Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Hart.
Hi Anna, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m Anna, an illustrator and graphic designer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Besides drawing, painting, animating, and pursuing a myriad of other artistic interests, I also love to keep up with what other creative folks are working on, particularly my fellow artists from North Carolina. I truly believe we have an incredibly unique artistic scene here, which is why I started ULTISOL, a zine by NC creatives for NC creatives.
ULTISOL is a collaborative publication that includes everything from paintings to sculptures to digital art to poetry, all from North Carolina. It was made with the intention of capturing the variety of creative work that we have in NC, and giving independent artists and writers a place to get their work published with no cost barriers. ULTISOL is also distributed completely for free, and you can check out the first issue on the website now.
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?
I’ve made zines in the past, but with ULTISOL, this was the first time I had organized a collaborative publication on my own. One of the obstacles I faced was that I received a lot more submissions than I could realistically fit into the zine. I was so grateful that so many people wanted to be a part of the project, but at the same time it was a bit of a dilemma, since the goal was to publish work from creators that don’t often get published. The way I tackled this issue was asking other folks to help curate which submissions would fulfill the goals of this project. That way, it wasn’t just my one singular voice deciding who gets to be published and who doesn’t, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. By including the perspectives of other people, I stayed true to the original intentions of the project and ended up with a final product that exceeded anything I could have done by myself.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I started ULTISOL because there are a lot of extremely talented independent artists and writers in North Carolina who are all-too-often overlooked. The zine includes all kinds of unique creative work, and it was important to me that ULTISOL reflected that in every aspect, including the name. The word “ultisol” (pronounced uhl-teh-sawl) refers to the red clay soil that is found throughout North Carolina. It makes for a one-of-a-kind landscape that inspires our creators and serves as an artistic medium too, such as for pottery, which is why I chose this word as the name.
You can find a digital copy of the zine on the website, and you can stay up to date on where to get physical copies by checking out the zine’s Instagram. I hope this project inspires you as much as it has inspired me!
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Curators of ULTISOL: Aurora Figueroa-Benetti
Eoin Farrell
Jade Finch Phan
RJ Washington
Contact Info:
- Website: ultisolzine.carrd.co
- Instagram: ultisolzine
