We were lucky to catch up with Sydney Kay recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sydney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

My parents allowed me to dream but pushed me to make my dreams a reality. Both of my parents came from humble beginnings and they both worked hard to allow me and my brother not have to worry about the simple things people take for granted about like food and shelter. When I told my parents I wanted to pursue a career in art, they were skeptical but helped me fund my dream in art school. They have always believed in me even when I didn’t, and that allowed me to push into a creative pathway even though that career path has and still isn’t the straightest path.

Sydney, 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?

Sydney is a multimedia artist working in photography, video and screen-printing. Right now she is based in Maryland. Originally from the Eastern Shore in Maryland, she received her Bachelor’s of Fine Art in Photography from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2021.

Sydney works in creative production and has won numerous awards including a Red Bull micro-grant, 2024 Denbo Fellowship, 2024-25 VisArts Winter Residency and the 2023 Zygote Residency. She is always interested in new ideas and processes or what she would call “learning to fold the blanket in a different way”. Her goal is to create work that communicates her stories and to share the stories of those who are often under-represented.

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

I had to learn to be more adaptable. I have always been a clear and direct person. Sometimes a bit too much in some cases. But I was put into a 4 day workshop at Marcus Graham Project ( a project aimed at getting more POC in advertising) and it taught me how to be a better partner. For more background, I have always had a speech impediment and sometimes I can talk in circles. So a workshop aimed at creating a full creative brief in 3 days with all strong personalities was definitely challenge. The program even had an award for the best team player the MVP. My team did a good job of working together and made a good piece. We didn’t end up winning the competition but there was one team member, their name was Morgan who really had a great affect on how I handle challenges. She was a quiet storm , confident and concise on what she said but not cocky. She was able to lead very efficiently even when our team had issues or problems. It really allowed me to know how to better lead and be a part of a group. So when I had to join another cohort later in the summer it better allowed me to lead that team. Deal with different personalities and respond from a place of reason and not emotion. Which allowed us to put an amazing event together, that otherwise would not had happened.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think just doing good work. Cleveland is a small city. So when you are bad everyone knows that you are bad but when you are good everyone knows you are good. Just being consistent with my work ethic has definitely helped me build my reputation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sydneykay.myportfolio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wannabe_future_artist
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydneynkay

Image Credits

Photo of me by McKinley Wiley. IG thedarkroomco