Photos Courtesy of Tiffany Tan

Apple Cheeks, aka Tiffany Tan, has created a colorful and creative space on the internet where she shares her journey running her small business, artistic exercises such as sketching for 10 minutes daily, and glimpses of her life. Tan hopped on the phone to talk to NYOTA about the skills she developed in art school, the encouragement she gets from subscribers, and how a childhood friend helped her discover her passion for art.

When did you first get bitten by the creative bug?

It started pretty early on. My first memory is being in elementary school, and at the time I had a best friend, her name was Belinda, and after school she would just go to these art classes on her own and she was really prolific for her age. Even at the time, I was like, these drawings are probably so sophisticated for someone her age that someone in college could have been doing them. Like her anatomy and manga, she mainly did manga characters and manga art. So essentially we became friends and our parents also became friends, so then we had this setup where after school, we would both walk to my house and then we would do homework together, but in reality, we were just doodling in these ruled notebooks and we would make these shared sketchbooks together. I think I was ultimately so inspired by her that I told myself that I wanted to be as good of an artist as she was, and ever since I met her, I would just draw every single day.

In one of your TikTok videos, you touched on the fact that many people say that artists don’t make any money, a myth that is continuously proven wrong. Why do you think this line of thought still exists today?

If I think about it, that line probably comes from the most famous painters like Van Gogh, for example. To the general public, their idea of art is Van Gogh. He is an artist, and I think we all know the story of how he struggled his whole life to make ends meet. He handed off his paintings to other people as a way to pay for food and other things like that. I think because there’s not too much knowledge pushed out to the general public besides this one huge figure in art, they assume that all artists are like that. I think my mind changed about this phrase when I started going to art school because that’s when I furthered my knowledge about all the different avenues that art can be taken into, and even to this day, a lot of my friends are creatives and artists, not on social media. There’s animation, interior design, environmental design, and so many avenues where you can pursue art these days. I don’t think people know enough about them until they look into it further. And these days, this doesn’t apply anymore, especially because of social media. Anyway, I think that with social media, there’s more chances for freedom in art, so instead of working under a parameter of what art should be, you’re able to do almost anything online these days. That’s what I really appreciate about social media: I can do interior decorating, I can do illustration, I can do paintings, I can explore everything that I’m interested in, and it’s not as constraining. I think when other people see that, they’re more motivated to do that for themselves and realize that this is a very valid way to make a living as well.

Instead of being scared to pursue art, you took the bull by the horns and pursued it full-time. When you made that decision, did you feel a new surge of creativity knowing you had full rein over what you created and when?

In the beginning, it felt very freeing because I came from a full-time job where I was mainly their designer, and I was doing a lot more, product design and social media design. So, coming into the social media world, I felt immense freedom, but over time, I found myself stuck in this box of what people might have expected me to post or a certain style. I’m sure if you scroll back a lot, you can see what that style is. It’s something that a lot of people gravitated towards at the time; they really liked that cute sense of art style, and it was, in a way, still me, but I can see how it was more trendy at the time to do art like that. After three years of doing that, I started to find myself not being so happy with doing that all the time. I still enjoyed it, but I didn’t want that to be the only thing I’m known for: little banana and strawberry characters. So it took a long time and a lot of struggle, art block and everything, to really push me out of that mindset, and although I still do draw cutesy things here and there, I feel like it’s more aligned with me currently versus feeling like I’m forced to draw a specific subject. 

The art you sell is not confined to one medium. You make paintings, sketches, plushies, pouches, and more. What was the skill-building process that took you from sketching to creating plushies?

A lot of my skills I learned through art school because in art school, you’re not trying to hone in on one specific style, and they teach you almost everything. So I went from doing portraiture and figure drawings, my primary favorite things to do then, to suddenly being in illustration design courses where they would teach us how to use Illustrator, Photoshop, and stuff like that. We would have to design packaging for fake products, and that’s where I learned a little bit of my design skills and how to manufacture a little bit more; it’s from constantly jumping from different things. I even had a materials course where we’d learn how to do resin pours and woodworking, so it’s a bunch of different skills that set you up to be curious and learn whatever it is you’re trying to make. Then, I brought that mindset into my first job, where I furthered my knowledge of design and manufacturing because I was working directly with the manufacturers for that company. That ultimately set me up for Apple Cheeks and what I do today. I’m still learning as I go, but the biggest skill I learned throughout school and my job was to stay curious and always tackle these problems, even if they seem big and scary. 

You create content on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. What about content creation piqued your interest and made you want to start posting online?

I’ve always been a YouTube kid. For the longest time, I was always on DeviantArt, and then there was Tumblr, and then YouTube came along. I was always obsessed with supporting the artists that I really loved. There was this one artist called cartoongirl7 or something on DeviantArt, and she would sometimes post some drawings on YouTube or Audra Auclair, some of the OG social media artists. Seeing them be able to put their art out there inspired me. I wanted to do it very early on. I did make a few videos way before I started doing Apple Cheeks, where it was sketchbook tours and stuff like that, and ultimately, I didn’t have the time to continue doing that because I was still in high school and college. I ultimately went back after I graduated college because I don’t think I put too much thought into it, but I always knew that part of me wasn’t good with marketing myself to employers and working in a workspace. I feel like I struggle a lot with talking about myself, and so I don’t know if internally I just knew that maybe the traditional route wasn’t for me, but I just started posting and trying to see if this was something that I could do full time and it just ended up working.

In moments when it can be overwhelming to be a small business owner, has it been motivating to see the support from followers online? One person even commented, “I’m a simple guy. I see a new Apple Cheeks video. I watch and become filled with hope, inspiration, and purpose.”

I definitely think these days, now that my mindset is more stable with reading comments, because early on,  I was very unstable about it. If someone posted one thing that was a criticism, I would kind of shut down a little bit. No matter how many positive comments I read, the negative one always feels a lot worse. But these days, now that I feel secure enough in myself, my art, and what I do, the positive comments really keep me going. I’m always excited to see the comments. It kind of feels like my little cheerleader section, and I think it’s really sweet that people leave such nice things there for me to read. Sometimes people will email me, or I’ll talk to some patrons on my Patreon page, and it’s just nice to feel there’s an actual person behind these comments, and so I’ve gotten to know a few people here and there that way as well.

You’re preparing to reopen your shop. Why did now feel like the right time for a revamp/update? Are there new types of products you’ll be revealing?

I do a lot of relaunches pretty frequently. It’s either for launching new products or a new look to the website, and I recently rebranded the whole thing and that already went live. For a period of time I was trying to move away from what I was saying earlier about how I felt very boxed into a specific category, and so I wanted my website to shift and grow a little bit to reflect more of my current self, so I went through a whole phase of neutralizing myself. I just really wanted to have things grow with me, whether that’s my website, my portfolio, even if it’s not a huge change, I think these subtle changes just make things feel more like me. 

So for my next update, I’m not so sure yet. I think the tariffs that have been implemented are really affecting a lot of people right now, and it’s kind of forced me and a lot of other small creators to figure out what is possible. So I might take a pause potentially on manufacturing abroad and focus more on stationery and go back to my roots, because that’s where I came from, I would make a lot of stationery and stickers. I also recently got back into journaling a lot, so I really like how these platforms all allow me to grow in the direction that I’m interested in. So I’m excited for that. But I think for now, because I’m currently moving, it’ll take me a while to settle in. After that, I have been considering just making some stationery. 

What advice do you have for aspiring artists?

The biggest lesson I’ve been learning recently is not to freak out when things get rough and to continue going, especially if it’s something you’re passionate about and enjoy doing. Now that I’ve been doing this for five years, I’ve definitely picked up the pattern of the ebbs and flows of this job. There are times when it feels like maybe you’re dropping off the face of the planet, and no one’s interested anymore. It could just be seasonal, or there are always ways to pivot and continue moving forward. If you start freaking out too early and that overwhelms you to the point where you give up, I don’t know; I feel like you should go slow and steady and continue going even when it gets rough.

This story first ran in NYOTA’s Art is Life Issue. Read more from the issue here and purchase a print copy here