We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Wally Kelly a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Wally, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
I struggled a lot with pricing myself from the time I was first published at 17. I felt that every opportunity was one that I shouldn’t pass up just because I priced myself “too high” and that still translates in my stuff today. It’s really hard to establish your personal value and that’s definitely something I’m still working on! To answer your question though, I am in a position now where I finally can live entirely off of my work, yes. I feel insanely grateful for that.
Wally, 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’ve always grown up in a very creative atmosphere thanks to my Grandmother and Aunt, so I feel extremely lucky to have been in that space from a young age. I work with too many mediums but I guess that’s the fun part. In the past year i’ve been mainly focusing on ink paintings and EPS sculpture, both very large scale because I love attention grabbing things. I try to believe the best thing in my portfolio is what i’ll make next so I can always look forward and not get stuck. (That’s happened so much in the past)
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
I try my best to be open to all forms of art, but I do feel extremely closed off to the NFT world and stay really traditional in my beliefs that AI and computer art will never fill the position of pen and paper artists. I think there are a lot of really impressive advancements in technology for a plethora of useful things, but relying entirely on AI/digital bid based art for money is where I think things will quickly deteriorate. Originality is harder to believe in these days but anything is original if you make it yourself without listing it for $6,000,000 as a jpeg.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Being entirely unapologetic for the things I make. A lot of my audience loves my creations, but a lot of people don’t love my art, hate it or don’t understand it at the same time. I think everyones opinion is their own and helps them create their own narrative about what each piece is about rather than preaching what it’s supposed to be.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.wallyekelly.com
- Instagram: Www.instagram.com/8wek
Image Credits
Personal photo shot on 35mm film by Lily Stepanyan