Talking Creative 001: Jack Byers
Can you introduce yourself, and tell us a bit about your work?
My name is Jack Kohler Byers, I’m a visual artist living and working in New York City. I make work across a variety of digital and analog mediums. In a broad sense, my work engages with my visual environment and explores themes of communication, creativity, and globalization.
How was it being raised in upstate New York?
It was both a privilege and a challenge. I had the benefit of space and tranquility in my everyday life, but also the ever present small-town belief that I somehow deserved the right to those things more than anyone else. I love Central New York, it will always be a part of who I am, but I’m also fortunate that I had the chance to experience other places.
When did you realize you wanted to become an artist?
It wasn’t anything I recognized in the moment, it was more of a slow and steady coalescing of ideas, hopes, and dreams over the course of my 20’s.
What does the term “artist” mean to you?
Being an artist in my mind is similar to being a skater or an avid gardener. It’s something I do that gives meaning to everything else in my life. There is a tendency in the US to reduce the term “artist” into being a job title and I think that’s really damaging to one’s creative and formal growth. I try to think about myself as a good person first, and let everything else follow.
Do you even consider yourself an artist or something more, when it comes to your improvement with your skill or creativity that is?
I consider myself an amateur that is never too advanced to learn something new.
How do you know you’re improving in your artwork?
When I start throwing things and getting angry that nothing’s working. It’s good to feel fulfilled, and I don’t actively try to banish that feeling, but usually I start sliding backwards when I try holding onto that feeling of creative fulfillment. Learning new things and improving comes at the expense of frustration and wrangling with the unknown.
What influences do you have being an artist?
I draw influence from everything! Music and my environment are probably two of the biggest. I love a wide range of music, and it’s one of the best ways to learn about the world. Travel has also been massive for expanding my worldview, and I look forward to hopefully being able to do it again soon.
How would you say your work differentiates from others in your lane of freelance artwork?
There’s no one else in my lane! I don’t think any of the individual things I’m doing are very groundbreaking, but I do think I’m the only one combining those disciplines in the way that I do. I like to always question and challenge any identity I derive from the things that I do. By that I mean that I don’t reject doing one thing on account of another thing I do; I don’t think being a painter should prevent me from learning motion graphics. It’s the wide variety of skills that I offer which allows me to bring unique solutions to the table in my freelance work.
What’re some things you have to consider when making art for others as a job?
What problem am I solving? Am I providing an original solution, or just trend-surfing? A great way to frame both of those questions is to try to imagine how the art will appear 10 years from now. Will it be immediately identifiable with the time in which it was produced? Or will it transcend that?
If making artwork for another company isn’t fun will you stop doing it or try to find other ways to make it to your liking?
Fun is a relative term.. I would offer that lots of projects in the creative freelance world are type 2 fun; which of course means not actually fun at the time. I think if it ever becomes unfulfilling then I’ll always fall back on my restaurant industry experience. I’d rather sling drinks than work on something I don’t believe in.
How did you get the collaboration with the ski company?
My old college pal Will Eginton had the faith and vision to be adamant about getting my artwork on some skis. Thanks Will!
Do you feel there's an opportunity to expand your creativity when you move from one place to the next, as with your move from Boston to New York?
One hundo. Growth is a function of adapting to change, so as long as your head’s in the right place and you keep your eyes and mind open, everything that happens holds the potential for creative growth.
How has traveling inspired and influenced your artmaking process?
Traveling has helped show me that art is much greater than the western definition that has dominated in the past few centuries. Art is not the end product as much as it is the thought process that goes into making these discrete objects that contain a much larger truth.
How has art defined you?
It’s given me the opportunity to try to know myself inside and out.