By Ellie Shalvarjian
Staff Writer
Mira Costa senior Barbara Garrison makes sure that her dreams and aspirations do not “fly away from her” by creating unique and interesting stickers of various birds and animals.
Garrison has been creating stickers of various animals, including lizards, birds, and more, for the past three months. This has been a self defined “passion project” by Garrison, so she only does it so she is able to find joy from it, not money. So far, Garrison has made around ten sheets of stickers.
“Creating these birds stickers has been important to me because I wanted to see a project through from start to finish and be proud of the results,” Garrison said. “I achieved that.”
The project was originally started by Garrison through the stART program in Manhattan Beach, a program paired with MBUSD where students create independent art projects with mentorships from professional artists. Garrison’s project for this year has been these stickers. This has been here first and only year in the program.
“This is my first and only year in stART, while many others have been in the program for two years” Garrison said. “The environment is very fun and supportive. Our coordinator, Nina, is so supportive and fantastic.”
Link: Read more about stART, the program that inspired Garrison to create these small creations.
There is no specific reason as to why Garrison chose to make the stickers of certain animals, she mainly just chose the animals she did due to the fact that she found them cute, she said. As of right now, Garrison is starting to sell sheets of stickers to people for a couple dollars per page.
“The most rewarding part is seeing people’s reactions to the artwork that I create,” Garrison said. “It is so special since the reception has been universally positive.”
Garrison has been using an independent printing company to help print her stickers. All Garrison has to do is digitally create the prints with any device, send the design to the printers, and then see her hard work come to life in 3d fashion when the stickers get sent back to her. From there, she gets verbal requests from people to receive the sets of stickers.
“There haven’t been many setbacks for me, the project has been relatively stress-free,” Garrison said. “The best moment of this was seeing my finished work sent off to the manufacturer and being done with the end of the project.”
Link: Here is an example of the type of website that one could use to create sheets of stickers.
For now, Garrison is only just now starting to price her stickers, and has no further plans to make a website or expand her business. As she heads off to college she has been forced to divert her attention away from stickers and more to college. However, she does have plan to continue printing these stickers recreationally.
“These stickers have given me confidence in my ability to do artwork that speaks to lots of people,” Garrison said. “I really hope to continue making these stickers in the future.”
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