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

Alright, Kaylee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I have been a creative person for as long as I can remember, drawing on anything I could get my hands on. My school crafts reflected how ambitious I was as a creative individual. I’d often have to take them home to finish them because I would pour my heart and soul into a purple minion rather than a yellow minion like my classmates. In high school I often broke the rules, going against what my art teacher instructed us. She would mention that what I was trying to do would be too difficult, too ambitious, and take too much time to complete. Overly passionate about the work I wanted to create, I was determined to make it work through extreme problem-solving at times. But that was the fun of it. I proved her wrong multiple times through my determination to see my ideas to fruition, receiving her praise in surprise that I could pull it off.

High school career day is when I realized that I might be able to pursue art professionally. I just didn’t have the tools or knowledge to know what to do yet. After an unsuccessful career day with no art-related professionals who came in to talk to the students, I decided to look around for myself. I learned that art school existed! Eager to graduate high school, I set off to Columbia College Chicago with no clear goal in mind what I would be able to do with an illustration degree.

Columbia’s illustration program offered an array of courses that allowed me to explore and dip my toes in a little bit of everything before settling down on something that I would want to focus all my time on. It was a little overwhelming. I felt lost quite a bit, questioning if this was the right career choice for me, but being creative is all I’ve known. I wanted to pursue art professionally at any cost. I enjoy being creative in more ways than one, wanting to be a comic artist, a concept artist, a vis dev, and a tattoo artist. My creativity knows no bounds and I’ve been able to do so professionally by allowing myself to be creative in multiple aspects.

Perhaps I’ve always known I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally. I just wasn’t sure how until I set out to find it myself.

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 Kaylee Hamm, or keivari on the internet, and I am a digital concept artist and illustrator. I am also a recent graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. Art, for me, is not simply a skill but a relationship with yourself. The artwork created becomes an extension that shares little inklings of who you are and what you are trying to say without having to put it into words. Through this, I create art to convey things in the same manner, illustrated feelings or observations that I put out to the world to see in hopes they can make a connection with the viewer in a way that resonates with them.

Living in Chicago my whole life has played a significant role in the artwork I create today, both stylistically and narratively, using elements from the things I notice in my daily endeavors. My surroundings and the media I consume inspire my creative work. I observe things and then a little further, imagining what kind of story could be told in such a way and with what themes. Sights around Chicago and the animals that inhabit it all have a story to share and I find joy in illustrating the more overlooked aspects of that. The pigeons that will walk around downtown Chicago with you on your daily commute, the squirrels that use the powerlines in the alley as methods of transportation, and a community found between humans and rodents. Maybe I just love the little guys too much, but it’s fun to see what kinds of stories can be told. Perhaps it could be from my undying love of Pokemon from my childhood and the overwhelming amount of drawings I have of them across all of the generations.

I believe that my fascination with games such as Pokemon, Persona, and recently, miHoYo games sparked my interest in working in character design. As a lover of different fashion styles, character design is a neat combination of everything that I love packaged neatly together for me. I feel that fashion is very important in communicating who you are and what you like, which is something that I take into high consideration when designing characters. Ways in which hair is styled, clothes worn, and accessories added all play a part in portraying an individual and what they want to communicate. I enjoy looking at the overall style of a proposed idea and pushing it further to make the character stand out from the stereotypical look that one might envision the character looking like.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My main goal driving my creative journey is being able to have a connection to the viewer. I have always striven to create something that has an impact on their lives, whether it be large or small. Having conversations with those who have been touched by your work is truly an unforgettable feeling and encourages me to keep creating and sharing my work with everyone who will give it the time. Hearing a story I wrote having a personal connection to the reader or being shown a bunch of squirrel pictures by a fellow squirrel lover, I truly cherish every interaction that is sparked by the work I create.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson that I had to unlearn, that I’m sure plenty of other artists can relate to, is the strive for perfectionism and letting that perfectionism go. I struggled with ensuring every single one of my pieces was perfect, spending countless hours on them until the artwork would get to a point where I no longer could find myself proud to have worked on it. The artwork would no longer look as what I had envisioned. My peers would constantly remind me that I am too much of a perfectionist, but I felt that if I wasn’t like this with my creative work it would look like I didn’t care enough about it or give it all my effort.

Growing up I was always expected to have good grades. I met those expectations placed upon me, but when similar habits started to show up in my creative work, it became increasingly difficult to meet the expectations I had placed on myself. I told myself that I could do better and my work could always look nicer, but my brain moved faster than my hand. Leveling out that disconnect between brain and hand and understanding what you are capable of in that current moment is crucial for combating that mindset.

Towards the end of my college career I was able to take a step back and realize that if I were to keep up this mentality, I’d never get anything done and would develop unhealthy habits that would be detrimental to both my mental and physical health. The heavy load of assignments kept me from spending too much time on one project alone, but enough to be able to produce artwork that I could feel proud of. I’ve had to relearn how to hold a pencil to avoid painful cramps and potential injury since I felt like the tighter the grip I had on the pencil, the more control I had over the artwork.

All in all, I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with wanting something to look just perfect. The hard work and effort that is put into every artwork resulting in a piece that you can be proud of and call perfect is an amazing feeling. I believe it all comes down to mindset and changing that when it becomes too much of a hindrance to your well-being.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.keivari.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keivari/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylee-hamm/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/keivari