History of me, part II
The last 5 years or something, up until now, very intense
Hola, dear reader,
thank you for reading the beginning of me, here is the story of last 5 years.
I got quite a lot of personal responses to this story and it feels very natural that I wrote it.
Before inviting you to read further, I will stop here to post the latest video that I did for YouTube where I talk about connections.
And here we go… One of the first things I did when Lukas started part-time daycare was announce an offline sketch club in a local cafe. It was autumn of 2019. I also went to the LightBox expo art convention which happened for the first time in September of 2019 in California.
2020 was supposed to be the year when Lukas (my son) would attend daycare more or less full-time, and I was thinking about how I could become a full-time artist.
You know what happened, right? Pandemic. We were stuck in a small apartment with Ariel (my partner), who had to start mastering remote work, and Lukas (3.5 years old then) in his toddler era, which can drive any parent insane. So my hopes were dashed—I had to become a full-time parent again and come up with strategies to keep my toddler entertained. Sketching saved my mind because the role-playing and tantrums were intense. Now, I think that lockdown was cool. I got into sourdough baking, birdwatching, reading, gaming, and watching series over Discord with friends. I moved my offline sketch club online and have run it ever since.
When lockdowns eased, daycare resumed. I did all kinds of freelance work here and there—a bit for publishing houses, small businesses, and rare gigs for weddings from old clients. I was learning to draw and considering entering the game industry as an artist. I started a YouTube channel to show mundane life in Moscow. I was invited to interviews for an art director position at a publishing house. We moved to a bigger place and celebrated our 10th anniversary.
And then Russia invaded Ukraine.
I’m leaving a lot of personal events out of this story because otherwise, I will never finish writing it. I want this to be a story of my professional journey, though some big events influenced my career. I won’t discuss my thoughts or how I lived through it here. If you have questions, leave a comment or DM me, and I will try to fill you in as best I can.
My PayPal got blocked, my bank cards stopped working, I closed my Patreon, and I forgot about my dreams of working with international clients and filming cozy vlogs in English.
Surprisingly, I got a job offer from the publishing house. I thought they would freeze the position, because all the businesses were in turmoil, but they couldn’t because the other art director was burning out, and someone had to be hired. I fit perfectly into the workflow. I think it saved my mental health. The sketch club also helped; I managed to keep it afloat and offer emotional and artistic support to the members. I hosted one offline and one online back then.
Working in-house after 10 years of freelancing was very refreshing, interesting, challenging, and weird. I learned new things about myself, teamwork, and the publishing industry. I’m flattered that I was offered this position. Let me be honest with you: I knew a lot, I had many hard and soft skills, but I still felt underqualified. I will forever be thankful to those people who saw a book art director in me and made this job offer.
Unfortunately, my time at the publishing house was short; I worked there for a bit less than a year. Then I decided to quit. I didn't count how many books I published during that time, but it was quite a few. I did a lot of lettering for covers and art-directed covers and inner layouts. I have a lot to be proud of. It feels strange to write about it. I loved the job.
Why did I leave, you may ask?
Russia rolled out a military mobilization and another homophobic amendment to the laws, which made me very afraid. I also had PTSD reactions and images of my family being blown up in our sleep. Full-time work and therapy helped me manage it a bit. But sometimes, decisions need to be made. So we decided to leave.
I’m bad at telling beautiful lies, so here’s another reason I quit. I was overloaded and overworking (despite trying not to) and approaching burnout. All the mechanisms of self-preservation told me to stop. Anger was my way of dealing with what my body and mind experienced. The publishing industry often has people who love what they do too much and don’t speak up because they have their reasons (and it’s scary to speak up whatever reasons one has). Often, people are introverts who love books and solace. We all worked from home, creating a perfect setup for burnout. Also hustle culture and living on the edge of sanity is still praised, right? It’s not like the rich IT or tech industry where businesses have a lot of money to solve (or pretend to solve) problems. But fortunately, the management of my publishing house was sweet and saw the problem, hiring more people after I left. Now there’s quite an art department, and I’m proud of the people who built it.
After deciding to immigrate, we had to decide where to go. We chose Turkey because our friends who had moved earlier were so helpful and supportive. Then we had another decision fork. These friends moved to a small village without English schools or daycare. We had other acquaintances in various cities with schools, but the rent in bigger cities was more expensive, and English (or Russian) speaking daycare needed a budget. The choice was to move to Antalya (2 million people), keep my job, and use my salary for more expensive rent and daycare, or move to Turunç (1,000 people), leave my job, have cheaper rent, and be a full-time mom to help Lukas through immigration.
It feels like I owe you another story of the whole immigration process. I’ll try to pack it into a few paragraphs, but it feels insufficient.
We chose the second option. It was better for all three of us. Ariel focused on the money and documents, I focused on Lukas, housekeeping, and building a new local network for us to rely on. Lukas focused on being a 6-year-old roaming the wild. From the start, we knew Turkey wouldn’t be a long-term destination because the economy is very bad, the government is questionable, and integration perspectives are limited. Despite that we have absolutely amazing experience with people we met in Turunç, it really was one of the best periods of my life. But I had to brainstorm strategies for the future, meet people, Google, learn stories of other people, and be creative. I kept some lettering projects with my ex-employer and old clients and did some freelance work. I reopened my YouTube channel because I was filming anyway, and I thought, why not share what I see? I kept the sketch club online. The offline sketch club continued without me in Moscow with the help of core OG members. We just closed it a few months ago.
The Turkish government decided to stop issuing residencies to foreigners. It was a populist move before elections but wasn’t canceled later. We had to come up with a plan of where to go next even quicker. Then Spain opened a digital nomad visa program. Many countries have these programs now, as more people work remotely since pandemic. The trade is simple—if you earn money outside Spain and pay a fixed tax rate in Spain, you can have a 3-year residency. You don’t take local jobs, you generate taxes, and you bring money by living there. It’s a sweet deal. For the visa holder, it’s a chance to live somewhere longer than the usual 3-month tourist visa and work legally. Often these visas are shorter than 3 years, but Spain offered the best option.
So we prepared all the papers, applied, and moved. This short sentence sums up half a year of my life, but I’ll make another dispatch solely on the topic of immigration, as I said.
We moved to Spain and are still in the process of settling and finding our relationship with the town and country. We love it here so far. Our son goes to school, and I have time to work normally again.
The spouse of a visa holder, though, can legally work in the country. That’s me. I can work in Spain and the EU and internationally as a solopreneur. This brings us to the cliffhanger of our story. The moment of now, spring of 2024.
I am landing myself legally in Spain now and starting to offer my services. Mainly it is lettering and calligraphy. I want to make a presentation to send to European publishing houses, but I am also eager to work with local businesses and do window designs, murals, and logos. By the end of our time in Turkey, I reconnected with my photography and got used to my new camera, so I feel the urge to film personal and client photo sessions.
I do quite a lot of things pro bono or on a pay-what-you-want basis—sketch club, writing group, digital tools, YouTube, this Substack. There is always a way to contribute to thank me for that via Buymeacoffee. Not needed, but appreciated.
As you can see, these 40 years were quite adventurous. I got tired writing it all, but it was amazing to look back and see that a lot of things just take time. I have a lot happening now and a lot to aim for. Thank you for reading the whole thing. I hope it was interesting. I think the main idea is that our lives are so intricate and complicated, no self-help book or insta guru can grasp it all. People fascinate me, my life fascinates me.
Let’s keep living. See you in the next one,
Vera
In the end, I will leave a plethora of links that is me on the internet. Any kind of interaction with those is very much welcome, as it helps me to build my career.
WEBSITE - I am reworking my website now, adding photography, brushing lettering and illustration sections, rewriting bio, etc.
YOUTUBE - new videos go on with no schedule, as they brew slowly sometimes.
DONATION JAR - buymeacoffee is the way for one time donations, monthly ones and a little DIGITAL SHOP which will also get new products soon.
Here is a cloud of my instagrams, as much as I hate the whole system there, I post occasionally and keep in touch with people who use it as a messenger (still better then whatsap or facebook).
https://www.instagram.com/veragolosova.art/ - my illustration and lettering are here, also occasional stories.
https://www.instagram.com/instantes.vibrantes - newest one I did to create a photography gallery as a store front.
https://www.instagram.com/veragolosova - the old personal mammoth which can track my life back to 2010 or 2012, not sure, I really want to see this first post, but cannot find a way to do it easily. Too lazy to scroll. The thing has 6k posts, lol, some of them with those oldschool insta filters.