career. Once I learned to hold a pencil, I drew everywhere. Books, doors, wallpaper – pretty much any surface that stayed still long enough. My mother raised me on her own and was always supportive of my creativity, but like many parents, she wanted me to have a secure future. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that art was something I could love, but not necessarily something I could build a life around.
So I studied, went into sales, and actually became quite successful at it. From the outside, I was following the sensible path.
Then life disrupted that plan completely. I went through a difficult divorce while raising a toddler and found myself without a job or a clear idea of what came next. Looking at the pieces of the life I had built, I realized I had an unusual opportunity: I could either try to rebuild the same life, or I could finally ask myself what I actually wanted.
California had always been a dream, so I eventually arrived in the United States with a suitcase in one hand and my child in the other. I wasn’t arriving with a business plan or a five-year strategy. I was simply trying to breathe, start over, and figure out who I wanted to become.
During that transition, I started drawing again and sharing my work online. One connection led to another, then someone asked me to create a mural. That first real opportunity changed something in me. I realized that the thing I had treated as a hobby for most of my life could actually become my livelihood.
Since then, my career has grown into a combination of murals, commissioned paintings, illustration, and fine art. I’ve worked on projects ranging from intimate private commissions to large public murals, and I’ve had the opportunity to create work for businesses, cities, hospitality spaces, and community projects.
But the biggest change isn’t really the list of projects. It’s that I finally gave myself permission to take my own creative voice seriously.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not, and I’m actually grateful for that now, although I wouldn’t have said that while I was going through it.
Starting over as an immigrant, a single mother, and a completely new artist in a new country came with a lot of uncertainty. There were financial pressures, rejection, projects that didn’t work out, and plenty of moments when I wondered whether I was being irresponsible by choosing such an unpredictable career.
One of the hardest lessons has been learning not to measure my value by whether someone says yes to my work.
As an artist, rejection is inevitable. A proposal can be beautiful and still not be selected. A gallery may not be the right fit. A client may have a budget that doesn’t match the vision. Early in my career, I sometimes responded to those situations by lowering my price or questioning whether my work was good enough.
I’m much better at recognizing the difference now.
I’ve learned that building an artistic career isn’t only about becoming better at painting. It’s also about developing boundaries, learning to communicate your value, understanding business, and becoming comfortable taking up space.
In many ways, I had to become an artist twice: first creatively, and then professionally.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work lives somewhere between fine art and environmental storytelling.
I create murals and acrylic paintings, often incorporating botanical forms, organic shapes, layered surfaces, and elements of trompe l’oeil. I love the way flowers and plants can communicate emotion without saying anything literally.
Murals are especially exciting to me because they are not simply paintings placed on a wall. They become part of an environment. Scale, architecture, light, movement, and the people who occupy the space all become part of the artwork. I love walking into a space that feels ordinary and imagining how paint could completely change its emotional temperature.
My public-art work has also given me the opportunity to create pieces that belong to a community rather than to a single collector. Working with cities and public spaces has made me think more deeply about how art can create a sense of identity and belonging.
At the same time, I’ve been developing a more personal body of fine art that is very different from my commercial work. Those paintings allow me to explore themes that are harder to express through a mural commission – witnessing, transformation, memory, vulnerability, resilience, and the choices we make when we see something happening around us.
That distinction has become increasingly important to me. Commercial work has taught me how to communicate with an audience, fine art gives me a place to ask questions.
What I’m most proud of is probably not any single painting. It’s the fact that I built an artistic career from a place where I once believed it wasn’t possible.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Luck has played a huge role, but I don’t think luck works very well unless you’re prepared to recognize it.
There were certainly lucky moments: meeting the right person, having someone discover my work online, being recommended for a project, or receiving an opportunity I couldn’t have predicted. Moving to California itself was a leap of faith, and many of the opportunities that followed could never have been planned in advance.
But some of what felt like bad luck turned out to be incredibly important.
Losing my previous career, going through a divorce, starting over in another country – none of those things felt lucky at the time. Yet they forced me out of a life that was stable but wasn’t really mine.
I think that’s one of the biggest lessons my career has taught me: sometimes luck doesn’t look like an opportunity. Sometimes it looks like a door closing so loudly that you finally notice there are other doors.
I also believe you have to participate in your own luck. I share my work. I reach out. I apply for opportunities even when I’m not sure I’ll get them. I show up, make connections, and keep creating. You can’t control which opportunity will change your life, but you can increase the chances of being there when it arrives.
Pricing:
- Custom paintings: individually quoted based on size, subject, and complexity.
- Murals: individually quoted based on scale, surface, design complexity, location, and materials.
- Public and commercial art: available for businesses, hospitality spaces, community organizations, and municipal projects.
- Art workshops and creative experiences: available for private groups, organizations, and institutions.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www: pannaarts.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p.anna_arts/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anna.pearson.969188
