We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Munk Foo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Munk, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
There were a lot of culminating experiences that lead me to wanting to pursue my artistic/creative path professionally. It took me a while to realize and then accept that i was an artist, though every form of expression I choose was a different art medium. My earliest recollection of this was when I was about 6 or 7 years old. We lived with my grandmother and I think she might’ve dozed off watching tv and I changed the channel to PBS from ‘The Young and The Restless’ and on the tv was something I had never seen in my entire life. What hooked my attention on the screen so immediately was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘CATS’. I fell in love, I didn’t quite understand what i was looking at but the only thing I knew was that I wanted to be able to do that with my body. I always felt and knew I had natural dance ability, I would learn music video choreography from just watching, like Aaliyah’s ‘Are You That Somebody’. My siblings and I would sometimes put on shows and I would choreograph, one of my first pieces was to ‘No Strings Attached’ by N’SYNC. This was the only way I could ingest dance so I absorbed it all any way I could because not only was dancing not encouraged in a Black christian home, I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth as the youngest of 4 money was tight and dance is an expensive extracurricular activity.
My interest and exploration in visual arts started with my brother who is a prodigy I believe. I came up watching him and emulating what he did to sharpen my drawing skills. Taking every art class there was in my high school and still in musical theatre to satiate my creative appetite.
The realization that this is my calling is finally catching up to me, that this is my life now and that no mater what i will always be creating things. Recognized or not.
Munk, 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 a multi-disciplinary artists from Orlando. FL. I moved to atlanta in 2011 to start college and my dance career. while living in atlanta my wheelhouse of skillsets put me in some really awesome artistic spaces over the last 10 years. For as long as i can remember i’ve been exhibiting and expressing all forms of art medium. Dance was just my introduction to the arts, I learned a great deal from my brother (a visual artist) and i picked up other things along the way. Dabbling in all things while was in high school, i participated in musical theatre, all the art classes, pottery, creative writing, photography, wood-shop, also choreographing dances with my friends after school. I Always felt that having these skills under my belt would soon be to my benefit and that they would help synthesize my vast artistic expression into who i am today. it used to bother me that i couldn’t do it all, all at once. that at times i felt like i was “short-changing” myself by no exercising all of gifts simultaneously. I reframed my thinking that i was honing those specific talents one-by-one.
I feel most proud of myself recently than i have ever been as a creative, because my voice is becoming clearer. I’ve drowned out a lot of the noise that permeated my sacred space of creating. thus, making me a stronger artist. I’m not trying to sell a brand, I’m a human being with a lived experienced that is going to be seen through my work. if you see and like, or even love my work, support it. I’m most proud of the risk I’m taking in my new work, it’s bold subject that i’m venturing into and i wouldn’t be able to tell this story authentically if i wasn’t confident enough to make the choices i feel are necessary to bring me to the next phase of art-making.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in all the multitudes that i do create would have to be just that. the various and seemingly infinite ways i can emote. that what i feel doesnt have to stay in my body that i can let it out and let it pass through me, not a lot of folks can say that. i think more often than not people harbor need emotional stresses that manifest into physical stresses because they haven’t found that avenue to let that feeling travel through. I have always felt like a conduit and that im merely just a vessel for the artistic message to come through.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
i had just graduated college and was working at the gap when i was offered a teaching position to teach dance at a school. i accepted and it was actually a very nice work environment. i loved my coworkers and the kids i got to influence. 5th-8th grade, some very fond memories from that time but i was stifled nonetheless. somethings about the culture about how they were interacting with the students didn’t feel good in my soul. the money was great and im single person with very low living expenses so theoretically it was the ideal situation for a fresh graduate. after a year i decided to resign from the position, it broke students hearts but i felt i had a different trajectory than to work at this school forever just because it was comfortable. i pivoted into becoming full-time in my art, leaning 100% on my talents as a freelance artist to support me. it was to this day one of my biggest life changing decisions, but it propelled me in a way that i absolutely needed. the job i left was great financially but was i seeking couldn’t be bought, i had to build it. so i quit
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @munkfoo @a.rther