Hello World

I'm Katon and I'm a character designer, board artist, and comic artist! Lot's of empty titles but they are my specialty. Been a self taught artist for most of my life, but I've taken quite a lot of art classes to supply my journey with knowledge from industry professional rather than being plunged into debt for the rest of my life. I'm also an art teacher, which is a very rewarding profession and one that I never thought I'd find myself in. My vision for my future has always been narrow minded with doing art as the forefront. No backups, no secondary skill, just doing what I've always known how to do.

Somewhere along the way, I became aware of the world around me. It was nothing like the world I was promised. In fact, it was a hard reality to grasp once I became aware of it. I spent most of my early adult years 'chasing' opportunities. I brought convention tickets, classes, website domains, prints to sell, starting streaming and youtubing. But I wasn't doing what I wanted to do, I was doing what I thought I needed to do in order to be successful without a higher education. For context, I am a Latino man. I grew up in a not so nice and not so financially stable neighborhood. I was conditioned to be another statistic with the lack of support from my peers, local government, and family. College was never an option, even with my drawing skills that I've been developing since I was 4 years old. To be honest, I never liked school. I've always thought higher education was a scam, and this is a belief that I've kept. Mostly because we are sold on the idea of getting this piece of paper to "potentially" better out lives and it'll open up so many doors. If governments actually wanted their citizens to live better lives, then you would need to sell them on the idea of higher education, it should just be a given. If those with a higher education actually used it for good and the betterment of humanity, then we wouldn't still be seeing inhuman treatment.

I was determined to better my life and create my own opportunities without the capitalistic way of how lives are already preplanned. College>Marriage>Kids>retirement> death. This isn't the life I saw for myself, So I did what other people did and tried to insert myself into spaces where I though people actually wanted to know me. I was naive and very hopeful when I was younger. I learned that just because you participate in a hobby and you want to do something for a career, that doesn't translate into a supportive community. Especially in the art community when we are conditioned to compete with each other to gain opportunities. We spent more time blindly competing with each other that the people who funnel the money into the industry as been toppling everything creative people have built for the sake of selfishness. And now people who've been in the industry for many years, is finding employment difficult.

Unfortunately, I used to set these goals like "This year I will break in" Or "This year I will work on this project". And at the end of the year, I would be so heart broken and would blame myself for why I wasn't getting hired by these studios. I have read a lot of stories from different people staying that, there is nepotism, internal hiring, and outsourcing that is contributing to the lack of entry level positions and juniors being hired. I think because there isn't a straight forward answer, one can only speculate as to why. And when your portfolio keeps getting rejected or you don't hear anything back, dark thoughts will take form. Social media doesn't help, especially when algorithms play a huge part as to why your stuff isn't being pushed to your own followers. Or when you have to cater to posting reels over images, shorts over longer videos, it's just madness. Why do I, an artist, HAVE to change the way I present my work for the sake of being seen? Once upon a time, hitting a follow or subscribe actually meant something. Now it's like - Follow**.

But, Ive been rediscovering my passion for artist in recent years. While I understand my circumstances may have held me back in some areas, I feel like my relationship with my art was severely damaged by all the years of chasing. Now that the "old internet" is rising again, people in general are rediscovering creativity. We are relearning how to take back control, relearning that physical media is king, relearning that we have the ability to be whoever we want to be without needing to put on an act for social media. It also feels like the strings on a puppet has been cut. The subtitle of this blog is vindication of a failed artist, but I haven't failed myself since I'm still here. Failed in the sense of a definition I used to live by, defined by the world around me. No longer allowing the 'power' given to these definitions by others to define me.

As I continue creating works, I have to learn to be content with possibly never being able to work in the industry. You'll always hear professional talk about their journey and how they came to be, but I would like to tell my story on how I had so much ambition and how the art industry is failing people like me and future talent. I will never stop creating art, but what I will stop doing is allowing my future to be dictated by an industry that's failing. And I will stop giving 'power' to the idea of working in an studio. The idea of dreaming about working, is not healthy. I want to dream about my worlds and my characters. I want to inspire others and spark new talent. I want to exist in a third space, away from mainstream media where true artist reside. The creative people who want to tell stories in the purest form free from algorithms, corporate nonsense, and competition. If my journey interest you, then consider following along.