My name is Uzo Njoku, and I am a fourth-year studio art major
at the University of Virginia.
When I first started painting, I would paint just
to decorate my house, and I would post it on Facebook.
And people started giving me feedback
about how they loved it, and I decided
that this might be a course I wanted to pursue further,
and so I changed my major to studio art.
I am trying to create an experience
based on my identity.
I am Nigerian.
That's my culture.
But then I also was raised in America,
so it's kind of like a blurred line.
I've always knew that I wanted to make a coloring
book because that was kind of what interested me in colors
and art when I was younger.
And I felt that women of color were not as represented
as much in a coloring books.
So I said, I can do this, and I can
try to capture as many different aspects of femininity as I can
in this book.
I actually created it in a month because I wasn't sleeping.
I was working on this coloring book every single day.
I don't like waiting.
I learn by experience.
And I expected to sell only 50.
The first orders of books were, like, 1,200 Like,
[INAUDIBLE] company, they were able to print
the many books I needed.
More international people started following my Instagram,
and I had orders as far as New Zealand.
If I went through a publishing company,
they might have turned me away.
If you don't do things yourself, you're
going to find yourself waiting a long time,
you know, doubting yourself.
You know yourself.
You know what you want to do.
Go for it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]