We had the good fortune of connecting with Wyatt Hersey and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Wyatt, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The biggest reason I can think of is that I just wanted to spend more time making art. I figured if I could make some money making art, I could spend less time working in kitchens and more time creating stuff. I started really small, I basically created an instagram and a website, bought a laptop and started teaching myself photoshop, spent more time making paintings and got some shows at small coffee shops where I was living at the time. From there it’s just grown really slowly, first it was mostly people I knew directly that were supporting me, then it was small businesses in the town I was living in, and it just kept spreading.
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.
Okay wow, going big here haha.
I’d say that a big piece of my story that I want people to know is that I took a major detour from art in college and after. I got really really into natural history, birding, botany, wildlife tracking and understanding ecology and for a long time that was the center of my life. Now that I’ve spent years studying the natural world and how people connect to it, I have come back to art with a deeper story, a deeper understanding of myself, people, and the world around me. That is the core of the storytelling that I’m trying to do with my art, I want to talk about the possibilities of what the world could be like if we were more deeply connected to nature and to each other.
From a professional standpoint, I already talked a bit about how I got started but it was slow and steady. I remember I never wanted to try being an artist for most of my life because it seemed so risky, like how can I all of a sudden jump off and make a living as a visual artist? It seemed impossible. But then I realized that the way to do it is to live in a cheap area, work as much as I needed to pay the bills, and spend all my free time making art and trying to find ways to get it in front of people. My dad (who is an illustrator) always told me, the most important thing is that you make great work, which requires a lot of time and practice, and then second to that is the importance of getting your work in front of new people. I took that seriously and I think it helped guide me in a lot of ways. I feel very grateful I’ve had him as a mentor.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In Denver? I don’t know Denver haha. If I were in Santa Cruz though, I’d take my guest on a short walk to Pleasure Point to get coffee and a breakfast burrito and watch the surfers.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I think I have to dedicate it to the Hersey family. My parents are both artists and raised me and my three siblings in a super creative environment. Making stuff was just part of life, and we were all like a little creative tribe. My siblings and I all fed off each other a lot, especially in high school when we were all pretty engaged in art and living together, sharing lots of friends and ideas and everything. Shoutout to Dyll, Cole, Cass. Shoutout my highschool art teacher Martha Cederstrom and the creative peers I had in school who I looked up to a lot, Marilyn Beck, Tate Obayashi, Laura Thompson, and others. They all encouraged me and helped me become who I am today!
Website: www.wyatthersey.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/wyatthersey
Image Credits
Photo Credits: Dani Padgette