We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jared Karp. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jared below.
Jared, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Having graduated from college with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I had a very safe, conformist, comfortable life mapped out ahead me. My first job out of school put me on a slow pathway to guaranteed success and stability and I really ran with it. I was in the medical device field, doing mechanical product design and working on products that genuinely were saving people’s lives. But – I was confined to a small cubicle in an outdated office, Monday through Friday, 8am to (at least) 5pm. I tried to catalyze a cultural renaissance within the office but without much organizational support, I was left to creatively die on the vine as a corporate engineer. I got a call one day out of the blue from an old boss, inviting me to design luxury homes he was building up and down the California coastline. I had no real experience in architectural design but with a CAD background I figured, “How hard could it be?”. I was determined to escape the cubicle and was ready to jump and any opportunity that would free me and allow me to flex my design eye and creativity so I took the leap of faith. Over the next several years, I helped my partner design and resell a multitude of properties from Laguna Beach to Malibu. During this time I had been painting (on canvas), finally feeling a sense of artistic liberation and mental bandwidth associated with the career upheaval. As I fell increasingly in love with the craft, I realized I wanted to reach as many people as possible with my message and subject matter, so I quickly turned my attention to street art. I started out like most of us do, scurrying around in the wee hours of the night with a crappy little stencil, spraying it up in 5-10 places around Hollywood, and coming back to find most pieces gone by morning. Out of frustration and admiration for my future peers, I committed to teaching myself how to paint freehand with aerosols, so that the work that I would create could have a higher chance of survival. I soon began to paint murals, and after two or three, I was fully hooked. I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and was going to find a way to engineer the lifestyle that would allow me to pursue this dream. That’s when I took my biggest risk yet, foregoing my steady paycheck and jumping into the void as a full-time, self-employed artist. I figured there was no better time in life to bet on myself… here we are over 2 years later, still pushing harder and feeling more rewarded every day.
Jared, 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?
I am an LA native, mechanical engineer turned self-taught full-time artist whose work bends style and genre but typically conveys a sense of joy and whimsy. My pieces aim to hold up a mirror to society and create a starting point for reflection or conversation which may otherwise be difficult to hold space for. I paint canvas with oils, acrylics, and aerosols for private collection, walls big and small for public consumption, build community through curation and opportunity sharing, and help brands develop a creative strategy that aligns with their mission and values while staying true to cultural conditions at the grass roots level.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
One of the best drivers to build an early following is to be an excellent collaborator. Early on in my artistic endeavors, I would leverage the democratic nature of social media platforms to directly access other artists I otherwise would have had no shot at reaching. I would study their work, find a piece or a concept of theirs that resonated with me on a creative and personal level, design and propose a collaboration with them – leaving it very open ended and without putting any pressure on anyone. Networking with other artists early on is a great way to gain exposure to their audiences as well as invaluable professional wisdom it would take years to glean on your own.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Pay them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kar-p.art
- Instagram: @kar_part
- Facebook: @kar_part
- Twitter: @kar_part
Image Credits
(Paper Airplane Mural is a collaboration with Belove the Artist)