Meet Anna Goetz | Creator and Owner of ADG Mercantile

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anna Goetz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anna, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I first started ADG Mercantile when I wanted a sticker of my favorite baseball player, Kiké Hernández, and I couldn’t find one anywhere. After searching all over Etsy, Amazon, Redbubble, and Google I decided to make it myself. Feeling proud of the outcome I posted photos of it to my instagram and to my surprise several people wanted that sticker as well. From there I just kept drawing things I love, Dodgers players, Marvel Characters, Star Wars Characters, and Ducks Players. Drawing became a huge outlet for me and sharing these stickers gave me purpose.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
When ADG first started out my art style was very minimalistic fan art and though I would still describe my art as minimalistic fan art the amount of detail I have learned how to add has made all the difference in my eyes. The evolution and growth I have personally seen in my art is truly one of the things I am most proud of.
Evolving as an artist truly would not have been possible without drawing inspiration from and learning from other artists. Though it may sound simple it took a long time to be comfortable and confident enough in myself and my art to look at another artists’ work and see how I can improve as opposed to “wow they’re so much better than me”. I believe this is something a lot of creatives struggle with. It can be so easy to look at someone else’s art and think “they’re so much more talented than I am, why would anyone want MY art?” The big thing that really helped me was making friends and building relationships with other artists that I admired. Through these relationships I was able to learn new techniques to further my abilities as well as learn that other people looked at my art the way I looked at theirs.
I don’t want to say the only way to love your art is to seek approval in other’s opinions, but having people around you who support you and can lift you up when you feel down is huge for being successful in the creative field.
With that being said it is also crucial that YOU love what you are putting out. Something I believe wholeheartedly is that if you don’t love what you’re making or putting out there, how can you expect others to love it?
Being someone who makes a living off of fan art this can be a bit difficult to swallow. Sometimes people will make requests for characters or shows I don’t really love and I feel they don’t sell as well because you can truly tell the project didn’t come from a place of love and admiration. Whereas when I make fan art based on characters or shows I do love, they sell far better and customers tend to appreciate them more. After realizing that making what I love as opposed to what is trending at the time does better, my business took off and to this day the projects I focus more energy on because I love them more, the better they do in my shop.
I realize this isn’t the case with every artist or creative and not every single one makes it big doing what they love and I am extremely lucky that I have as successful of a business as I do. Not every artist or creative may make it big making what they love but I can guarantee they will be happier creating what makes their heart spark.
What sets ADG Mercantile apart from other shops is I pride myself on being an escape for all the craziness of the outside world. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what you believe in, if you need a nerdy or sporty escape from the real world, this is your shop. At ADG the only topics of conversation are Marvel, Star Wars, The Los Angeles Dodgers, The Anaheim Ducks, Disney and a few movies here or there.
Something I am very excited about is ADG Mercantile will be vending at LA Comic Con for the first time October 4th-6th of this year! Come see us and say hi!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I can think of no better day in LA than going to a Dodgers game. Enjoying the game, having some peanuts, and enjoying the beautiful view from Chavez Ravine. My favorite post Dodger game food is Peter’s El Loco in West Covina. No better tacos in my opinion.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Every single person who has bought from me, suggested a design, posted my products, or offered words of encouragement. There is no way ADG would be where it is today without any of you.
A huge thank you to my close friends and family that have supported me and ADG from the very beginning.

Website: https://adgmercantile.etsy.com

Instagram: @adgmercantile

Twitter: @adgmercantile

Facebook: @adgmercantile

Youtube: @adgmercantile

Other: https://linktr.ee/adgmercantile

Image Credits
Majority of the photos were taken by Nikki Martinez @nikkis_pictures
The last 2 photos were taken by myself