Kit Mizeres is an American artist and illustrator. She initially hailed from a small wintery town in Ohio, and then went on to graduate from the Columbus College of Art and Design with a focus on Illustration in 2016. Since then, she has enjoyed taking her sweet time living on the road as she continues to collect and draw inspiration from her new and ever-changing surroundings, as well as the wonderful strangers she has met along the way. Her work often takes on a very maximalist, dreamlike approach that heavily incorporates themes of folklore and personal mythology.
Kit, where do you get your inspiration?
Everywhere and anywhere. My dreams and personal life certainly have a say in most of my work, and I also very much enjoy folklore and mythology and warping various themes into my own personal symbolism in my art. But I have to give most of the credit to my travels, especially the strangers I meet along the way. It’s always and will always be the people that truly affect you in a new place during your travels, never the actual location.
What are you much focused in?
Actually, my primary focus in this unorganized life of mine as of recently has been in traveling and meeting new strangers, and the art is just a result of that. Like some secondhand background noise, a buzzing that never leaves my muddled brain.
Over these years, what is the most important thing you have learnt from your profession?
Though I’m quite new to the game, I’d say the most difficult lesson was learning when to say no. Above all else, an artist’s integrity is everything because your work is literally a visual and, nowadays, rather permanent representation of who you are to the rest of the world. Starting out, I felt as if I had to say yes to every opportunity or job that presented itself, and I would then find myself wasting time on freelance work where I either had zero creative say in, or work that was simply hindering to my image of the artist I intended to become. I’ve since come to learn that time is your most valuable commodity, and you should never waste a second of it on work that takes you further away from the kind of artist and person you intend to become.
Do you think that a creative job is just creativity or its discipline too?
It takes an insane amount of discipline to pursue art as an actual career. Most people have the benefit of choosing a job where they can focus on it during the day, and then walk away from it when they come home at night and get to enjoy their personal lives with out the burdensome worries of the job at hand. For creatives, we don’t have that luxury where we get to compartmentalize and separate our work life from our personal life. Our work is our personal life, most of the time, and it follows us everywhere we go. If you’re the kind of person who loves your creative work so much to where you still don’t quite understand what exactly a “break” is from your art, then you’re in the right line of work.
Are you currently work on new projects?
Always! I have another upcoming solo show with Arch Enemy Arts in Philadelphia this June, and I will be working with a handful of new galleries that I’ve always admired over the next several months. I will also be living abroad indefinitely and out of a single backpack starting in May, so it will be interesting to see where my work goes from there, especially with a limited amount of materials. I think it will be nice to go back to my roots with just sticking to a good ole ballpoint pen and some tubes of watercolor. Wish me luck!
“Actually, my primary focus in this unorganized life of mine as of recently has been in traveling and meeting new strangers, and the art is just a result of that”
“I’ve since come to learn that time is your most valuable commodity, and you should never waste a second of it on work that takes you further away from the kind of artist and person you intend to become”
“It takes an insane amount of discipline to pursue art as an actual career […] For creatives, we don’t have that luxury where we get to compartmentalize and separate our work life from our personal life. Our work is our personal life, most of the time, and it follows us everywhere we go”
Artist Website > syntheticflyingmachine.com
Instagram > kitmizeresart
Facebook > facebook.com/kitmizeresart
Tumblr > kitmizeresart.tumblr.com