Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Ericson
Hi Kate, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My journey started back in my home state, Minnesota. I have lived there my whole life and just recently moved here to Atlanta to attend SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). Art has always been very important to me, and in the past few years, I had gotten really serious about trying to make a living doing what I love, which was the push to move out of state. Creativity and Art was always around me growing up, as my mother was always willing to show me how meaningful and fun imagination and creating can be. When I was 11, she passed away suddenly, and that shifted my entire life. I always knew I wanted to still push myself to create and follow in the footsteps of what she wanted me to find so important, so still to this day I hold that close to me and always try and find motivation to make art in any capacity or art form I can. Since living in Minnesota, I have broadened the kinds of art forms I love to try and explore. I used to only do character drawings and digital art back in high school, drawing the same kinds of subjects over and over but now I’m still able to focus on my digital illustrations and character work as well as learning to build puppets, practice puppetry, become a cinematographer, and film editor which are all artforms I never thought I would fully pursue. My time of being here in Atlanta now and continuing to explore these art forms and better myself has only just begun and I can’t wait to push myself farther.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been the smoothest road for me, but that didn’t stop me from pushing through. Due to living and family circumstances, I became very independent as a child and still hold this value today. Dealing with grief and other events was a tricky thing to tackle at such a young age, but I used art as a therapy and way to express and release emotions. Now being an adult, I still have a very independent mindset when dealing with my work and not being afraid to put myself out there and take a chance with things, but thankfully throughout my life I’ve been surrounded with loved ones and friends who have always supported me and I am forever grateful for that, since they pulled me through a lot of hard times.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I dabble in a lot of different art forms, which typically you wouldn’t pair all of them together. My main artform is Illustration, where I love doing both digital art and traditional art occasionally. I draw a lot of characters and figurative artwork, which I love to post online. With traditional mediums, I love painting and using charcoals, graphite, or pastels, and I typically do more technical figurative studies when using these mediums. Something that I enjoy drawing a lot is puppet characters, which leads into the next kind of art form I do. I love puppetry and have been recently learning how to build my own puppets, inspired by Jim Henson’s work. This love of puppetry I’ve had since I was about 4 years old is only something I recently tried to create in a serious manner within my own work. I genuinely enjoy the craft of designing concept art for the puppet, then learning how to create a workable version in a 3D space, and as someone who is starting out, I have so much yet to learn. I love performance art as well, and also cinematography and video editing, which moving here to Atlanta has caused me to pursue as I discovered a found love for the work of film and performance. I have met many friends out here who have influenced this interest, as they are aspiring directors looking for a cameraman and possible editor, which was great to realize I should give it a try and possibly help contribute to their amazing work in ways I never considered before coming here.
One project I enjoyed a lot that I worked on this past fall, was connecting with Ashley Bella, an artist and muralist, to help with a beautiful mural she designed for the 2024 election. It was such an amazing opportunity to help out and I met so many wonderful people within that team, which made working on it all the more fun! I ended up painting all of the smaller portrait heads within the piece which was really fun to do at that large of a scale!
How do you define success?
Success for me is creating something that people can genuinely enjoy, in any art form I end up creating something in. At the end of the day, if I was able to in any shape or form, make something or contribute to a creative process, that is where I can be fulfilled. Always be able to push yourself and don’t give up on your dreams!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ko-fi.com/cowboykate/commissions
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cowboypuppet
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-ericson-8a08a8330/
