Branding & Design - My Life "Art Story"

For the entirety of my life I have devoted my soul to art and creativity in some form or medium or another. I can recall from my toddler days when my mother would put me to bed, I would pull out paper and a pen and doodle til I could fall asleep. Art was embedded in everything I did. When the opportunity to create or express myself surfaced I latched onto it until I was satisfied. 

In early education all students are required to participate in creative activities and art class. For a long time everyone does their own thing without rhyme or reason while the select few creative souls pour our hearts into every stroke and design. While our art stood out from the crowd of pieces that had no direction we were still seen as equals. It is during these years that we developed and harvested our techniques and styles in preparation for the future.

During middle school years, art class becomes more of a recognized subject. It is not weighted heavily like Math or English but in this point of education, it is still a required course that everyone participates in. In this art class, you are taught basic techniques and styles and you might also receive a few tidbits of factual information on the history of renowned artists and their famous works.

This is also where you create pieces in the likes of their style while making it something unique to you and your interests. Your pieces are graded but still, there really isn't much competition at this point. Everyone is critiqued equally as long as they participated and followed the minimal directions.

In all of these years, I was almost always the teacher's pet/favorite. My style and developed talent surpassed my classmates and when other courses required an ounce of creativity, naturally I hopped on the art wagon to make an exquisite work of art while my classmates moaned in agony because they had to pick up a crayon or marker. Eventually my classmates caught onto the fact that I was talented in the art department while they were talented with textbooks. For a while there was a mutual relationship where I would be in charge of the creative portions and they would be in charge of the research but eventually it began to turn into me doing all of the work. I grew to realize that in a lot of situations I was manipulated and used for my creative purposes and at some point I became the outcast because I stopped helping people. 

In high school I transferred from one school district to another and with new people comes new challenges and competition. All of my life up until this point, I was considered the best artist in the class. My classmates constantly fed my ego in believing this and my teachers drove in the nail. I came in to the world of high school thinking that I would knock people out of the park with my left hand. If my left hand were a wardrobe or toolbox and you could open it up, in my head I had all of these different skills, knowledge - anything you could dream up. I could do it all! If this were pokemon, I had all of the badges and the rarest pokemon with all of their evolutions. 

That egotistic attitude was quickly crushed after I soon realized that art was a selective course. You could opt into it and of course, the only people who opted into art are artists with a passion to create and maybe a handful of kids who need to pick something and this was the most attractive of what was available to them. These people were just like me. They had spent their entire life with the same mindset as me. We all had different techniques and styles but we could all match each other in effort and creativity. In Art I, I was not very challenged. The projects were so simple, I felt like I was in middle school again. While everyone was brainstorming and sketching out their ideas, I had already started coloring and adding finishing touches. The teacher recognized my ability and knew that I needed to be in one of the higher art courses. She entered my first piece of the year into a contest and I won first place. Here's an old photo of it - as I do not have it in possession anymore (which is probably a story I've told in a past blog) This shoe drawing was created in 2004 when I was 13/14.

After a few weeks of school, she transferred me into Art II where the stakes were a little higher and there was actually some kind of challenge where I could grow my abilities further. It was in this course that I saw some of us were better than others and it's hard to swallow to this day, but I quickly realized I was not the best student anymore and that there were plenty of students who had abilities that I never even attempted or visualized. So time goes by and I eventually take on Art III, Art IV, and the lovely Art History I, II, III, IV etc... and testing was never my strong suit. And Art History was mostly testing vs creating so I did not excel at that very much.

Like most kids, I had a list of occupations that I dreamed of becoming as an adult and I can tell you right now that none of them came to be reality. My A Plan was to go to college for (whatever) and my back up plan was to be the idolized starving artist. I had it in my head that I'd be someone famous and could live off my success or die trying. When I realized that my art abilities were very basic despite 2 decades of nurturing my affection for art, I accepted that this fate would never be mine. So I started thinking of what I wanted to do in college. At this point in my life video games, computers, technology, programming/coding, etc... was super prominent in my day-to-day activities. In fact, in this time traditional art got pushed onto the back burner. I had no idea what I wanted to do in college. I didn't want to go to school for traditional art because I knew I would not come out on top compared to the people I looked at who were attending the local art colleges. I also didn't really know enough computer stuff to say that I wanted to make it my career. I have always dabbed into digital art as a hobby and knew that people could make some serious cash for designing brands and websites. I figured this was a decent route to take so that I could use my technological skills and work from a computer while also continuing to utilize my art and creativity. 

In college I was one of the top students of my class, getting straight A's and maintaining a 3.8 - 4.0 GPA every semester. The courses were actually really easy and I think that's because it was only a 2 year school for an associates degree. To this day I have a small itch to go back and get a bachelor's degree but I feel like it might not be necessary if I develop a strong brand for myself. 

And that's where this topic becomes relevant. So I graduated high school in 2008. College in 2010. And now we're approaching 2016. I have a few goals for myself and one of them is to design my own brand, website, and miniature business. I would like to sell stickers, art prints, develop my youtube channel and blog more. I want to eventually sell t-shirts and do more free-lance graphic/web design so will sort of use my degree for once lol. I have a full time job on top of this...so trying to maintain this and do a full time job is going to be tough. But if I work hard, I might be successful enough to quit my full time job and just live off of my brand. But realistically I'd like to work full time and maintain this so that I have 2 sources of income no matter what happens with one or the other.

So right now I am working on my website and this blog will eventually be either integrated into it or replaced. But don't be sad readers! I haven't forgotten about you. I love you and I want to keep blogging on a regular basis...so hopefully it gets better for you so you have more to read.

So my brand is Kyrae Jenkins. It's actually my online handle for pretty much everything. I used to use my real name Kayla Teets for everything but if I close my eyes and let my inner conscious and soul speak to me, in some ancient realm like place, Kyrae Jenkins speaks to me directly. So now that is essentially me. At work people call me Kayla but sometimes I wish I told them to call me Kyrae when I got hired but that was 4 years ago...so it's a little late to get everyone to crossover right? Haha.

So if you are still reading this, check out my social media!

Gaming Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/iTeets

Art Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR_f0TubIyhb_ppLLyqRgAw

Unboxing & Reviews: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0_NxK7xxkkkZ364CQkeNw

Twitter: @kyraejenkins

Instagram @kyraejenkins

Facebook @kyraejenkins

Website: http://www.kyraejenkins.com