Today we’d like to introduce you to Casey Babb.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I graduated from the University of Central Missouri with a BFA in Illustration. Prior to that, I had dabbled in photography and animation. When I joined the art program, my original goal was just to hone my drawing skills, but I was introduced to the illustration program shortly before John F. Malta became the department head, which catapulted me into a world of art I hadn’t really seen much of. While I was working my way through foundations courses, I fell in love with Printmaking, and by the time I entered my fifth and final year in the program, I started to combine Printmaking and Illustration with collage. I have been working that way ever since.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I am not sure that freelancing is ever a smooth road. You have to constantly make new work, while simultaneously running a business- you have to find clients, submit work, manage social media, complete work for clients, figure out contracts, ship orders, and attend events. It can be a bit overwhelming. I’m sure a lot of artists would rather just sit in the studio and make work, but for better or for worse, there’s a lot more to it than that. It’s a constant struggle.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I consider myself an illustrator, but I work almost entirely in collage and mixed media.
Dreams have always been central to how I think about the world–I want to dissolve the barriers between psychic and physical worlds, between dreaming and waking realities, and I feel that collage is the best method for that. The process is a puzzle, a mystery…it is something we enter a dialog with, and as we do The Work, the collage taps into our unconscious minds, co-creating itself. Collage inherently facilitates a dreamlike quality, and allows for a fair amount of free association. It is also a much more intuitive process for me to “macgyver” images together than to create something from absolutely nothing.
This concept is filtered through my affinity for the schlocky ‘80s and ‘90s movies that saturated my childhood. Low-budget aesthetics are the foundation of my artistic process.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Kansas City is a great place for live events- I love setting up a table at First Fridays at the Crossroads, KC Zine Con, and Art Garden KC. I’ve met a lot of cool people out there. What do I like the least? Really only that it’s an hour drive for me- I’d live closer if I could, it’s a bit of an oasis in Missouri.
Contact Info:
- Email: kcb@breakingbabb.com
- Website: https://www.breakingbabb.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breaking_babb/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breakingbabb
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/breakingbabb
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/breakingbabb
- Other: https://breakingbabb.etsy.com
Image Credits:
Casey Babb
