We were lucky to catch up with Devon Reiffer recently and have shared our conversation below.
Devon, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
As a queer artist for social change, I hope that people will remember me for my uniquely illustrated artworks that represent the beautiful people of the LGBTQ+ community. When I am gone, in addition to my art being my legacy, I hope people will say that my existence in their lives made a positive impact. I hope that they felt safe in my presence, never judged, and felt unconditional love from me always. I believe that love is the only thing that can change the world. I believe that love begins with self-love and I’ve spent the last decade working really hard to love myself so that I could hold space for others to love themselves as well. I hope I’m remembered for being kind and for the brightness of my smile. As a queer, genderfluid person, I continue to have to fight to make space for myself daily to feel safe and seen. I fight everyday and refuse to let the chaos and hate in this world dim my light or make me jaded. I hope people remember me as a peaceful fighter, as a carrier of light, and a person that truly saw them. I hope they know I wasn’t only fighting for myself, but I was fighting for all people- because I believe everyone has a story and trauma that deserves to be heard, treated with kindness, patience, and gentleness. I believe that we grow by making space for our differences and that we can change if we want to. I hope that people experienced a shift in perspective because of the way they connected to my art and who I am as my authentic self. I hope they will also talk about my humor as well- because I think I am pretty hilarious sometimes and think laughter is the best medicine.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Devon Reiffer and I am a charcoal artist for social change. I make art that highlights people of the LGBTQ+ community that shares their stories, their beauty, and their courage for being unapologetically authentic in a society that continuously tries to erase us.
Prior to the age of 18, there was no indication that I would’ve ever become a successful or talented artist. I did not pursue art until I was an adult. I struggled a lot with a deep rooted depression all through adolescence. I suffered in silence because I didn’t have the words or awareness to express how or why I always felt “different”. Truth be told, I was very self-destructive and I hated myself, and even though I sought out therapy, I didn’t realize I was dealing with both gender and sexual identity issues until I went away to college. I had a traditional upbringing, so to speak, grew up with a family that loved me and wanted the best for me as a straight, cis-gendered female. At that time, there wasn’t a lot of mainstream awareness about LGBTQ+ people or issues. I didn’t have access to the information that exists now so it became important to me as an adult to find a way to increase representation and awareness for queer people with the hope that others wouldn’t struggle in the same way I did.
When I went to college, I was unsure which direction I wanted to go in for a degree. I always wanted to be a teacher because I admired the influence one person could have on a room full of students. During my bouts of depression, my teachers had been very supportive and nurturing to me and it created a desire to offer that to others in the future, in whatever career I found myself in. I’ve always wanted to make positive change in the world and because my teachers had been so influential to me, I wanted to pay that forward. I started as an education major and within two weeks realized I would never fit the confines of being a teacher- it was too structured for me and I wasn’t passionate about anything enough to commit to teaching it for the rest of my life. I dropped my major within the first two weeks, during the same time that I realized I was gay, and started taking a bunch of liberal arts classes. The arts became an outlet for me to seek out a new form of expression during a time that I was struggling internally to understand myself and how to express my new identity. Of those classes, was a figure drawing class in which we used charcoal. I had never touched a piece of charcoal until that day. I’m sure I made one of the worst drawings in the world that day but there was an instant connection to the charcoal in my hands. My professor at the time was not supportive and told me that I most likely wouldn’t go anywhere in life if I pursued art, and as a result, through a mix of stubbornness and honoring what I can only describe as a “calling”, I marched down and switched my major to fine arts. I knew this was the beginning to something big.
Coming out is never easy, but when I came out to my grandmother, who had been my best friend and adored me, she couldn’t see anything else besides her own experience with the gay community. I lost my identity when it came to her, she couldn’t see me as anything but the negative associations she had with being gay. I was heartbroken and struggling to get her to see that I was still the same person. Within the same year, she passed and I had thought it was my fault. I felt guilt and an array of negative emotions that prevented me from seeing myself again. As the only queer person in my family, I struggled to find connection and safety as no one could understand what I was going through. I struggled to love myself. My focus on art and learning to draw became a life boat. As my life continued, I began to get more serious about my art. A professor asked me “What do you want to say to the world?” And at the time I didn’t have an answer. I eventually fell in love and left everything to relocate to Miami, Florida, on a quest to experience and find out what my purpose was. I wanted to find myself and I wanted to know who I was. I had a hard time breaking into the community and I began to make conversation by asking people at random if they wanted to model for me. I found that most people were eager to be a part of my project and by modeling for me it seemed easy for the models to open up and share their life stories as I played the role of an artist. I learned people, if given the right environment, one without judgment, want to share their story and will do so with ease. It was here that I realized art could create social change. People connect to art in ways that surpass all social barriers. Over the years in Miami, I built my portfolio, got accepted to an MFA program in Philadelphia and went back north in 2012. Again, in a new city and knowing no one, I started to ask others to model for me and build another portfolio of work. Drawing classes allowed me to rediscover that initial passion and connection I had with charcoal and as a broke college student who couldn’t afford to keep spending money on paper that would rip with under my aggressive mark making, I began to draw on canvas. One day in the studio, I made a mistake and realized I couldn’t fully erase my it because it was canvas. I tried to use canvas primer to white it out and it didn’t match the original white on the canvas and in a panic I began using sandpaper to dull it= thus creating the style that I am known for today. I learned then that there was no such thing as a mistake. Life and art became parallels in my mind- both are continuous layers of working through things and finding solutions, sometimes taking what feels like a step back only to realize it leads us to another step forward. If we pay attention to the journey, we can see the organic beauty in the process.
Even though I was in a more progressive city, I was still struggling to feel seen in my identity. So as I began working within the LGBTQ+ community to supplement income, I started to see how unapologetically authentic my community members were and it was making me feel safe enough to start exploring and reflecting on my own identity thus pushing me to become more authentic in my self-discovery. I realized that having a safe space was vital to becoming a better version of myself and it began to shape the purpose behind my work. I started using queer people as models, capturing the things I thought were most beautiful about each person. These models were people that inspired me to take a step forward in my own growth, and before I knew it, it lead to a body of work with a mission. I wanted others to feel safe in my presence and feel represented and seen in mainstream art. The art world was rather black and white then. and I was determined to break down some of the confines with my layers of gray. I wanted others to feel less alone as we fought to change the beliefs of the old world. I became a true artist for social change during this time and I have been actively working on the same mission for the last decade. People need to be seen and loved for exactly who they are. My work helps all different types of people connect and share their individual stories in environments where words and social dynamics typically divide us. I am most proud of taking a traumatic experience in my youth and turning it into a career of purpose. I didn’t let my pain hinder me, instead I gained insight and used it as motivation to become something more. I am proud that I have used art to help break stereotypes, foster authentic conversations about queer awareness and continue to create space for queer representation in my corner of the art world. I am helping to break out of the old world mindsets and offer new perspectives that foster love and acceptance. I am creating works of art that create the change I wish to see in the world.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is getting to know people on an authentic and vulnerable level that is different than the interactions of everyday life. When I mention that I’m an artist, people always ask to see my work, and in seeing my work they ask about the meaning behind it. I am not one to normally disclose the story but I often ask the viewer to share what they see and feel. When they share their interpretations with me, I am able to get a very intimate view of their life experiences, and sometimes even get to see and feel fragments of their own traumas. I get a chance to show them love and acceptance in those moments. There’s a lot of psychology within the layers of my art. It is special that my work creates a space in which people feel so trusting to connect with me and bare the truest fragments of who they are. I don’t ever take it for granted and I feel very lucky to be in this position.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I have no regrets about my journey, but I wish that I would’ve known that I didn’t need to go to college to become an artist. My art stems more from my life than educational training. I didn’t learn to make the art that I make because of school, instead I learned how to stand up for myself and channel my passion due to my peers and mentors not understanding the work I was creating. I learned how to fight to be seen as an artist and that was worth the degree I suppose.
If you asked me to draw an apple, I could do it but it would take me a while, my peers could do it much easier than me because of their years of training. I am more passionate than talented. I am living proof that if you want to draw bad enough, you will learn to do it by just keeping at it. Anyone can learn to do any skill with enough practice, but not everyone is born with passion, school cannot teach passion or how to use that passion as a driving force in your life. I always tell others who are interested in art to take private lessons, support local artists, spend time with themselves to find their “why”, and take some business courses on the side. No one should have to be in debt for an art degree. I want the starving artist stereotype to shift. I want to be a part of creating thriving artists. Utilize local and available talent, forget the corporate side.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.devonreiffer.com
- Instagram: @devonreiffer
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/devonreiffer
- Linkedin: Devon Reiffer
- Twitter: @devonreiffer
Image Credits
Devon Reiffer