Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ka-Bang Lauron. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Ka-Bang thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I’ve always loved drawing and making art. When I was a kid, I never really envisioned myself taking it on as a career. I used to want to go into veterinary medicine or another STEM field, as a career my parents would be happy with. I also really liked animals! But starting to paint and draw in middle and high school, I ended up connecting with myself and other nonjudgmental peers in ways that STEM spaces never really provided for me. I realized I was queer when I was able to surround myself with welcoming LGBTQ+ artist peers, and began to make more and more art in high school. My initial college plans stayed in place until my senior year in 2014, when my parents accidentally found out I was queer in a freak accident. At a critical moment, my life was turned upside down and flipped inside out. My parents forced me into conversion therapy, abused me, denied me access to my college applications, refused to let me fill out the FAFSA, and refused to let me leave. They even tried to send me to the Philippines indefinitely as a follow up to conversion therapy. By the time I turned 18 in the summer, they turned me loose, and kicked me out to a relative’s house. That relative kicked me out shortly after, and I was on my own from there.
Despite all that had happened, my art stayed with me and helped me to continue to connect with others in my early days. I worked for a year to save the funds to get into college, and decided to double major with art–developing skill in the craft and exploring new mediums has always been a great outlet for my own mental health, and has been a handy way to make extra income while doing school. I later chose to also Feminist Studies, and towards the end of my undergrad, I envisioned myself working for nonprofits, or in an org centered around finding resources for and helping QTBIPOC people. Some of my professors really believed in me to seek a career in academia, and pushed me to attend their seminars and seek entrance into grad school for post undergrad life. I hoped to take some time off after undergrad, as working/going to school nonstop over the years burned me out pretty severely. I was definitely headed in these directions until March of 2020 hit.
Working in person was an eventual hope. Weeks turned to months during my last quarter of undergrad, and by then I realized that it just wasn’t going to happen safely. My partner at the time was and still is disabled and immunocompromised, and I worked rough jobs during college that may have damaged my lungs. I wasn’t about to risk my life for another company just to barely make ends meet, so I had to figure out how else to support myself. During this whole ongoing pandemic, I’ve divided my time between working at remote internships, doing commissioned artwork, and a variety of other odd jobs. The amazing folks at my internships at the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies gave me so many unique opportunities to create art for work, and they helped me realize my potential as a freelancer. It also helped that several of the other companies I’ve worked for remotely over the pandemic have been capricious with hours at best, and racist/homophobic/ableist at worst.
As time’s gone on, I’ve learned to rely on my own skill, connections, and ingenuity rather than entrusting my time to companies that do not have my best interests in mind. I’ve noticed that making art comes easily to me in times when getting out of bed is difficult, and the hours I spend on a painting grow my skills and produce beauty in ways that call center jobs cannot. No matter how many hours are pulled up from beneath me at other jobs, I can always reach inside myself for inspiration to continue to create. My stories and identities are devalued by capitalists taking advantage of my time, but those same stories and identities make my own work stronger. If any path is sustainable, it’s this one.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Ka-Bang Lauron, and I’m a QTPOC freelance artist and graphic designer. I got my start selling mini portraits and linocut prints covering queer themes during college. I’m three years out of school at this point, and work selling all kinds of artwork! In terms of to order services, I create educational graphics for social justice causes, sell custom human and pet portraits, and design tattoos. I also sell personal artwork, including linocut prints, zines, miniature paintings, and non custom tattoo designs.
My personal body of work is focused on venerating and honoring queer narratives that flip the script of how we as queer people understand our lives within our hegemonic, white supremacist, and settler colonial society. My prints tell stylized stories about contemporary queer life in the U.S., while my miniature paintings, inspired by the practices of Lakota ledger artists and impoverished artists, give life to dreams and inspirations I have, scrawled over white supremacist and settler colonial literature.
In terms of commissioned work, I work with mainly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ clients to promote their causes and support their projects. Art is a wonderful medium through which to communicate complicated ideas to others succinctly. Many of my repeat clients are academics and artists. I’ve created work that helps convert dense academic texts into accessible graphics for those who do not have access to academia, and have created book covers and poster work that captures the vibe of client’s titles. When a client wants to communicate ideas to their audience in creative and contemplative ways, they hit me up. I especially love working with clients who have a strong idea of what they’re looking for.
I appreciate having phone calls where we can collaborate together to get the composition, themes, and colors just right– getting clients exactly what they’re looking as a team for is a wonderful collaborative exercise!
What sets me apart from other artists is my academic background in feminist studies– my commitment to stay firm to my ethics and create non exploitative work is very important to me; I have the education needed to truly understand the hopes and intent behind the work that many of my academic clients do. This education helps me to create work that is congruent in both method and intent.
Presently, I am most proud of how popular my personal work is with clients! I have spent a lot of time creating commission menus for clients, but I’ve come to realize that a lot of folks trust in and are interested in the work I make simply for myself. My personal work is a physical embodiment of my own stories and realities that are difficult to convey to others with words alone. These last few years have been some of the hardest of my life, but the fact that people are interested in what I am creating is a reminder to trust my own artistic abilities and sensibilities, and a reminder that there is important work to be done– there is a hunger out there for the stories I am telling, and there are bridges to be built with them.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Throughout the years, art to me has not merely functioned as an alternative source of income. For me, it’s a method to communicate my inner world to others in a way that words could never capture. It’s a medium through which I can make sense of my own narrative, and one that helps connect that narrative to others in a unique way. Besides sustaining my financial and spiritual needs,
I believe that it’s my mission to use the skill and vision that I’ve cultivated to bring something back to the marginalized communities that I’m a part of. Life has not been easy, and there have been so many amazing communities that have uplifted me all these years through the most difficult times in my life. Who taught me that I can use art to communicate my inner world creatively, and that my stories are worth something to others. When I was abandoned by my biological family, it was communities of strangers who taught me about how to survive, and about what it means to thrive as a marginalized person in our hegemonic society. So many older artists, scholars, and all around cool folks who have provided years and years of helpful feedback, wisdom, and friendship to help me grow as an artist who can make work that is a catalyst for growth for others. It was through community that I learned to recognize that the vision and artistry I bring to the table is something unique, and the discussions I start with my art mean something. On my creative journey, I hope to help others learn to think critically about our society, appreciate our stories in fresh new ways, and make life more rich for others by highlighting beauty in places we never thought to look for it.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
My suggestion to folks out there who are hungry for a thriving creative ecosystem, filled with happy, skilled artists is, support your local artists! When you purchase our work, or rave about us to your friends and family, you directly help us by granting us more opportunities to create work that can help us get food on the table. Pay your artists fairly, and tip your artists if you can. If you’re a wealthy person, it might help to donate to pre-college art programs that help get youth into art, or contact the art department at your local community college or university to see how you can help bring more resources to the program. Art supplies, schooling, and living in general is pretty expensive. When artists in your community have the resources and money needed to survive, that gives them more freedom to embark on their own creative projects and hone their artistic vision, to further create unique work that you can enjoy!
If you are an artist looking to help build up that creative ecosystem, my biggest piece of advice is to put work into building up a network or community of artists you associate with. Having a community of people to talk with is everything for your creative development, especially if you are part of a marginalized community. The mainstream art world has a tendency to centralize hegemonic ideas of what stories are important to tell, what is beautiful, and what matters. You don’t want to lose your unique vision to trying to appease and gain the approval of old white guys. It also sucks to be vulnerable and have your hard work be trashed for centering a perspective that is usually marginalized. Making friends with other artists, and working together to make sure you all communicate what you want to in the ways you want to will help you grow for others and yourself. It can also help you learn how to operate as a professional, learning how to conduct business and what to expect from a client. Your network can also help you find the audience you want to for your work! Overall, just put serious time into making friends and finding other artists to talk and collaborate with– you’ll save yourself a lot of unnecessary heartbreak, and will be uplifted to create work you never would’ve been able to make alone!
Obligatory section on AI art:
If you want art but don’t have the money to pay for it, do all of us a favor and don’t create AI art, and don’t give money to developers who create AI art programs. Just save up money to buy something from one of us humans! AI training is not magic– algorithms are trained by the underpaid labor of third world workers who experience trauma from witnessing all of the explicit content they work to remove from AI datasets. When you create a piece of AI art, what you did is throw a bunch of stolen art and images into a blender, with no thought to how much effort is stolen from artists, or to how many unethical images may be thrown into the mix. Everything from colonial era photos of people about to be murdered, to revenge porn, to stolen content could be in there, and you might never know. Stealing from us and mixing our work with vile stuff is the quickest way to make sure we don’t share more of our work, so please stay away from AI art and let it die. Instead, you could commission a real life artist, who will not be exploited or traumatized by fulfilling your request, and who will ideally not steal from others to create that perfect art piece that you’re looking for. If this isn’t enough to deter you, remember that the algorithm can also reproduce prejudices that the people who invented it hold– eurocentrism, racism, misogyny, fatphobia, and all kinds of other ick is reproduced in the images it makes. Support and commission real artists who make sure that their method of creation matches the intent behind it! 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ko-fi.com/kabangbangart
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kabangbangart/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabang-m-lauron-33420a149/
Image Credits
All images are my own. The painting in the book is inside of the book “Mountain Standard Time”, by D.W. Brogan.