The Ongoing Journey of Embracing My Artistic Identity

It was after college when I began specifically self-identifying as an artist. In post-grad fashion, I fumbled around for a good three years before I even dove back into the creative space. Instead of fielding the “What do you do?” question with a forlorn answer about working in the service industry, I started to say, “I’m an artist.”

Sometimes the label feels almost fraudulent, as I’ve never commissioned a piece; I’ve been saying for months I’m going to open up an online art store (still coming soon); I make a recurring joke about how I’m a selfish artist and hoard most of my art in my space, even though I am eager to push myself to embrace my artistic identity in a public and professional capacity.

Even as a child, I feel like I operated under a similar idea, fully aware that I loved art class over any of the others, that I loved to create new things that came solely from my mind. But I never prioritized this passion, as the older I grew, the more I internalized the messages around artists being broke, or making a career as an artist being unrealistic and risky. Though, admittedly, I went into the journalism and media communications major at CSU knowing that the huge umbrella of “media” would surely give me something to pursue post-grad as a creative.

As I write this, I also think about how harmful it can be to equate my success as an artist with whether or not I’m able to monetize it. I look at my space, which is collaged wall-to-wall  (featuring a good amount of my work), and recognize how my expression provides a safe and comfortable place for me to dwell, and how this space tells any person exactly what they need to know about the person who lives here.

I primarily create surreal art with people, and faces, at the forefront. I often play with vibrant and fully unnatural color palates, and I love making work that elicits a feeling, whatever it may be. Sometimes, I embrace my more cartoony, caricature style and create pieces that are more humorous, which is typically how I approach video content, though I often veer into the polar-opposite direction with work that might feel a little sinister or strange on the surface.

I’ve also found another part of my artistry that I’ve embraced increasingly over the past several years. Through my teenhood, I obsessed over getting every line perfect, almost always feeling as if I needed a fully fleshed-out idea before I could sit down to make something.

Anymore, it’s almost always the opposite. Unless I have a specific plan for a piece, most of the work I’ve produced recently made its way onto paper straight from my brain. Most of the time, I have no idea what something will look like until it’s nearly finished. I’ve also embraced a more sketch, doodle-based approach at times, where the mess, the chaos my pen sometimes brings to paper, is the focal point of the art.

I think back to my days in the midst of the pandemic doing tech support, chatting on the phone for 10 hours a day from my apartment with some of the most irate people I’ve ever experienced, always with a pad of paper next to me. At the end of nearly every shift, I was met with at least one full page of scribbles and doodles that, in their chaos, somehow make a cohesive end product.

Through my adult, artistic evolution that keeps shifting and changing, I recognize that I am, have always been, and always will be, an artist.

In the abundance of writing I do as a freelancer, I create art. On my goofy TikTok account that somehow took off this year, I’m creating art. Hopping on Garageband to make some silly jingle about being a Pisces rising for a video—it’s art. 

There is something so gratifying and grounding about crafting something out of thin air that would not exist had I not sat down to do it that gives me a rush I cannot begin to describe. That’s how I know I was made to create and share new things.

As the eyes on this magazine have maybe seen my name before next to a story, I’m thrilled that this is the first time people will be able to spy my name and see my art right next to it. While exploring freelance, creative work, over my previous ventures working full-time under a single company, continues to be a bit of a hustle and learning curve, it also allows me the opportunity to explore those things about myself I know I’ve been tabling so long and that I know are essential to my identity.

Will I be dishing out art full time, relishing in my booming success, in a year’s time? I don’t expect that to happen, and again, I don’t know if that’s essentially my aim as an artist, either. But, having the space to share and explore my art in a greater capacity, in the way I’ve wanted to for so long, well, I think that this issue of OFM is a pretty good start.

For updates and to check out my writing, videos, and art, go to keeganmwilliams.com or linktr.ee/promwitch.

Art by Keegan Williams.