KiTT St. Joans is a visual artist, recently based in outer space. After fighting in the Zombie War of 2812, defeat was most imminent. Humanity was doomed to an everlasting death. Instead of sacrificing themselves to the KL-iED to save their fourth dimension soul-like the rest of humanity did-they instead escaped into the solace and emptiness of space with their husband and four cats.
Since then, they have had their work featured on Cartoon Network, comic covers, novel covers and magazine features. Main subjects are usually happy black people, politically charged works, and truly grotesque horrors in the frame of acceptance and normality. They mainly work in Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro.
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1.) What made you say to yourself that you wanted to be a Visual Artist for a living? Who are your influences/heroes/role models?
It was something I kind of fell into. As a kid I drew when I was anxious, and since I was anxious all the time, I drew all the time and people noticed. It was a way for me to reach out to people, and how people got to know me.
My grandmother I think is my biggest role model, and I have so many artists that I followed as a kid, Naoko Takeuchi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Stephen Gammell, Brian Froud, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Miwa Ueda, and tons of others I’m sure I’m missing.
2.) Your artistic style is very unique… colorful and fun yet graphic in tone and versatile in nature. If you could compare your style of art with anyone else’s style of art, who would that be and why? If you don’t like to compare yourself with others, then what separates your art and visuals from the next artist’s art and visuals?
To be honest, yeah, I’m not a huge fan of comparing my work to other people, and for the most part I think every artist has their own unique take. I may have a greater range than most artists. Due to social media, it’s much more common for artists now to draw one thing because that is how people tend to get followers, but I absolutely can’t do that. I love drawing horror, fantasy, cute things, disturbing things. I try to draw my subjects with a sense of history to them.
3.) Everyone in life goes through adversity of some sort. Is there anything in your life that has any influence on how you approach your work? What is the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure on your path to becoming a visual artist?
Myself. I suffer from PTSD, anxiety, and depression. I’ve gone months to maybe years without drawing because I couldn’t even get out of bed. Not to say there aren’t other hurdles I deal with, but it’s mainly fighting myself to create.
4.) Aside from money and success being a motivating factor, how do you prepare yourself to create the art that you create? What is your process for creating artwork? How are you able to attain the realistic texture combined with the graphic animated look? What programs do you use to help you bring your vision (or someone else’s vision) to life?
I just put the pen to the tablet and hope for the best. I don’t have a system or process. I just keep working at it until I like it or I hate it and have to start over.
I’m able to get the realistic texture with the animated look because that’s how I draw it. I draw something realistically and then add little touches here and there. A lot of artists are worried about their art making sense. I just draw whatever. It doesn’t have to make sense if it looks cool.
And I use Photoshop 2020 pretty much.
5.) Unfortunately the creative industry is full of talented individuals who more or less become the “starving artist” and don’t get any recognition for their talent and/or work. What do you think those talented individuals need to do to make sure that they stand out and get noticed and don’t fall to the wayside?
Post everywhere all the time. People can’t know you if they never see you.
6.) Making a living through art is obviously a desire for most, if not, all artists, so is that something that you have been able to do? If so, how were you able to attain a career doing what you love? If not, what do you do in order to fund your business?
At one point yes, but right now no. Because of health reasons I’ve had to cut back on my work and my husband supports me 100%. I just posted everywhere I could, showed as many people as I could my work. Not everyone gets it, but some do and that’s all that matters.
7.) Social media is obviously an extremely important element in today’s world, especially when it comes to business, branding, marketing, etc. With that being said, how do you think the internet and social media affected the creative and how artists are able to market themselves? Do you think anyone in the art world will be able to survive in today’s economy if they’re not social media savvy?
I honestly think it’s pigeon holding a lot of artists. I follow as many alternative artists as I can, but I notice more and more of them go to drawing pretty girls because that gets the likes and follows.
And no, I 100% believe in order to make it, you need social media. If the most famous artists need it then so does everyone else.
8.) There is a lot of depth and layers to your art with some heavy black influence on some of your pieces. In a world where white artists seem to get more mainstream acceptance, how important do you think it is for black artists to create work that is unapologetically black? Do you think unapologetically black art and mainstream acceptance are mutually exclusive? If so, what do you think would help to bridge the gap and get people who aren’t often exposed to black art to see the greatness in it? If not, should black artists seek to “crossover” or just stay in their lane and cater to the people who truly support what they do?
I mean, I don’t know what is considered “unapologetically black art.” Like a black kid drawing Naruto fan art all day, that is black art because the fan art was made by a black artist. I think even a lot of black people aren’t ready to see black people in certain settings. When I started drawing more black people, especially dark skin women, I noticed even other black people laughed, because I would make dark skin anime characters, or dark skin girls in fantasy settings and it seemed utterly ridiculous to them at the time. I’ve had plenty of non-black people ask why I mainly draw black women, and literally ask me to draw white women instead because they didn’t want to see black women. They wanted to see more white women. I refuse to cater. I may lose some followers, but the bottomline is I create what I want to put out into the world. I want black people to see themselves as heroes and full of fantasy and magic. I just think black people should draw what they want and see what happens. I mean non-black artists rip off black artists all the time. Black artists don’t follow, we lead.
9.) When it comes to the creative industry, what do you think is a black creative professional’s place in it? Does a market exist for the black creative professional? If so, what major changes (positive or negative) do you foresee in the future? If not, why do you think we don’t have an industry of our own?
Of course black people should be in the creative industry, and we don’t have our own industry because of hundreds of years of systematic oppression, violence, and theft of black lives, and wealth. There is also the issue of arts in education. I went to basically 99.6% Black/Latina schools, and the art programs were always the worst. Absolutely no money towards the arts, or really anything, and that’s a problem. But I do think black artists are definitely out there killing it. There just needs to be more.
10.) It seems like black creatives and black entrepreneurs have to really fight to be seen and heard in a world that more or less doesn’t embrace black business. With that being said, what are some issues that you feel that black business owners face when it comes to gaining the momentum necessary to compete in a white-dominated capitalistic society?
Pretty much all the issues, a lot of non-black people in charge do not feel comfortable around black people, especially black people who don’t cater. I tried being a tattoo artist for a while, but that industry is rife with bigotry. I apprenticed at several different shops, and each one I was met with either slurs, sexual harassment, or they pretended I wasn’t even there. Day four of one shop the boss literally said to me “There is a difference between a black person and a nigger.” And then when I said I am absolutely not dealing with that, she pulled the white woman victim card and said I’m the true racist.
I think the bottomline is we can’t wait for someone to hand us the keys. They won’t. You have to become your own boss, you have to create your own wealth, which at this point, in this economy is near impossible, and my heart goes out to the black artists in a job they hate with no time to create because we live in a world without safety nets, walking across a tightrope on fire.
11.) If black entrepreneurship is one of many avenues to black economic empowerment, do you think we will see more black entrepreneurs coming on the scene? Do you think we’ll see more black artists embrace entrepreneurship more? If so, what do you think it will take for black business to truly compete in a world that seems to be rapidly advancing? If not, do you think we will continue to see black artists not get as much visibility as their white counterpart?
One big issue I’ve noticed is the low bar that black businesses put out. When I look at a lot of black clothing lines, the photos are blurry, dark, or the photo was taken with the product on some used up beige carpet. For skin/hair care, same thing. Just this unappetizing photo of the product and the label, and the marketing had no thought put into whatsoever. It makes the product look cheap and usually the prices are not competitive. And I get it, I lived in the projects in Queens. The beauty supply store was covered in dust, the signs for all the shops were worn out, torn, and dirty, a lot of black people are used to low bars. We accept low quality merchandise because that is how people sell to us, that is how we know it’s for us, but we have to decide we deserve better.
A lot more black businesses need to put thought into the fonts, placement, color choices, photography, models, etc. Need to reach for the more high end, clean look. If the product you’re selling is a reflection of you, and the product looks cheap, you gotta rebrand, but a lot of black business owners don’t even realize it looks cheap because bad graphic design is a staple of what the poor/working class consume.
12.) What advice would you give to the black men and black women out there who are interested in pursuing a career in the arts, whether it be illustration, concept art, graphic design, web design, photography, branding, marketing, etc.?
Practice all the time, post everywhere, ask for critique and feedback, talk about it a lot to everyone and reach out to other artists.
13.) There are multiple ways of attaining clients and building up your clientele, so what are some ways you acquire clients? If you were to advise an up and coming entrepreneur on how to get more clients, what advice would you give them?
Post everywhere. Ask customers to leave reviews. See where other people in your field post. Whatever the successful people are doing, do that. It’s always going to be a slow start, but you gotta stick with it.
14.) What was the inspiration behind your political art with the zombies? There’s a Trump hat and an Anonymous mask in there too. What statement were you making? What are your thoughts on the political and social climate of today?
It’s based on an Ohio protest photo I saw and they looked like brain dead, parasitic zombies, so I just recreated the image to show that more clearly.
My thoughts on the political and social climate of the United States of America, is bleak to say the least. The systems in America for education, healthcare, and basically everything are abysmal, especially for the poor, and it’s on purpose. The cult followers of Trump are clawing at madness and unleashing hell on the rest of us. There is no empathy, logic, or compassion towards other Americans, but in this country there never was, and anyone who says different is selling something.
15.) Professionally, where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
I have no idea to be frank, and I think that’s exciting. Making plans has never worked for me. I don’t know what is going to happen in the future. I just know I’m going to work hard today.
