Wolf Criers Club
Vol 3
Wolf Criers Club is a collective of illustrators, writers, innovators and wolves that started meeting just over a year ago to work through an online course called Children’s Book Pro from SVS Learn and have been helping each other ever since. This newsletter is a collaborative public venture to build an audience as we move forward as creators of media including illustrations, graphic novels, webcomics, videos, written works, and picture books.
Our members inhabit different parts of the world, and in the upcoming weeks we will introduce you to individuals and their work. This week we are featuring Wolf Crier Ana Chapa, an educator and author illustrator residing in Monterrey, México.
“I strongly believe in the unmatched influence that Art has in shaping our lives, helping us make sense of the past, inspiring our present and guiding our future,”
—Ana Chapa
As an aside from the editor this week: putting together the links of the influences Ana mentions in the question section of this Wolf Criers post, I was astounded by the breadth of artists and thinkers mentioned. Definitely give some of those links a toggle. Happy discoveries — your editor, Kato
Let’s give a howl for Ana Chapa – !!
A little bit about Ana
Visionary, pioneer, groundbreaking innovator; these things she is not. She may tell you otherwise depending on the amount of caffeine consumed, though.
Currently striving towards crafting images and words which may or may not bring wide smiles, wonder, interesting ponderings, unexpected emotions, good ol’ inspiration or a brief respite from life to those who see them.
She stubbornly holds onto the power which both the Arts and Sciences have to better understand our past, guide our present and build our (hopefully better) future, starting from within. A new portfolio is under construction, in the meantime, you can see some of her previous work by visiting: www.anachapastudio.com
5 Questions for Ana
1. Where are you from originally and where are you located now?
I was born and raised in Monterrey, México, in the northern state of Nuevo León. Though I have traveled a tiny bit across America and a small fragment of Europe, México remains my current home…. for now.
2. How did you get your name?
Even though I use my real name, (chosen by my mother; she stubbornly dismissed the suggested idea to name me “Roberta” since I took after my father, named Roberto; “let the child form her own self!” she would say) on occasion I use a symbolic one, “a.Door” or “a.Doorknob”. It is a silly, personal pun which plays with one of my last names “Chapa”. In spanish, a doorknob can be technically called “chapa de la puerta”. I liked this idea as a way to play with the symbol of doors being gateways into not only different worlds, but to different places within each of us. It gave me a way to bring together and understand seemingly contrasting and conflicting aspects of life and of myself/ourselves into a cohesive, less intimidating human whole.
3. Who was an important influence, teacher, or mentor?
Growing up, I’d consider my mom as my first, most important influence: while coursing through 1st or 2nd grade, she was helping me with homework and began to draw in my notebook a picture of some kids discussing in front of a globe. I was in awe, hooked, taken by the impossibility of this clear act of black magic, and so I excitedly screamed “I want to do that too!”. Alongside that, I was lucky enough to have disney picture books and a bunch of cassettes filled with classical music lying about my home, which I read and listened to religiously, the latter forming images in my head I didn't quite understand but that I wanted to make real by drawing them. Saturday morning cartoons, marvel’s pepsi cards and video games also served as a strong influence to try and mimic what I saw.
As I grew up, the works of Mike Mignola, Akira Toriyama, Frank Frazetta and the Spectrum Fantasy Art compendiums pushed me to finally explore what could be if, alongside and later on instead of only mimicking, I tried to give form to something from within, like the images the music had previously inspired.
More recently, I’d regard the work of Rébecca Dautremer, Simon Stalenhag, Gris Grimly, Shaun Tan, Joe Madureira, Wylie Beckert, William Blake and Emily Carroll as influences. Stories which bring something forth from within and cover it up with metaphors and symbolism or silly and funny moments really strike a chord within me. The way in which personal human experience can be shared through these and touch the collective, and the way in which something within us or something which takes us as a vessel to be born through an image we craft fascinates me, and all of these artists do that in one way or another.
Outside of visual art, the work of Carl Jung, Liz Greene, Ray Bradbury, Terry Pratchett, Neil Postman, Tristan Harris and Agatha Christie are ever-present influences as well. As for teachers and mentors, I’ve never had the honor of having a direct, in-person one, but I consider Tim McBurnie, Jake Parker, Steven Zapata and Marshall Vandruff as such.
4. When did you start taking your art seriously?
About 24 hours ago.
Just kidding.
Maybe.
Ok I’d say around 2020. I built a career in STEAM education and innovation technology which, among many satisfactions, made me wonder what could I accomplish if I put my all into properly developing one of the other things I cherish the most in life, one which I’d never considered as good enough or important enough to give it its proper time and dedication within a professional context. And so I planned for a sabbatical to dive into courses to properly develop my technical skill in order to give proper way to imagination.
It’s been anything but easy and straightforward since it involves a considerable amount of soul searching and confrontations with yourself, from the best to the worst there is within you, but it has also proven to be one of the most rewarding times of my life given the developments I’ve had because of it, inside and outside of artistic endeavors.
5. What is grabbing your attention this year?
I decided to try and blend what I’m currently doing with teaching younger students about the fundamentals of drawing. I’ve always felt that Art education and visual literacy are oftentimes overlooked or easily confined to only arts & crafts at the K-12 levels, at least in many Mexican schools.
So I’m in the process of building a program which tries to foster in students the love of challenge and a new appreciation of what it takes to create something from scratch and how to look at their world in new and attentive ways, together with the satisfaction of knowing they can go through the creative process and learn much about themselves, others and the world through this practice.
On a more personal note, I’ve been really into strength training and nutrition for the past months as well, sticking to a weekly routine and new habits around food. I’ve found the experience to have several parallels in the mindset required to pursue something challenging which takes a longer period of time to work through and accomplish, such as crafting a story and illustrating it. I’ve found myself oftentimes bringing from my exercise practice the resilience and proper mindset to keep on going regardless of how tough it gets and to know that, even if one does not manage to quite hit the mark at the moment, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen provided one has enough dedication, discipline and sheer joy found in doing the activity itself.
Aside from that, I’m working on new, more cohesive and personal pieces for a portfolio/website redesign I have planned to launch in August this year. ~
This is super fun. Howls of joy!
Wohooooooo ☄️ 🤟!
Howling for you, Ana.