Meet Ali Headley | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ali Headley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ali, what role has risk played in your life or career?

In my opinion, taking risks is completely about giving yourself up to your own expectations and not letting others opinions of you get in the way. My mantra is ‘risky over reasonable’, because you only have one chance at this life to do what you need to do. I would be so sad with myself if I got to the end of my time here and didn’t do any of the things I wanted or be who I am. Specifically as an artist, though, you have to be brave and be willing to take risks every time you create something. I think of my art as a journal, and it’s a scary thought to have people see it and interpret it how they want. Financially speaking, it’s a huge risk, but there are a lot of ways with social media now to get your art around the world for potential buyers. I think you have to take risks if you want to be successful – not just financially but mainly successful to yourself.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

I’m actually always really nervous to show people my art. A frequent comment I get is ‘you don’t look like your art’ or, ‘you don’t look like you’d make something like that,’ and that’s not the point. If someone handed me their journal I would’t read it and question how those thoughts came from them. It’s almost like I don’t want my art to be associated with me, I want it to be associated with the viewer. I think that plays in a lot with the skeletons and skulls I use in the majority of my pieces. I use skeletons as a main figure because everyone is the same on the inside, like we’re all bones, and I don’t want my viewer to place my work with a certain person, gender, or race. I’ve practiced a lot of mediums and gone through a lot of life and personal phases to be where I’m at as an artist. Not all of it was good, but I feel like I’m at a place now where I can be consistent in my art practice while being able to change my vision. I have always had concepts that were strange for the area that live in, but it wasn’t until 2020 that I felt confident enough to really get into my art as it was in my head. I feel like I toned down my art and made what I thought people would want to see before that. I don’t know what change happened for me, but it was a good one.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

Oh wow, I have no idea. I’m not an itinerary kind of person but I’ll give it my best shot!

I live in rural Western Nebraska, so there’s not a whole lot to do around here on the day to day. There’s always some events going on every month or so I’d say – in the summer there’s concerts in our downtown area, and there’s some small town shopping that’s pretty cool. I don’t know, I think I’m lucky to have friends that don’t need a lot of entertainment while they visit, we can just hang out in my yard, have some beers, listen to music and not have to be doing anything specific. I love cooking and entertaining, so I would make some meals and cocktails for sure. I guess every time my friends have visited we’ve taken them to The Silver Dollar for burgers and they always want to go back, so that would be my vote if I were taking them to dinner.

We do live about an hour away from Ogallala, NE, so we would have to make the trip for a few days to Lake McConaughy for some beach time. I’m not a huge camping person, but I love being outdoors in nature and hanging out in the sun. There’s fun beach bars around the lake but the one closest to where we stay is Hook’s and it’s a good time on the weekends for sure.

That’s probably not very exciting, but that’s kind of the point…I feel like I live a slow life most of the time so if my friends visit they just come along for the ride. I’m not a planner at all – my perfect vacations have been when we just wake up and see what we want to do for the day and that’s how I do it when I have visitors too.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

I guess I don’t have a specific person, but my family has been a consistent piece in my efforts to live a creative life. They’re always very encouraging and proud whenever I get something accomplished, big or small. I’ve also had the best group of friends and entrepreneurs around me while I’ve been building my career up. When I first started out, I reached out to my college friend and sorority sister, Amanda Leise, who is a photographer in Lincoln, NE to ask for any advice. She was a great person to ask when I was first getting started. I think now as I’ve grown and met so many other self-employed people that are also creatives it’s opened up more doors for me. I feel like there’s been this shift of creatives that want to share their knowledge with other potential business owners and not gate-keep information. It’s like everyone wants to help each other out and I just think that’s really cool.

Website: papertrailartanddesignco.com

Instagram: @papertrailartanddesignco

Facebook: Paper Trail Art & Design Co.

Other: TikTok : @papertrailartdesignco

Image Credits
Photographs taken by Amelia Schuessler & edited by Ali Headley