Geninne D. Zlatkis is an artist and mom who lives in Mexico and sells her crafts on Etsy. She describes herself as "passionately curious" and has a book coming out in October.
A Mom, A Painter, An Architect
I was born in the U.S. but I’ve lived in South America most of my life. I ended up here in Mexico when I was a teen and I studied graphic design but before that I studied architecture in Chile for a couple of years.
Right now I am a freelance illustrator; I’m self-employed. Basically what I do is keep my blog and sell my prints on Etsy. I am a stay-at-home-mom and that’s all I do! I just paint!
My husband is an architect and we’ve been building houses from scratch and selling them for the past 10 years. That’s why you see so many pictures of different houses that we’ve lived in on the blog. They’re all his designs. We just sold our latest house and moved back to our old neighborhood in a wooded area outside of Mexico City.
Geninne
I started my blog (Geninne.com) in 2005 but before then I always found time to do my artistic things. I worked freelance for a couple of people but I never stopped drawing. Since I was two years old. It’s what I’ve done all my life.
In 2005 I discovered a website called “Illustration Friday.” It’s a weekly challenge for illustrators and you don’t have to be a professional illustrator to participate. You needed to have a blog to post your work so that’s why I started my blog in the first place.
I did the challenges for three years, every single week and I loved it because I would post my illustrations out and I would get feedback from all these different people from all over the world and it was a great community of people who were doing the same things I liked to do.
I did that for three years and then I started incorporating photos of my home, stuff that I would do apart from illustrating. I’ve always been interested in all different kinds of crafts, not just watercolors and painting.
After a couple weeks with my blog I started my Etsy shop. It’s been great. I’ve gotten to work with really great companies in the U.S. like Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie. It’s incredible!
Making An Impression
I started when I was a little girl in middle school. In Chile they are very craft-minded in schools and I was always interested in doing crafts. I took wood-burning classes and macramé and anytime I could take an elective that had to do with crafting I would take it! I’ve been doing it forever.
I think four or five years ago I discovered carving stamps, and I went crazy! I really fell in love with carving and it turned out my great-grandfather was a wood-carver, so I guess I have it in my genes.
Stamp carving is one of my most popular subjects in the blog and about two years ago Lark Books contacted me and said they wanted to do a book on carving stamps. So, last year I wrote a book that’s coming out in October called “Making An Impression.”
Bird’s The Word!
I love birds. My love comes from being in an environment that is full of them—it’s impossible not to be inspired by them! I’ve lived in the mountains near Mexico City on-and-off for 10 years. It’s a wooded area that’s teeming with birds and other types of creatures. It’s very close to nature; wild and chaotic and I really love being close to it and that’s when I started painting birds, when we moved here.
Photography
My dad always loved photography. I blame him for my love of photography, too! He always had great cameras and when I was 14 he gave me one. That’s when I started taking pictures and I’ve never not taken pictures since. I just feel it’s another way of expressing my art.
I love taking pictures of Turbo (my dog). I’ve had had dogs all my life but since I got married I didn’t have one. It was 15 years that I didn’t have a dog and I just fell totally head-over-heels in love with Turbo.
I was posting a lot of photos of Turbo on my blog and it was conflicting because it was an art blog and I was posting photos of my dog! So I decided to make him his own blog. He has so many fans now that I started posting photos of him on my blog again. Everybody loves him!
Blogging
I always encourage people to make blogs because it encourages you to be constant. I’ve grown so much with the blog. Before I would just do stuff whenever I wanted but now I just do it every single day. Doing whatever you love to do everyday really makes you grow. You know, practice makes perfect…and it’s completely true!
