For years now, I've been admiring the colorful, psychedelic work from Ellie Pritts. I first came across her Instagram account and I love the unique perspectives she is able to create through her use of color and composition.

Can you begin by introducing yourself? Where you are based, your name, and the mediums you enjoy working in.

My name is Ellie Pritts and I'm based in LA (from chicago originally). I enjoy working on things that bridge the gap between digital and analog experiences.

And you do it very well. Talk to me about racertrash :)

What was the genesis of that project and what other artists are involved?

The project started as a joke for our friend Alex Jacob's birthday. He loves the movie Speed Racer and said he was going to re-cut is as a vapor wave film. Then he actually did a few minutes of it and shared it with us and everyone kind of just jumped on board.

We split the movie up into segments and everyone got a chunk to work on, we made it in 2 days and screened it on Twitch. this was late may 2020 btw. Since then we have worked on 10+ feature films and have a roster of over 40 editors.

Some noteworthy guest editors have been Freddie Wong, Kyle Reiter, Adam Wingard, Jonah Ray and BenDavid Grabinski.

We have a full list of our editors on the RACER TRASH site (the buddy list haha)! Here is a podcast we were on where we talk more in depth about how we started and how it all works.

Amazing initiative, excited to dive into more of that. Let's widen the scope here, what was your own exposure to creativity as a young artist and was there a moment in your life where you knew you would take this leap?

I come from a very creative family and remember having many different creative outlets at a pretty young age. The first I remember clearly was violin. As I grew older I continued to be very interested in music and the arts, and I consciously remember deciding that would be my life path in 7th grade.

My parents at the time did not support it though, they said I was too young to know what I wanted. I was trying to go to a high school for the arts. At 19 I dropped out of college for music performance and decided to focus on my photography business.

So interesting that you came from a creative family but you were still discouraged in your pursuits- I guess its the care that parents have for their children that makes them nervous about a creative path as a career.

Yeah who knows haha, but boy were they wrong!

I feel that technology and social media, in tandem, have opened up so much room for creatives to make a living. How have these changes enabled you as an artist?

I personally have been incredibly enabled by technology and social media, Instagram in particular. I was able to build a decently big, genuine community behind my work. This has opened countless doors for me. It also has enabled me to work on collaborative projects that wouldn't have existed otherwise. I actually created a whole iOS app back in the day inspired by creative collaboration on Instagram. It was called Hippo and it was the first collaborative photography app for iPhone.

Also some of my bigger personal projects gained a lot more recognition that they otherwise would have if not for me having that community online and the means to promote my own work that way. I ended up getting hired to help launch Apple's Instagram account because of things like this.

That’s awesome. I’ve been similarly enabled by these social media distribution platforms. As they’ve matured though I often wonder about the incentives they are based on, I’ve always struggled to strike a balance between exploring new ideas vs. putting out “crowd pleasers.” How have you balanced that in your own pursuits on social?

The way that platforms like Instagram are set up, it is very easy to get stuck in the mindset of just doing things that will get the most likes. It is so gratifying! Over the years for myself, I’ve focused less on engagement and more on using my Instagram to share work that I don’t feel would be commercially successful. Basically it’s like my little sandbox to play in. And in the process of shifting my mindset about how I use Instagram, I’ve discovered that my personal enthusiasm about what I’m creating also seems to directly correlate to higher engagement. So I guess it’s win-win!

But I do want to stress that I have definitely at times been too wrapped up in what it means if my work doesn’t get a lot of likes or engagement on platforms like Instagram. It can be really difficult to not take that personally.

Absolutely. It’s one of the reasons I’m optimistic about the NFT space.

Same!

It seems like if the promise of decentralized art collecting holds true, we have a new way to have a peer to peer value exchange without being a peripheral afterthought to an advertising model. What’s your experience so far in this new space?

My experience so far has been extremely positive and has gotten me really excited about the future of art and artists. As an artist myself using platforms like Foundation, I feel more empowered and feel that I have more authority over my work than I ever have before. And I’m now in a position to reinvest in other artists that I believe in. It just feels like a really important and revolutionary place to be right now.

That’s so key tho, the reinvestment portion. Love that so many artists want to keep those wins within the ecosystem.

Advice for someone earlier on their creative path? Or something you wish you knew a bit earlier on your own journey.

There are so many things that I wish I knew earlier on in my path. But I think the most important lesson I’ve learned is how critical it is that you enjoy what you are doing and making. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. You will want to do it all the time, your love for what you’re doing will be palpable. And people are attracted to that energy. And most importantly, if you love what you’re doing you will be happy just to do it. And honestly that’s as successful as it gets.

Thank you so much Ellie! For your wonderful work as well as your thoughtful insights. I look forward to continuing to watch you thrive on your creative journey. To the reader, you can stay connected to Ellie Pritts by visiting her website.