Sareka Unique on Why She Started the Black Girls Illustrate Community

What is Black Girls Illustrate and what has your experience been like creating this community?

Black Girls Illustrate is a platform created to amplify the voices of black women Artists and Illustrators. It started as a passion project that grew from being the only black girl in all of my surface pattern design spaces. I didn’t learn about surface pattern design until I was an adult. And I know a lot of black women may be in the same boat that I was, unaware of pattern design and licensing artwork for products. From online classes to community groups, finding other women who looked like me that shared the same passion for illustration and surface pattern design as I did was a dime in a dozen.

After searching #blackgirlsillustrate on Instagram I was surprised at the time to find nothing there. So I created the hashtag and Instagram page, and went on a deep dive to find black women illustrators to feature. The Instagram page grew faster than I imagined it would. But as time went on, I realized that I wasn’t the only one searching for Black Women Illustrators. Girls from all over the world were getting excited to find other black women on the page that shared the same passion.

When searching for Illustrators I would come across so many amazing artists who had sooo much talent and could do such amazing things but they only had a few hundred followers and in my mind I was like everyone needs to see this talent and creativity. These girls should have hundreds of thousands of followers and be “sold out” and “fully booked”.

Everyone in the Black Girls Illustrate community has been super supportive to me and to the other girls in the community. Sometimes I get discouraged because I have so many things I want to put into building the community but it’s just me, even though a lot of my followers think I have my own team. I am also a newly full-time Artist working on navigating entrepreneurship on my own—it’s a lot to juggle. Then when I get sweet encouraging messages that sometimes bring me to tears from girls in the community, I am quickly reminded of why I started this in the first place and it is all so worth it. I just love the community and I’m like a momma bear sometimes too, my Cancer side starts to show when I see others out there trying to take advantage of my girls.

What’s next for you and your work?

Soon I’ll be featured in In Her Studio magazine’s Spring 2022 Issue! This is super exciting for me because I have been gushing over studios in the magazine for years now. June marks my one-year anniversary of being a full-time artist. I am just working on putting out some new pattern collections and new abstract art collections while gearing up for summer festival season.

I am also working on growing the Black Girls Illustrate Directory over on www.blackgirlsillustrate.com and creating swag to help pay the bills and adding more support and resources for the community. I would also like to create a Black Girls Illustrate coffee table book sometime in the future.

Black Women Artists for You to Know

To share the breadth of the Black women illustrator community, Sareka also recommended we check out the work of the creatives below. Read on to discover what inspires their work and see some of their designs!