Voyage Washington spotllights small business and independent artists that make the city interesting. "we want the stories we share to help give our big city a little bit of that small town community charm, where people know each other and their stories at a deeper, more personal level."

 

In this article Janejira talks about the challenges they've faced in their career, the role of luck, the mistakes they made going full time, and how they dug themselves out of rock bottom and kept going. 

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Voyage Washington:

"Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?"

 

Janejira:
I left one of my 9-5 jobs for vending full time thinking it was the right move and I would magically succeed. I don’t regret leaving that job since the change in management was legitimately a nightmare, but I probably would’ve ended up on the streets if it weren’t for my partner and my closest friends being able to bail me out when my funds were in the red. I was putting in over 80 applications every few months to get a job again after finally admitting I could in fact NOT do this. I applied for every grant I thought I could qualify for and ended up just losing money from applying to grants I didn’t get because those grants truly were for more charitable businesses and I felt like a selfish fraud because my pitches for Peachful Creations were all just “Here’s me. I’m an underrepresented artist who makes things and I need money to survive so I can make more art.” Meanwhile all the actual grant winners were like “Here’s an organization that actually solves problems with the world and provides services to people and not just pretty decorations” and I cannot begin to explain how intense the mental spiral could be at times.

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