Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Vafiadis.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I don’t have much of a story, I’m only 23, and I haven’t seen or done anything interesting. In regards to writing, I guess my story started in high school, a teacher liked my writing and entered me into the Scholastic national art and writings awards competition. They published me in their ‘Best teen writing’ compilation, and selected my work to tour with some of the other students in a traveling exhibition called ‘Art Write Now.’ I also received my first national key medal on the stage of Carnegie Hall. The next year I got a second national key award and was chosen as one of the eight finalists for Scholastic’s inaugural national student poet laureate program presided over by Michelle Obama, but I didn’t make it. That was my peak. Since then I’ve had a few things published, but nothing really notable. Now I’m just another millennial majoring in liberal arts, although my Mom claims that I am a genius.
Please tell us about your art.
I write, but I can’t really call it art. There’s a massive gulf between what I do and what real pros can do, the more I write, the larger the gulf seems to be. But that doesn’t bother me at all; I continue to write for the same reason I started, its a nice thing to do, and one of the only things for me that doesn’t feel forced. I mostly stick to poetry and fiction. I don’t feel inspired by anything, and I don’t have any great message to impart. I don’t care about what people take away from my writing; I’m mainly interested in just writing the next thing, whatever it might be. Also, sometimes I draw and stick stuff together with a hot glue gun too.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
I guess for me success would be getting paid to write, then again I’m probably never going to get paid for it, but I’m still going to write anyways. I don’t have a choice, it’s just something I do, in fact, I’d pay to do it. The only quality you need to be a successful artist is to not try so hard. Many people think they want to be an artist, but in reality, it’s a lot of work for them to even think about making something. If you’re supposed to be an artist or writer or whatever it will pretty much happen on its own, and it won’t feel like work. But if you have a choice, choose to do something else besides art, there are way too many artists out there, and they’re boring as hell. Nine times out of ten, someone working in agronomy will have more creativity, insight, and style than someone in the arts. Don’t end up like me and so many other millennials who got caught in the trap of liberal arts/studies, you can break the cycle!
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
https://analogsubmission.bigcartel.com/products
A few weeks ago you could buy my Chapbook ‘Wrong Side of the Bed’ here, but its sold out right now. Maybe they’ll make more copies in the future, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
You can find some of my poems in online mags like SOFTBLOW and TheVoicesProject.
http://www.softblow.org/nickvafiadis.html
http://www.thevoicesproject.org/poetry-library/ruidoso-by-nick-vafiadis
Contact Info:
- Email: nvafiadis95@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nvafiadis/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicholas.vafiadis
Image Credit:
Nikolas Kyriakou
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