Interview with Allison Filice
@allisonfilice a San Francisco based illustrator and designer. Allison uses her work to explore her inner and outer worlds and is inspired by the intersection of creativity, psychology and spirituality. She has worked with clients including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bandcamp, Nautilus magazine, New Scientist magazine and more. She is the creator of The Journey oracle deck, as well as the host of the Friendly Unknown podcast.
You were the first artist I reached out to when I came up with the idea of AIRA, I approached you over dm, what made you agree to collaborate?
I was so honored when you reached out! I haven’t been taking on much work the past few years because I’ve been deep in the trenches of motherhood with two little ones and you and your business idea seemed so cool and it also felt like something I could work on during nap times.
We’ve both been bonding a lot over motherhood and our babies throughout this process, because I just had my first last spring. Did motherhood have an impact on your art? How so?
Yes, totally. I was doing mostly editorial illustration before I had my first baby and the turnaround times on projects can be really fast, like 2-3 days a lot of times, and you have to have multiple projects going at one time. I couldn’t work like that once I had children, so I took time away from my career which gave me the space to rethink things and get closer to the essence of what I want to do. I was so lucky to be able to have that time with my babies, but it was also really hard to step away from my career and creating on a regular basis. I kind of lost myself for a while. I really fell into the depths of my psyche after both babies. I spent a long time down there exploring and luckily I ended up finding myself again each time. The art and ideas I’m playing with right now come from that experience.
Your illustrations have a lot of cosmic and philosophical themes, why do you think those are such big sources of inspiration for you?
I don’t know, I’m just fascinated with the metaphysical. It took a while for me to find what really interested me in life because that is not the world I came from at all. So I guess I’m putting those ideas into my work to try to understand them and share them. It feels familiar and new all at once.
You’re able to capture the esoteric and the invisible so well in your work, what is your approach to visualizing those complex subjects?
I enjoy the challenge of trying to visualize invisible concepts. I know some of the ideas can be quite abstract and sometimes a bit weird for people so I try to make them more playful and friendly with my visual style. I want people to know that it’s all going to be okay, because if we don’t have hope and optimism then we’re really in trouble. I think I’m always scanning the world for mirrors and metaphors, little stories I can convey in a picture. Sometimes I’ll see something in the world and work from that, sometimes an image just appears in my mind while I’m on a walk, and other times I’ll have to work it out on the page until it looks and feels right.
You’ve mentioned philosophy being a well of inspiration too. Who are some of your favorite philosophers, and why do they speak to you?
I’d actually say I’m more into psychology and exploring philosophical ideas through that lens. My sweet spot is probably where psychology meets creativity, philosophy, mythology, spirituality and even physics. Some of my favorites are Carl Jung, Michael Meade, Joseph Campbell, Marion Woodman, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Jean Shinoda Bolen, David Bohm, Terence Mckenna. I think the thread that ties most of these thinkers together is the notion that the external world is a mirror of our inner world. If we can transform ourselves, the world will transform.
You made a beautiful oracle deck, and have posted tarot cards on your IG feed. Are oracle and tarot cards a part of your daily life? How do you use them?
I go through phases. I don’t really read tarot myself, but I love hearing readings from other people. And I love doing oracle readings. I feel like it helps me have a conversation with my unconscious and it helps me understand what’s going on with my energy and how I can best work with it. When I was creating the oracle deck I was watching daily tarot readings from a woman called Gemstone tarot on youtube. I love her, she’s really silly and has an amazing intuition. It can be pretty lonely illustrating and writing alone all day, so listening to a reading on youtube can help me feel like I’m not totally isolated. But other times I’ll just pull a card here or there when I feel like I need it and I might go weeks without doing it.
Can you draw a card from your “The Journey” Oracle Deck and do a little reading? Let’s say it’s setting an intention for this collection.
Sure! I pulled the “wholeness” card. This is one of my favorites and it’s about how we’re all these uniquely beautiful individuals who inevitably in life have to fit in to survive and receive love, and in doing so we push away parts of ourselves that others won’t accept. Maybe we learn that being assertive, liking money, or expressing our emotions is something our family doesn’t approve of, and might even disdain, so we push those parts of us way down to be in alignment with our family’s values. But those parts are always within us, they’ve just been cast off into our shadow and they try to get our attention in all these unhelpful ways. If we can gently bring those parts of us out of the shadow and reintegrate them, they help us become more fully us and therefore more expressive and energetic and magnetic. The paradox is we are born whole and are always perfect and whole no matter what, but we are simultaneously on a quest to reclaim our wholeness. Maybe our intention for this collection can be to take a little pause from our quest and appreciate how amazing we are right in this moment.
You’ve discussed having a lot of limiting beliefs when you were starting your transition from UX designer to illustrator, how did you push through those?
So many limiting beliefs came to the surface on that journey. They were like these invisible walls that I kept running into and couldn’t move past. I thought it was going to be this straightforward thing of making work and slowly getting more jobs until I had a steady career. I hadn’t really considered my inner world and how much of the work would be healing my limiting beliefs that were blocking me from moving forward. That period of time is what the oracle deck is about, what I learned and how I moved through it. I luckily had this vision of who I wanted to be and I just kept that so sacred in my mind and heart as I navigated everything. I listened to a ton of people’s success stories to learn how other people pushed through their barriers and that helped me start to see a map of how other people did it and I could see where I was on that map and that was so reassuring. What I learned from that experience is the challenges that come up on your journey are the way forward, they help you grow into the more expanded person you need to be in order to have the more expanded reality that you want.
What are your favorite and least favorite parts about the process of an illustration?
I love expressing myself, I love bringing an idea to life in a new way and I love being in the flow state of creating, but I can be a perfectionist and that’s the hardest part. It can make the process really painful and tedious. But I also appreciate that the perfectionist part of me just wants my work to look a certain way and make an impact.
I know from listening to your podcast, The Friendly Unknown, that you’re a big podcast-head. What are you listening to now?
Living Myth, New Dimensions Radio, Pulling the Thread, Buddha at the Gas Pump, This Jungian Life, Psychedelic Salon and a bunch of others.
If you had to choose a career outside of illustration/design, what would you do?
I’m actually sort of working on that now. I’m exploring the space of creative coaching as a way to combine my love of creativity, psychology and wanting to help people do what they’re here to do.
What’s a piece of art (could be a painting, book, song, etc) that changed your life?
There have been so many. One that comes to mind is the book Contact by Carl Sagan. That book was really special to me.
What’s something you’re excited about now?
Internal Family Systems, it’s a practice in therapy that I’ve been obsessed with for a while and I’ve been studying it and trying to get some training in it to use for coaching. I feel like it’s the tool I’ve been dreaming about for ages.
Rapid fire round:
Where’s your favorite place?
There’s a place I go in my daydreams that’s this cozy coffee shop on a rainy day downtown in some city. I love it there.
What song is the soundtrack to your life?
Apocalypse Dreams by Tame Impala
You just won the lottery, you never have to work again, what now?
Honestly I would do what I’m doing now but I’d have money to buy a home here in San Francisco
Beach or mountains?
Beach
Last meal?
Probably a sandwich with chips in it
Favorite beverage?
Coffee
Would you rather speak all languages or talk to animals?
Talk to animals
One movie you can watch over and over?
Kiki’s Delivery Service. I’ve watched it like 100 times with my son.
Any artists you’d like to see do a collection with aira?
Lauren Martin!
Thanks Allison!