We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Avian Cannon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Avian, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on ended up being the longest for me too; over the course of a year, I completed a 10 piece body of work for my AP Drawing class in my Senior year of high school. If you’re unfamiliar, AP portfolios are driven by an inquiry- a question the artist asks themself to explore for the next 9 months. I chose to focus on the topic of myself, on how I could represent my self image and worth through my art because I knew I couldn’t get bored of it. Leading up to this, as a trans and queer individual, I’d always had a tumultuous relationship with my own image. At some point in the early years of high school, I started covering my mirror because what I saw often made me upset. So, for me, choosing to focus on my own image, without distortion, for an entire year scared me, and I think that feeling was reflected in some of my early pieces.

My first artworks were melancholy at best- muted colors and dour expressions with a generally negative meaning behind them. A portrait overlaid with shattered glass, a painting that took inspiration from Ilya Repin’s painting, “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan”, an illustration that coveted anger and the pain I held just behind my ribs at how people saw me. It was such an interesting process, exploring these emotions.

As the year went on, I started to slowly realize that I was only focusing that negative facet of how I saw myself- truthfully, I was projecting onto the paper of canvas how I thought others saw me. I hadn’t stopped to consider that this portfolio would be positive. That realization was a bit of a turning point for me.

The first piece I did that focused on what I liked about myself felt clunky and cluttered, but it felt right, in a way. It opened up a new path for me to follow and jumpstarted my ability to look in a mirror and see myself. Simultaneously, this body of work also fed into my own perception of my identity because of my connections with family members- namely, my late Grandfather, David Weenig. He was an artist, through and through, and although I only got to see him every handful of years, I was always enraptured by his work. His paintings hung in our home, and every time we visited, his sunroom full of canvas and fake plants felt like a sanctuary. He was always interested in my own work, and always encouraged me to never stop creating. When he passed, I was given the opportunity to inherit the majority of his art supplies. Because of this, and because of his influence on my skill and passion, I made a point of using as many of his supplies as possible in my portfolio. Whether it was his colored pencils or his coveted oil paints, I made a point of infusing his memory into my own pieces, and I feel that that created a very unique connection between my own burgeoning positive opinion of myself with this long-lasting, familial identity that I had already had. It was the first time in my life that the person I was before still felt like a person I wanted to be, and that’s why this body of work is so important to me.

So, as I continued to work through the year, I got to witness within myself a fascinating evolution of who I saw myself as, and I always cherish going back through my work to see the change. This body of work was a major turning point for myself in many ways- it helped change who I saw myself as and make me more confident, it solidified by drive for going into art as a career, and it afforded me a myriad of great opportunities- the biggest of which being National Scholastic Medals and the Congressional Art Award for my voting district. I will never not place this experience at the top of my list for the most meaningful thing I’ve created for myself.

Avian, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Avian Cannon, and I am an Illustrator/Artist that is currently studying Sequential Art at the Savannah College of Art and Design. My work focuses mainly on character illustration, design, and storytelling, as I plan to become a comic artist one day, but I dabble in nearly every medium there is. I have worked in a myriad of smaller art jobs, whether it be personal commissions, graphic design, or mural work for schools, businesses, and individual people. I am often available for commission through my social media.

I take a lot of pride in all the work I create- I have given a great amount of my life to learning new techniques and teaching myself new mediums and skills, so everything I create I hope to infuse with my own experience and intention. Art is my life and passion, and I hope to turn it into my livelihood as well. As I’m currently a student, I hope to build my brand and image online as I create connections in person as a strong basis for my future professional life.

As is, I’m still learning at any opportunity I can find, and I hope my story and work inspires someone!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I learned when I was very, very young, was that I was better than everyone. In a sense, it was true- I was more artistically inclined than the people around me, and everyone wanted to tell me that, so I learned that I was simply better.

This is not a good lesson to learn.

What was just the adults around me praising me for coloring in the lines cleaner than other kids or having the most recognizable-looking snowman turned into an all-around mutation of my ego. I’m not proud of it, but I acted as if I was the only artist in the world, even if I was just a sixth grader who still couldn’t draw hands. Somehow, I had learned that, because I had the most amount of skill in a small group, that it made me the best. I hadn’t considered that a world existed around me, and it made me a really annoying kid who was very resistant to learning new things from other people.

As I grew up and started to create bigger works, I realized that I was growing in skill as quickly as I was always told I would. The people around me who also enjoyed art stayed away from me, and at some point I realized I was being a bit of a prick. The second I started to act as if I wasn’t the best thing in the world, I started to improve. Removing my rose-tinted glasses allowed me the room to look at my work critically and take suggestions from the people around me. I started to improve much quicker than before, I started to become better friends with the other artists around me- I even started to see improvement with my relationships with others in a context outside of art.

By unlearning my insane ego around my (at the time, very mediocre) art, I allowed myself to become more realistic in my view of myself and my work, which granted me a new perspective of the world. I am kinder to myself and to others, and I don’t get stuck in a locked mindset surrounding my skill.

Critique and opinion is an integral part of any artistic process, and if you aren’t able to take it at face value, then you won’t be able to grow as an artist. That was a lesson I had to learn the hard way, but I’m glad I did, because it’s an experience I will carry with me through my entire career.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being an artist, to me, is one of the few ways I’ve seen where someone is able to take themselves fully and put everything they have out into the world for others to see. Of course, in any given profession, one has to give aspects of themself over, but as an artist, there is a unique opportunity to share every aspect of yourself in a way that fulfills the artist.

I put a part of myself in everything I create, and it makes me happy to do so. I’m pursuing being an artist because it makes me happy. Being able to create something new feeds this urge to give to the world that I’m sure we all feel in some way. I create for myself, yes, but I find that the way the world interacts with my work fulfills me like no other. Regardless of if it’s a critique or a compliment, I take such pride in being able to be seen and to put something out into the world that I might be remembered for.

I’m leaving a mark, no matter how big or small, and that is one of the most rewarding things I can think of. Art in and of itself is an expression of humanity, and I think it’s the greatest privilege to be able to showcase that for oneself. Each step of the process can bring a sense of satisfaction, and that’s a feeling I’ll be chasing for the rest of my life.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pigeonsinatree_/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pigeonsinatree1675
• Other: TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@pigeonsinatree

Image Credits

Avian Cannon