We were lucky to catch up with Liz Beachy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Oh, absolutely! Moreso I wish I had stuck with art from the beginning. I excelled in art classes throughout my primary schooling and had started at a local community college for graphic design. But then life got difficult and I had to think rationally and choose a profession that would keep me financially secure. The saddest part is that I only began making art again since 2019. Getting back into the creative field has helped me grow and cope with life. I met the real Liz only after I picked up a paintbrush for the first time in seven years.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I’m an artist from Virginia Beach VA, who migrated to Cincinnati a few years back where I’ve found my fellow weirdos and creatives to help me grow. I grew up on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, the old scifi channel, and more dad jokes than you can shake a stick at and I use all of these influences to make self-deprecating goofy doodles that focus on mental health and LGBTQ+ issues.

I’ve created my own art brand called Defective Deity as a catch all net for whatever I wanna do from freelance illustrations, album cover art, logo designs, painting, to screen printing. I take commissions episodically and sell work at local artist markets in hopes of being able to have my line of shirts and hoodies mass produced.

Since my silly squiggly lines don’t pay all the bills yet, I work throughout the week as a healthcare professional in a super busy family practice locally. I love my patients and what I do, but I’m destined for super rad things that don’t involve being yelled at by your great aunt because she doesn’t want a tetanus shot.

(But for real. Get your tetanus shot, Gladys.)

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

The biggest lessons I’ve had to unlearn in life is, to be blunt, years of racism, internalized homophobia and misogyny. Coming from a less than stellar upbringing, things I absorbed from my caregivers, peers, and media at the time caused me to believe that some people were bad people just by what they look like or who they want to kiss. This obtuse mindset held me back for many years as an artist and as a decent human being. I didn’t *want* to learn how to draw black hair. I didn’t care what cultural appropriation was or if I was apart of the problem. And maybe Scarlett Johansson SHOULD play every role meant for a Japanese actor! If it was not personally affecting me, why should I be bothered with changing the way I do things?

I’ve thankfully grown up to be someone I’m proud of and a big part of that was burning the bridges I had to to light the way to being “woke”. If not for educating myself, I’m absolutely sure I would not be here today surrounded by amazing friends and clients who care about me and my work.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

NFTs were never worth real money, and bored ape yacht club is a racist cesspool. The issue with NFTs is not just their impact on the environment, which yes is very bad—the energy needs of crypto have already offset all energy produced by renewable sources—it’s also how they represent everything in the world being turned into currency. If these crypto bros could have their way, everything that you own, your data, your compromising personal information, even your very online presence would be turned into a commodity that can be traded back and forth without your consent or even without your knowing, and only by a select in-group with the resources to do so. Creators and celebrities are hopping on the bandwagon because they want to be part of that in-group before they become part of the group whose commodified lives are getting swapped around.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Defective.deity
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/defective.deity
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@defective.deity?_t=8WWF7zErD0V&_r=1