About
My mom tells this story about how I drew a train coming over a hill in perspective when I was maybe 3 or 4. I have never seen this drawing before, but I’m choosing to believe it because it makes me sound like a child prodigy. I’m not, but that story is neat.
Needless to say, I have been drawing and painting my whole life. I never had aspirations to be an artist as a career. In fact I wanted to be a marine biologist for a long time. Before that, a puppet. Like, a literal puppet. I really liked Lamb Chop.
But skipping forward to about 2015, I am starting college with aspirations in film. While working toward my degree in Broadcasting, I occupied my free time with chalk. All over campus I would leave my mark. Chalk drawings popped up everywhere. This is where my love for large scale art developed. By the time I graduated in 2018, I had quite the Instagram following. I started my freshman year with maybe 400 followers, and ended with close to 2,000. It seemed like everyone on campus knew me as the “Chalk Guy.”
However, my adult world was beginning and with my broadcasting degree in hand, I realized something. I hate broadcasting. I loved film, but, I’m in Kentucky. There’s hardly any film here. I can’t work at a news station. I just can’t. So what now?
How about T shirts? While I pondered what I would do as a career, I worked at Kentucky for Kentucky, a Ky themed merchandise store. I loved it there. It was full of creative, progressive people, constantly producing amazing content and products. Although, I wasn’t one of them. I worked the cash register. For about a year or so, that’s what I did. I took inventory, rang up customers at the register, and swept the floor.
Then one day, Ky for Ky got a phone call from a restaurant called “The Stave” in Frankfort, Ky. They asked KY for Ky if they could have permission to paint a mural of one of their logos, the “Kentucky Kicks Ass” logo. The company granted them permission. There was only one issue. The restaurant didn’t know a mural artist. So, Ky for Ky asked if I would be interested. I jumped at the chance.
Next thing ya know, my first professional mural was created. Soon after this I painted a few more Ky for Ky branded murals such as the Fun Mall logo and the Lexington Rainbow.
With 3, somewhat notable, murals in my pocket, I started to have an idea. Finally. You see where I am going with this? It’s time to try being an artist full time. So, I gave Ky for Ky a 2 month notice. Yes, 2 months. (I really liked it there). And 2 months later, I was on my own.
It was a little crazy at first. I took every job I could. Every job. Weird jobs. Jobs I wouldn't dream of taking now. At one point, I even customized someone’s hunting rifle. At least I think it was a rife. I was too scared to see if it was anything scarier than that. Slowly but surely thought, I was getting more and more mural jobs. And the jobs got larger and larger. And the clients got bigger too. Since being a full-time artist, I have worked with MTV, Mountain Dew, and Youtube. I have gone viral on TikTok a dozen times or so, with over 200K followers to support me. And I have only been doing this for 3 years now.
So in the end, I am so glad Artist beat out Puppet.
Chalk Art Over the Years
