Minnesota artist has created a new drawing tool to represent Black hairstyles

INTERVIEWER: So have you ever noticed, there aren't a lot of Black cartoon characters or fantasy figures like sorcerers, fairies, or mermaids. If you page through coloring books, there aren't a lot of Black or Brown characters. But that is changing, thanks to our next guest.

In 2020, Vegalia Jean-Pierre, a native Minnesotan, launched a TikTok account to find an audience for her set of digital brushes that draw Black hair textures, including braids, curls, locks, and twists. That was a very good move. She now has nearly 600,000 social media followers and a $50,000 grant to grow her business. Those brushes, by the way, can be found on Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop, Procreate, and other platforms. Vegalia, welcome to Minnesota Now.

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: Thank you so much.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks for being with us. I appreciate your time. Say, the videos of you using your digital hairbrushes went viral. They're really fun to watch. Can you explain what that looks like for listeners?

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: So if you can imagine a brush that you'd use traditionally, from that, it would just come out as a regular stroke. But for digital tools, you can make a sort of stamp pattern that can repeat over and over again. And in the market, there wasn't a lot of different hair texture options. Built into certain apps, there's straight hair, but curly hair, braids, that kind of texture wasn't built in.

So I was drawing a piece one day, and it took me about four hours to draw these micro braids, which are just really tiny braids. And I thought, there could be a better solution to this. There could be an easier way for braids or curls to be drawn so more people would be able to draw it and draw people of color, draw Black characters.

So I came up with this system pattern to help make curl patterns, to help make braids, so when you draw with a digital pen or with an Apple Pencil on your tablet or iPad, out comes this braid or curl texture. So you don't have to put in as much work, and you can create these amazing characters that you might have not developed before.

INTERVIEWER: And then you decided to make videos of this and put them on TikTok, which obviously that just expanded your horizons. What did you think of that?

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: I was very shocked when my TikTok videos blew up, because before that, I was just making fun content. During the pandemic, we didn't have a lot going on, so I was just making fun content for me. And I thought, oh, these brushes are cool. I like using them. Why not put them on social media? So I did.

Most of my videos usually took hours for me to create. My first video of my brushes, I did it in 5 minutes because I didn't think that much of it. And it hit 6 million views. So I was like, wow, this is really something. People really want this product, and I should develop more. So I did. And I have a lot of collections now.

INTERVIEWER: And you were invited to the TikTok for Black Creatives incubator program. That also must have been a huge open door for you.

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, it was a little bit in response to all the things happening in 2020, especially in the summer of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter movement. So TikTok wanted to do something to support Black creatives. And we went through a three to four month program where they taught us how to connect with brands, how to market yourself, basically be a, quote, unquote, influencer or a creator that has a career on social media. And it was very helpful. And it was really helpful to know how I could market myself on social media, because after that program launched and it was finished, that's when I launched my brushes. So I was very prepared for the virality of it all.

INTERVIEWER: I also have to say, I loved your Melanin Magic coloring book. I thought that was beautiful. And I'd like you to talk a little bit about the importance of representation of Black and Brown faces in something as simple as a coloring book.

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. And coloring books-- I mean, you can go to a store and get a magical girl coloring book, and there's not going to be a lot of Black characters in that. And even on TV, when you're looking at characters, you're not seeing a lot of Black characters, especially dark-skinned Black characters with kinky hair textures or really short hair textures.

So I brought 14 different artists together from all over the world, and I contacted them. I said, would you be interested in making a coloring book featuring all these Black magical beings? And they said, yeah, that'd be awesome. So over the span of two to three months, we created this book. It features 35 different magical characters and mermaids, fairies, magical girls. It's very diverse, and it's been really well received. And I'm really excited to see especially all the very young kids using it and being able to see themselves in a coloring book or just as a magical being in general.

INTERVIEWER: Have you had feedback from young kids?

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: They've loved the book. I've been sent multiple pictures from parents of different kids using the book, coloring it, from all different backgrounds, because I didn't want it just to be for Black kids. I want it to be for all kids. I just want Black beings of color to be represented more so that you can see them in that space. So it's been very exciting to see all of them really excited about the book, especially the parents because they know they weren't seeing themselves growing up with characters like this. So it's been a really, really good response.

INTERVIEWER: And you didn't see yourself either when you were growing up?

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: No. I mean, I would pretend a lot of characters are Black, but they weren't, because that's like of what you had to do. I liked Powerpuff Girls and Totally Spies, and I'd pretend that Buttercup-- I mean, Blossom-- I don't-- whatever one had black hair, I'm like, yeah, she's the Black one, because that's kind of just what you had to do as a Black kid growing up with not a lot of magical characters out there.

INTERVIEWER: Let me ask you about being an artist. I've always admired the art and the story of another artist, Georgia O'Keeffe, who said, I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do. What were some of the hurdles you needed to jump to get to this stage of your career?

Well, when I was growing up, my parents were always very supportive of my art career. But when I was in school, not a lot of, I guess, advisors were very supportive. Actually, when I was graduating from high school, my advisor said, don't pursue art. Pursue something more realistic. And I was, like, full-on art at that time. So it was very devastating for me to hear that.

But luckily, I did a lot of business. And so that's what I went to school for. And then I realized very quickly that I did not like business. So I went back into my art side and did product design, industrial design. But yeah, different hurdles. I've always been the only Black person in a lot of these spaces, but that hasn't really stopped me from pursuing anything that I wanted because I've had very encouraging parents, and they both said nothing should limit you to your dreams. So I always tried very hard and strived for anything I wanted and believed that you can make anything possible if you have the right people around you.

INTERVIEWER: What about art feeds your soul?

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: Art is very expressive to me. I've always been an artist ever since I was, like, a baby. It was like an extension of myself. I feel like I can put pen to paper or digital art or photography-- because I do photography-- and be able to express my emotions, be able to express a feeling or convey a story. I love storytelling, whether that be something very dramatic or something very simple, like the coloring book I feel like it a story in itself. It's hard to put into words, really, because it's something that's just the core nature of myself.

INTERVIEWER: So now that you're on this path, where do you think you want to take this I mean, when you look into your crystal ball, where do you see yourself going?

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: I want to build my team even bigger. I have a small team right now, and it's been amazing to connect with people who have a similar goal. My goal now and in the last few years has been to create stories or products or tools that create more diverse representation and inclusion and create, especially, more, I would say, visual representation of these characters, whether it be Black characters, Native American, Asian. Right now, we're focusing on the Black space. But I believe there's so much work to be done in the inclusive realm. So that's what I want to continue to do with all the projects I have going on and in the future.

INTERVIEWER: Wow. I wish you well, and I thank you for your time today.

VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: Yes. Thank you so much.

INTERVIEWER: Vegalia Jean-Pierre is a digital creator from Saint Louis Park, Minnesota. You can find more of Vegalia's work on her website, byvegalia.com, and follow her on all social media platforms. She's on all of them, and she does all of her own social media too, which is a lot of work. She is amazing.