Rising Stars: Meet Spiry of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Spiry.

Hi Spiry, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am an animator, illustrator and filmmaker-sharing my perspective on life through the eyes of an alien experiencing things for the first time! But it took me some time to feel confident in who I am as an artist now.

I always knew I was an illustrative artist, making comics nonstop as a child and being the biggest Cartoon Network fan out of my friends. But I guess drawing wasn’t enough for my creativity. Seeing my grandad collect and document parts of our family’s lives, the massive collection of VHS tapes that held memories like family cookouts, vacations, weddings ..it helped me realize I wanted to do the same thing too, to be a memory collector! So that started making me interested in filming and recording. And now I’ve been trying to capture that ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’/’Space Jam’ vibe with my real life moments, adding my drawings into them and sharing them on my YouTube channel for anyone to see.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Being an artist is so tricky especially nowadays, but I think it’s rare to not run into bumps in the road-artist or not even. The biggest struggle for me was managing my money or even bringing in money with my art. You can’t be shy AND an entrepreneur/be in sales-and that’s an obstacle in the road I still find myself running into. I had to get jobs alongside my art in order to get some level of stability. But working towards the future of being a full time artist and my creations working for me is a bumpy road I’m willing to keep walking!!

Another struggle I had was realizing that I have to be an authentic artist, and that a lot of times means that I make stuff that goes against trends or clickbait. But this just helps me to value the people who do end up looking at my work more, and I don’t get burnt out on my work when I’m doing things from the heart and not what I think social media would like.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Right now I’m in my alien artist arc! I’m trying to inspire other people to record and document parts of their lives so that they can have something to look back on, something to share to the aliens out in space that earth isn’t all the negatives that get pushed out from media.

I’m an animator and filmmaker-I’d say the things I’m most proud of making are my memory logs-videos i edited and collected that share moments in my life over about 5 years. I think my videos are more than just vlogs or day in the life, and I believe my art is more than characters on a 2D plane-it’s a way for the viewer to escape into my imagination!

What’s next?
Future plans hmm…I want to keep making my poetic documentaries about my friends and life as an artist! And I’m looking forward to finding more people that share my vision and want to be apart of my audience. I have plans for short animations and a deeper look into the story of my demon skateboarders as well-my lovely patrons will be the first to see them!

The future is scary to think about! I’m grateful for the present moment of having my own art studio, a lovely family who supports my craft, and great friends that see the value in my creative works.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://spirystix.lol
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiry__/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@spiry__