We recently connected with Neko Lynn and have shared our conversation below.

Neko, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

I believe I was still in high school when I sold my first piece of artwork. It was a really exciting time because I had been illustrating religiously for years prior to this moment with no real intent on selling anything. It all started with a local hot rodder, Eric Myers, who would later become one of my great friends.

Eric had reached out to me about being a part of the art gallery at the annual Greaserama car show. Talk about a milestone moment for me. I grew up looking up to Eric and Los Punk Rods Car Club, so being a part of their car show was like a dream come true.

I remember skipping class to meet up with Eric and give him some artwork that would be displayed in “Lily’s Greasy Gallery” on Labor Day weekend. I think there was maybe two or three pieces and one of them was this Herman Munster illustration on paper. Eric ended up framing it for me and helped price my work since I was just happy to be there and didn’t know what to say for a price.

Fast forward to the day of the car show were my old man and I are walking into the gallery. I am just excited to have something hanging on a wall surrounded by other artists and works that I look up to. As we entered the gallery, I immediately got sidetracked by all the other artwork that I forgot to look for my own. I noticed that there was a small reflective star sticker next to every piece that had sold so far. As we kept looking around, I came across my name accompanied by one of those small reflective star stickers. I was in shock! It was already a really great moment for me to have a piece on display let alone have a sold sticker by it. I still have the money saved from that sale and it turns out one of the Los Punk Rods members bought it!

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?

Hello! My name is Neko Lynn and I am a visual artist. I have been drawing, painting and mark making since a very young age with no sign of slowing down. I have grown up pin striping hot rods, lettering race cars, airbrushing shirts and drawing madd monsters. I may be only 28 years old, but I am very much an old soul consumed by art, history and culture.

I fell into hot rod art early on because of my Dad. He was the one that got me into hot rods and custom cars. At a young age he got me a pin striping kit and signed me up for one of Bob Bond’s pin striping classes. As fate or sheer luck would have it, Bob Bond lived just a few blocks away. Bob is a legendary automotive artist and I feel very fortunate to now call him a mentor, peer and friend. I learned a lot at Bob’s class and the majority of what I know today is because of him. However, it took about a year for it to really catch on with me, because at the time I was really just enjoying drawing and not having to mess with all the, well, mess of painting! Then one day everything sort of clicked and I was off to the races. I think I pin striped my parent’s entire garage in one day.

From there on out I just continued my education of the arts and acquired as many different tools and knowledge over as many different techniques as possible. This led into things like; airbrushing, lettering, sign painting, oil painting, watercolors, acrylics, markers, spray paint, ink, gouache, wood working, fabrication, digital art, sculpting and I’m sure there’s something else I’m leaving out. I certainly don’t tell myself I’m a master of all or even one of these topics. Instead, the real reason I picked up so many different tools and trades was because I kept having ideas of stuff I wanted to create, and I refused to be restricted.

If you can think it, you can build it! I would say that is one thing I am most proud of about myself and also the one thing I want to drive home to anyone reading. You just have to be dedicated and determined with the willingness to practice over and over. I think a successful artist is one who is constantly improving, no matter how big or small.

I believe a big part of honing one’s craft is attributed to studying and researching as much as possible. I would like to think I have obtained quite the insight pertaining to hot rod history and lowbrow art. Regardless of what projects come across my drawing board, I always like having knowledge on the subject matter and end goal. It helps better understand why things are done the way they are and can help produce a more meaningful end result.

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

The ability to take an idea and bring it to life. It is rewarding when you do projects for yourself, but especially when you are able to take someone else’s vision and make it a reality. I really enjoy being a problem solver and that is essentially all any creative is. We just take a visual problem and make a solution for it. The ultimate goal would be to create a visual solution and have that solution be true to who you are as a creative. If you can solve the problem and make it your own answer, then that is probably the most rewarding aspect of being an artist.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

What makes “good” art? Well, there is really no good answer to this question, but I feel we are misled into believing there is. At a young age there was this ideal engrained in my brain that good art meant it had to look as close to a photograph as possible. Not to say that isn’t right, but rather art is all subjective and having good technical skills is just one of many components that can be used to make a “good” piece of artwork. Much like music there is many different genres of art that focus on a magnitude of different techniques, mediums, subject matter and conceptual thinking. I would urge any non-creatives to stop thinking about art in the sense of is it “good” or “bad”, but rather seek out what it is they like or dislike about a piece. Art isn’t meant to be labeled based on photo realism, but rather have a conversation about with others or yourself.

Over the years I have shifted away from creating photo realistic work and I have been thoroughly enjoying my pursuit of finding my own style and process. I have found that this has led me to be truer to myself and the body of work I want to represent. Nothing against photo realistic work, but I much rather create a piece of work that is misunderstood before I paint a bowl of fruit.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nekolynnstudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neko.lynn.studios/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NekoLynnStudios/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neko-lynn/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nekolynnstudios