We recently connected with Indigo Koonce and have shared our conversation below.

Indigo, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

In terms of making artwork, I’ve always been a creative since before I can remember. I’ve always had an itch to create meaningful work, to share the thoughts in my head differently than how I felt I was told to.

I’ve always wanted a challenge, too. Learning both guitar and graphic design, I was learning in spaces where my peers were far above me in skill. While it was intimidating, with moments where I felt incredible amounts of imposter syndrome, sticking to this learning environment, I feel, helped me learn faster.

Seeing the ways in which my peers were creating inspired work made me want to learn their techniques. Being in this environment almost every day surrounded me with these techniques to learn that I couldn’t shy away from. Slowly but surely, I was able to figure out a pathway of what to learn first, how to perfect previous skills, and adapt to new ones.

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?

Indigo Koonce is a Graphic Designer and Multi-Media artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Indigo (or Indi) has been working in art from a young age, having experience in Visual, Instrumental, and other Performance work. Being a Multi-Media artist, Indi works with many mediums, including Painting, Drawing, Graphic Design, Digital Illustration, Web Design, Photography, and Film.

Indi’s work is experimental and textural, with mixed-media aspects and typographic explorations making for innovative and exciting problem-solving. Through design and collaborative projects, Indi believes that design can be inventive and aims to use it to help create a better world.

Indigo specializes in Typographic Systems Thinking, Publication & Packaging Design, UI Integration, and Mixed-Media Processes.

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

I had to unlearn finding validation in everyone else about my work. The truth of the matter is that not all of my work will resonate, every time, with every person. For a while, it felt as though my success was determined by how popular my work was. Social Media was a big drive of this way of thinking for me, as we all have sought validation in different ways online.

I had to learn to be confident in my own work, going even further as to post pieces i’m NOT so proud of, encouraging experimentation, process work, and learning from previous pieces in order to create better ones. I had to learn to feel solid in my craft , even when it isn’t the best, and embrace the opportunities for growth.

I find that themes of process and growth are easier critiques to get from audiences and peers, rather than always hearing that I am “the best”. It is a good quality to know where you need to practice.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Artists and their work are the output of current and future thought of our cultural contexts. Some could consider us a type of scientist in that we are often researching and analyzing the world around us to inform our creations.

Artists have adapted a language that not many other industries can use to describe our realities. This language encourages people to confront themes and think about themselves and the world in ways that other people or places cannot do.

Artists open the door to imagination for a lot of people. This imagining can be about themselves, their world, another person or people’s perspectives, maybe the future… and Art is an inviting way to get audiences interested in this way of thinking.

Artists are important for cataloguing our lives as they are, and imagining our lives as what they could be.

Contact Info:

• Website: indigokoonce.my portfolio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/in.di.goos/
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/xLyOwGaCLVs?si=Zww2h74xPqGP7_Bj
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/akNu8juRHGWWyKQr9

Image Credits

N/A