Meet Joshua Clark | Artist & Creative

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

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

I personally believe that risks are very important. Taking a risk requires so much energy and courage. If you really think about it, you are stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something that you obviously have not done before. Whatever the reason may be, you are making a very personal and important decision to do something that you honestly have no clue what the outcome will be. You either succeed or you fail, but what is most important is how you move forward from there. You take a risk and then succeed, but what is next? How do you move forward from there? You take a risk and then fail, but again what is next? Again, how are you moving forward? To me, that is the important part of taking a risk. You are stepping out of your comfort zone with hopes of either succeeding or failing. Regardless of the outcome, you want to make sure you learn from the risk you took and move forward accordingly, so that the next time will be better than the first. Taking risks plays a huge role in my life and who I am today. Last year, I took the biggest risk of my life and decided to start publicly and consistently sharing my artwork. This was big for me simply because, my entire life I have always been an introvert and on top of that a creative and artist. The most exposure and attention my individual artwork would normally get was from my mom grandma and great grandmother. Aside from that, my work was really only shared at school by the choice of my teachers and professors. I was always private as an individual but even more private with my work. I treat my work and any of my art as if they were my children. I have always been very overprotective of my work simply because at a young age I feared nobody would really understand my work or my creative perspective. I always knew that I was different from others and my work has always reflected that. I remember constantly being told from everyone how weird I was compared to others and as a child that makes you feel not so positive in general or about yourself. I questioned myself all the time wondering, was something wrong with me? At some point, I almost let myself feel that way about my work. How could I feel that way about something that was one of the only things that made me genuinely happy? From there, I made a promise to myself to never let anyone make me feel that my work was weird or different. So, I decided to just keep my work to myself. That stuck in my head from my childhood into adulthood.

Entering college, I was somewhat forced out of my shell because all my art courses required every student to have a critique of their work with the other students and professors. This was nerve wracking for reasons explained earlier but my mentality started to change hearing the feedback from my peers. My classmates and professors would always say so many nice things about my work and even gave me constructive criticism that really made me change my overall perspective on sharing my work. Every year there was an all student art show that my school’s art department would put on. You had to submit your artwork and if it was approved it would be entered into the art show. I was always so nervous because it’s one thing for my classmates and professors who are also artists and creatives see then critique my work, but for other people who aren’t…. That drove me crazy. The feedback that I would receive every year at the art show was always nothing short of positive. That made feel a little bit more comfortable and confident to share more of my work. Fast forward to last year during the pandemic, I was mentally in one of the lowest places of my life mentally. I was binge listening to one of my favorite albums, “IGOR” by Tyler The Creator and I remember keeping the album on repeat. As each track played, the lyrics really started speaking to me. I pulled out my computer and started working. One of my favorite things to do when I am not mentally at my best is to create and work on new artwork or a project. I kept working and working for what I thought was a day or two but, in reality it was a couple of weeks. Before I knew it, I had made my own cover art for every song on the album that I felt visually embodied the message of each song. I was honestly super shocked with myself and could not believe that I had done this. I was so proud of how every cover came out and I knew I had to share with somebody. I texted a group chat I have with all my friends who are also artists and creatives. Everyone really hyped me up and complimented my work so much. I kept getting told to share my work, but I quickly denied that and changed the subject because I was not ready for that. A few days had passed since then and though my spirit was lifted working on new art, I was still in a very low place mentally. I was up late randomly scrolling on Instagram, and I saw a post one of my classmates from undergrad had posted of her photography. The response that her work received was so positive and well deserved. The two of us always had conversations about how after college we both would be famous one day for our work. Seeing her slowly turn her dreams into reality got me inspired. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and take a risk I had never really done before and publicly share my work. It was not an instant process. It honestly took me a couple weeks to mentally prepare myself for this. I thought of all the outcomes, positive and negative that could result from me sharing my work. I was nervous but ultimately just said “f*ck it”. I shared the first three covers to Instagram and then put my phone on airplane mode for a few hours. I was mad nervous because I did not know how people would feel about my work or what their responses would be. I turned my phone back on and the notifications literally would not stop! I was getting so many likes, comments, reshares, new followers, and overall positive feedback from everyone. I legit was crying real tears of joy. I could not believe the response my work was getting. I had honestly never experienced this type of positive energy towards my work. It was crazy to me that stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something I never in a million years thought I would ever do actually worked in my favor. I was fully prepared for people to tell me that my work was trash or that they did not like any of the art I shared. For a majority of my life, I feared my work being judged and misunderstood by others. I thought my work would be perceived as too weird or different, like people always said to me about myself. That huge risk on my end to publicly share my work led me to where I am now. Since then, I have publicly and consistently been sharing my work! There was a point in time you could not even get me to share a random doodle from sketchpad to me now sharing multiple projects and artwork. My biggest takeaway from that moment was whether I failed or succeeded when sharing my work, I wanted to learn from that moment. I wanted to challenge myself and try something new. That risk I took, that I originally thought would be a huge failure for me turned out to be a success. Honestly, that moment gave me confidence not only in my work but in myself.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?

Honestly, just like myself my artwork is really all over the place. I like to think that my work is a clear reflection of not only myself, but all the emotionally divergent personalities that live and coexist inside of my head. I’m very multifaceted and intuitive, so I do my best to always express that through my work. I’m very big on making any project or piece that I’m working on very personal. I like for my work to be relatable, not just for myself but to whomever gets the opportunity to see my work. I’m very in tune with my emotions and any opportunity to visually display that through my work is something that I take very seriously. I love making art through different mediums that really explore and invoke the many emotions that we as humans deal with all the time. I think that is what sets me and my work apart from others. Instead of just making art that I like and that relates to whatever feelings I’ve experienced, I prefer to make work that everyone in a sense can relate to. For those who may not relate to or even understand the emotions and feelings being conveyed, I like to take different approaches through my work that will visually give you a sense of those emotions and feelings through my perspective.

How I got to where I am now is somewhat of a wild story. I originally started drawing when I was in kindergarten. I honestly thought nothing of it at first. I was just having a ball drawing Power Rangers and the many things stemming from my imagination. It wasn’t until my teacher and classmates started paying attention to my work that I even took the time to form an idea that I was good at what I was doing. I simply just loved to draw because it was my escape from reality and something that genuinely brought me joy. Word got back to my parents and that’s when I discovered that both of my parents were both artists. You’d think at some point they would have helped or taught me more about art, but surprisingly they let me do my own thing and learn more about art on my terms. Aside from drawing, I got the opportunity to start painting more through my Gran Gran and her job at the Peaslee Neighborhood Center. This was my first time being around other people that were into art the same way I was. I had never been in this type of environment before, amongst so many others who shared the common interest I was obsessed with and still learning about. I started to really form an idea in my head that this was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but obviously being a child, I had high hopes of still being a Power Ranger before being an artist!

As a few years progressed, I continued developing my skill set mainly with drawing and occasionally painting. My parents really hammered into my head the idea of always practicing and getting better over time. As much as I loved what I was doing it was not enough for me to feel satisfied. I wanted to do more, but I honestly had no idea how to go about it. In the third grade I went on a trip with my Gran Gran to the Cincinnati Art Museum for the first time. I remember being in awe the entire time. Seeing so many artists professionally have their work displayed really inspired me. I loved seeing such a large range of art from so many artists and creatives. This was my first time really seeing and understanding that there were so many different mediums of art aside from drawing or painting. I also got to see there were so many other ways that I could explore drawing and painting. In that moment, I realized this was the push that I needed. From there I started trying new things. Instead of just drawing things from my imagination, I started making my own comics which ended up being a weird phase that lasted for a brief period of time. I had the idea of learning about animation and creating my own set of characters, storylines, and graphic novels. Mind you, I was only ten years old forming these ideas. At the time, I really thought this would be my career choice forever. I had made several comics of about 20-30 pages on loose-leaf that I would share back and forth with my friends. The responses were always decent and honestly made me want to make more. I remember my teacher at the time got a hold of one of my comics and her response was not so positive. She expressed how she thought my comic was childish and that she was disappointed to see that I was spending my time focusing on the wrong things. At the time, that response really stuck with me and didn’t really make me feel good. I had never experienced or really received a negative response about my work. I remember feeling so embarrassed and oddly enough ashamed. In that moment, I made a decision in my head to not really share my work as much. It was one thing for somebody to say something about me, but to talk about my art was something completely different. My work has always stemmed from my imagination and to many that don’t understand that, my work may come off as weird. Regardless of how weird or different my work was, it was my work that I deeply cherished. To know that someone didn’t like my work simply because they didn’t understand it, always was something that drove me crazy. I was already being made fun of for being different, so I swore to myself that I’d never let anybody make me feel that way about my work. My work was one of the few things that made me genuinely happy, and I refused for anyone or anything to get in the way of that. I didn’t realize that this would be something that I would carry from my childhood into my adulthood.

As years continued to pass and I got older, I started exploring so many other mediums of art. Out of nowhere, I became obsessed with photography. I remember my mom had a kodak digital camera that I would use when she wasn’t at home to take pictures of literally everything around me. I was so intrigued with the idea of telling a story through images. It was different from drawing or painting and in a sense was an easier way to express myself at the time. I loved being able to take pictures of things at weird angles or in a specific set of lighting. I begged my Ma-Ma for my own camera for months until she finally cracked! She got me my first digital camera and I literally took it with me everywhere. I would find any and every excuse in the world to bring my camera with me so I could take as many pictures as I wanted. Once I started to get really comfortable with shooting on camera, I wanted to get more comfortable with actually capturing images of people. I started with my younger siblings since they were always around and as fun as it was, I honestly enjoyed capturing images of myself more. I would set my camera up and randomly get images of myself doing whatever. From taking so many pictures, I started playing around with a photo editing website called “Picnik”. I was having too much fun learning to edit my pictures and really starting to bring them to life. I was and still am to this day obsessed with playing around with colors. I’d edit my photos and bring a dull environment/setting to life with effects from the website I was on. My favorite effects that I unfortunately used way too much were the HDR effect and adding text to the image. I was having so much fun that I eventually caught the attention of my friends and classmates. As embarrassing and hilarious as it was, I used to charge everyone $1 to edit their pictures. I was living the dream at the time making a quick buck doing something I enjoyed through art. At one point I started to notice how almost everyone around me were all using the same website to edit their images, so I was very eager to find another platform or website that offered the same services. While searching through google for other sites, I stumbled across Adobe Photoshop. I had always heard the term photoshop but never really understood exactly what it meant. I signed up for the free trial and from there my life was honestly changed forever. I navigated through a good portion of the app for a few weeks before I even really understood what exactly was going on. I knew how to use basic tools for cropping, adjusting the brightness, the text tool, and even the paintbrush tool. The first tool I really learned how to use was the quick selection tool. I was editing an image of me outside jumping from a tree. I made the entire background disappear. As minimal as that seems, that was HUGE for me. I was in the library screaming so loud I almost got kicked out. From that moment, I was so determined to master learning the ins and outs of this application. Unfortunately, at the time, the internet didn’t have as many accessible tutorials to help educate me with photoshop, so I was forced to learn the old school way……through reading. I spent months reading “Photoshop for Dummies”. I spent so much time reading that book until I had somewhat of an idea to maneuver through the application. I was fourteen years old trying my best to master an application I had no prior experience of dealing with. After months of practicing, I was only able to make backgrounds disappear, a few text effects, and I was able to learn a few effects to enhance the details in images. At the time that was more than enough for me. During this learning process, the emergence of social media happened. As a young teenager, I was very active on social media. Specifically, Tumblr, Myspace, and Twitter. For those that remember when these three social media platforms originally dropped, there was a feature in which you could personalize your page and the overall appearance through a specific coding feature. While in the process of learning about photoshop, I had the opportunity to check out a few other instructional books about other Adobe software applications and one of them just so happened to be Adobe Dream Weaver. That application deals with coding and manually building a website page. Surprisingly that was easier for me to grasp than photoshop. I got really good with memorizing codes and several features from the application in which I used when it came to my personal pages on all three of the social media platforms mentioned earlier. Everyone would always talk about my pages because they were so well organized, and the layouts were always so aesthetically pleasing. I legit was making money in the eighth grade editing people’s images and also designing their personal profile pages. I remember this being a time where my friends, classmates, and peers actually treated me like a real artist in a sense. This lasted for a few months shortly before high school started.

During high school, I personally felt that there wasn’t much room for me to excel as an artist in school. My art classes were honestly boring and no matter how much I tried to enjoy them, nothing really made me excited about art itself. I had more fun honestly doing my own personal projects. It wasn’t until my senior year in my photography class where I actually enjoyed being in class and I actually felt inspired. The assignments throughout that class really made me explore my creative side. I learned so much more about photography than expected. One of my assignments actually got selected for a statewide art show and I remember being so scared. The piece selected was very personal, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for so many people to see my work. I was mad nervous and still wasn’t in the headspace where I was comfortable publicly sharing my work with anybody else. The moment my mother saw my piece, she was nothing but supportive. That moment really lifted my spirits. Her exact words were, “this is only the beginning”. For some odd reason that always stuck with me in my head and gave me some hope for the future.

After graduating from high school, I got an incredible opportunity to work with a company called ArtWorks of Cincinnati. This was a really big deal for me simply because this was the first time I was professionally being employed as an artist. My group was called Hero Design Company. We worked with numerous other groups and organizations drawing up design ideas that we would eventually sew into their very own unique superhero cape. This job really changed my life as an individual and as an artist. For once I felt as an artist, I had a purpose aside from just creating art. My craft and skill set were being used to help out others. This was something that I held dear to my heart, mainly because I never really thought about how art could be used to help others. This really helped me out when determining a career path for college.

As a few months passed by quickly, before I knew it, I was entering college. I honestly had no idea what exactly I was doing going into college. I knew I wanted my major to be in an art field, but I didn’t know the overall direction I wanted to choose for myself. I went back and forth with my mom a lot on this. My top choices were between studio art and graphic design. I ended up choosing graphic design, because I spent my entire life mainly drawing and painting. I really wanted to expand my skill set and take up graphic design so that I could learn much more about this medium of art. There was only so much information that I knew from teaching myself, and I was determined to take my work to the next level. So many people always told me how choosing an art field/major would not benefit me in the end because there isn’t much money involved. I was on a mission to not only prove them wrong, but to show myself that I could do this and eventually come out on top! Graphic Design really took me on a journey that I was not prepared for. I went into college with the preconceived mindset that graphic design was simply being a digital artist. I thought I really had an idea about what I was doing, and boy was I completely wrong. Graphic design is much more than I could ever imagine. I learned that graphic design intertwines with almost anything you can think of. From photography, videography, web design, branding, and so much more! There is honestly a long list of things that graphic design is heavily involved with. I found myself in awe, because I didn’t expect there to be so many different directions and career paths that stemmed from this medium of art. Regardless of that, I knew in my head I wanted to try them all. My courses were very informative and at the same time challenging because I was forced to step out of my comfort zone. I had to really expand my level of creativity in more ways than I ever imagined. It was so inspiring to be around so many different art majors. We each had different creative backgrounds, but ultimately the same end goal. We all wanted to obviously get through college, but we all wanted to find out who we really were as artists and creatives. As mentioned before, I was forced to step out of my comfort zone…… A LOT. In each of my art courses, my professors required us to critique the work of each student in our class as a group. This honestly gave me so much anxiety and drove me crazy. I was genuinely not comfortable sharing my work with others nor critiquing the work of others. I had no choice but to participate because my grade was counting on it. Surprisingly, the critiques went way better than I overall expected. I always had this fear of people judging my work like I was always judged. I didn’t want people to perceive my work in the wrong way and misunderstand where I was coming from. My fellow classmates understood where I was coming from mentally when it came to my work. When we would critique each other’s work, we were giving honest opinions not to necessarily judge one another, but to help each other. We would discuss what we loved about each other’s work, what we didn’t like, and we elaborated on that so that we could help each other make great work. We even offered advice on what would make our work even better. I definitely was not use to that type of environment. I was not used to being around so many other artists and creatives that genuinely wanted to see each other succeed. This really gave me so much confidence in myself and work. I really felt comfortable sharing my work with these amazing individuals. I was learning what exactly constructive criticism actually was and its importance. I was taking everything being said about my work into strong consideration and it really was starting to show.

I was making pieces specifically for class and even personal projects that really involved me taking my craft to the next level. I was using different mediums, new applications/software through adobe, and I was really starting to develop a sense of what exactly I wanted to do with my life. Every year of my undergraduate experience, there was an all student art show my school put on. This was a very BIG DEAL! This was an opportunity for students to not only showcase their work, but also get some exposure. You had to pay and submit your artwork to the board of our art department. If your work was selected, you would be entered into the show. I remember originally being so afraid to enter any of my work into the show my freshman year. I kept wondering would my work get in, would people like the work, or how my work would even compare to others. I decided not to enter anything, and just wait until the next year. Unfortunately for me, all art majors as a requirement for their class grade and major must submit a minimum of one piece into the art show. I stressed about what exact piece to enter, especially since I got to see the work being submitted by other students. Luckily, my professor and advisor had selected a self-portrait I made for an assignment to be entered. Though I loved the piece, I didn’t want to share because of how personal the project was to me. My options were very limited, and I decided to just say f*ck it. I entered the piece and to my surprise it got selected to be entered into the show. I could not believe it, and still to this day I am in shock. I was so excited but super nervous. I called literally everybody in my family and all of my best friends going crazy about this. Everyone gave me so many words of encouragement and positive energy. Once it was finally time for the art show, I was legit sick to my stomach. I couldn’t calm my anxiety down about everyone seeing my work. I was so nervous it was ridiculous. My nerves were somewhat relieved, since my family ended up surprising me for the show. We entered the show together and I remember so many people coming up to me expressing their love and support for my piece. I legit couldn’t believe the responses my work had gotten. Especially to have my family there was everything to me. Though my piece didn’t win any of the cash prizes from the judges, I got an honorable mention and so much exposure for myself. On top of that my professor and advisor that encouraged me to enter my self-portrait purchased my piece and displayed it in his classes as an example for his other students. This was a really defining moment for me as an artist.

After freshman year of undergrad, I had somewhat a sense of what to expect for the remaining years to come. I set a goal for myself to really step up artistically and really start to step out of my comfort zone. I started focusing on improving my skill set by focusing on projects that were more challenging. At this point, I had a very nice feel for a majority of the Adobe software applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, In Design, Dream Weaver, Lightroom, and even Adobe Premier! I was determined to really make a name for myself as an artist and creative. The next three and half years were long but at the same time flew by. I came a long way since freshman year and that was showing through my artwork. I got back into painting more, which threw me off because I have such a love/hate relationship with that medium. I was making work that really reflected the growth in me personally and the journey I was on in life at the time. I was even getting more comfortable sharing my work with a select few, but I was overall more comfortable! Every art show, I was entering multiple pieces on my own and really making a statement with my work. Every year was a different piece that told a story and had an important message that I wanted to visually display. My senior year, my last student art show was a huge moment for me. I knew it was going to be my very last student art show, and I wanted to make a huge statement. I also wanted to challenge myself to do something that I have never done before. I decided to make a piece that would let people into my world. As mentioned before, I am a huge introvert. Aside from my family, and my select group of friends, there are rare moments you will catch me opening up or even being social. I’m very to myself and love to keep things that way. I made a large piece that was almost as big as me. (I’m 5 ’11 so it was a decent sized project) The entire piece was covered with images of myself aligned in chronological order from my birth to the present. Each photo displayed was specifically handpicked by me and were significant moments in my life. On top of the images were numerous self-portraits I painted in chronological order as well. The self-portraits like the images they were on top of were specifically picked out and aligned. The meaning of this piece was to tell a story about myself. I wanted to show my growth as an individual, highlighting numerous highs and lows of my life. I also wanted to show the growth in my artistry. This piece was very personal for me. There has never really been a moment where I have invested so much time, energy, and emotions into a piece. I let everyone who viewed my work into my world for the first time. As scary as it was, this was probably one of the most therapeutic things I’ve ever done for myself. I spent months working on this project and to see it come to life was magical. I literally remember everyone there coming over to me, showering me with an endless amount of love, support, and encouragement. So many people were shocked that this piece was even created by me knowing how to myself that I am. My piece titled, “Me, Myself, and I” was the most talked about piece at the art show that night. This was a huge and important moment for me as an artist. I couldn’t think of a better way to end my senior year. My professors, classmates, family, and friends were all seeing the growth in myself and my work. I was starting to really feel like my work had a purpose and real meaning to it. I wasn’t just making art to make it, I was making work that really meant something to myself and others. I even grew the courage to share a design project shortly after the art show, publicly on my Instagram and the response was out of this world! It was really a spur of the moment idea that I randomly talked myself into sharing. Though the responses were nothing but positive, I ended up deleting the work from my page a few months later to focus on perfecting my craft even more before my graduation.

After graduating and completing my undergraduate experience, I was left asking myself the famous question we all ask ourselves, what’s next? I ended up moving back home and continued freelancing for a bit. I was fortunate enough to get a job in my field. I felt like I was living the dream but to be honest, I was not completely happy. I wanted to be doing more. I knew I wanted to go back to school but because of how mentally stressful undergrad was, I decided to take a year off to really focus on working and continuing to perfect my craft. My plans were to leave Ohio until the pandemic happened. 2020 was mentally one of the wildest and mentally draining years of my life. I wasn’t in the best headspace, and I remember the only thing keeping me sane was my work. I was in the middle of blasting “IGOR” by Tyler The Creator on repeat for about a month straight and I locked myself in my room and went crazy working on a what I thought was a really dope project. I originally created the project as a way to lift my spirits at the time. I had no plans or intentions of ever sharing this work aside from a few of my creative friends. Eventually, I grew some balls and shared the project publicly. I remember randomly posting a few cover designs from the project then instantly putting my phone on airplane mode. I was too nervous to hear or see what anybody thought. When I checked my phone, I literally screamed at the top of my lungs! I had gotten so many notifications it didn’t make any sense. People’s responses to my project were nothing short of positive. I was honestly shook. I didn’t expect any of the responses I received. It got me so hyped and made me more comfortable sharing my work just a little bit more. Surprisingly, I had gotten so many reshares, likes, comments, and a huge following from that project. That was one of the most recent defining moments in my career as an artist. That moment started what was me coming out of my shell and consistently sharing my work publicly. Since that project was shared, I’ve shared numerous projects and over 100+ designs! I achieved one of my goals which was to finally get my work out there and to finally start the process of making a name for myself. I’m 25 almost 26 and it took me years to get here. It was one of the most difficult, eye opening, insightful, and humbling emotional roller coasters I’ve ever been on. I learned so much about myself. I learned that you have to follow your gut and do things on your own time when you are ready. I learned that in order for you to really succeed, you have to take the appropriate time for yourself to put in the work. Don’t be afraid of failing and don’t pay any attention to anybody’s opinion but your own. Don’t compare or contrast where you are to where anybody else is. We all are going through life on our own paths and at our own times. This isn’t a race, and it never will be. The time and effort you put into your craft/talent is what you will get out of it. Last but not least, I learned that in order for you to be your best, you have to make sure you are mentally at your best. Take the time to really take care of yourself in order for you to really succeed. The main thing I want the world to know about my brand and story is that it wasn’t an overnight success. I’m not even where I want to be, but I am dag on close. You have to really do things on your own time and when you feel comfortable. Step out of your comfort zone and don’t be afraid to take risks. In the end, everything will work out on its own!

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?

For the first day, I definitely would start off with breakfast at Wild Egg or Waffle House, just for the quality food and vibe. After recuperating from the first food coma, we’d head across the river into Newport to visit the aquarium. We’d spend an hour or two touring the entire place then heading to Cancun for some amazing Mexican food and margaritas! We’re obviously ubering at this point because those margaritas are going to get us good! We’d next head back across the river and visit Fountain Square for some dope live entertainment, good food, and just to enjoy a portion of the downtown experience. I’d finish off the night by taking the streetcar to the Banks so we can see the skyline of the city and get a good view at night!

Day 2, would start off with a nice brunch to recover from the shenanigans of the day before. Brunch would definitely be Taste of Belgium! We’re obviously getting a mimosa pitcher to start the day off right! Next, we would venture off to the outlets to do some much needed retail therapy for a few hours. After shopping till we drop, a nap is obviously happening! We’re next going downtown to Washington Park to enjoy a nice picnic and some drinks/live entertainment! After that we are going to grab some scooters and cruise through downtown Cincinnati before dinner. We’re going back to the Banks for dinner at Ruth Chris! Ending the day with a visit to Buzzed Bull Creamery for some delicious ice cream.

Day 3 is going to start off with breakfast at Fuzzy’s in Clifton, followed by a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo for a few hours! After a fun trip to the zoo, we are heading back to Clifton to recharge our bodies with tacos and frozen margaritas from Cactus Pear! Quick break to recoup. Next, we are heading to the movies to see whatever is playing at the time and getting food from Agave and Rye! We are then heading back to Cooper’s Hawk to end the night with a nice wine tasting!

Day 4 is going to start a little later, so we have time to recharge! We are going to have a light homemade breakfast followed by a visit to the Contemporary Art Museum. This is a perfect opportunity to have a photoshoot, so there will be plenty of pictures taken. Next, we are heading downtown to do some thrifting before our lunch reservation at Bakersfield! We’ll then be heading to the classic game arcade in Cincinnati Mills! After a few intense hours of gaming, we are ending the night with dinner and drinks at Mi Cozumel.

Day 5 (final day) will start with a trip to Busken’s Bakery for a dozen special selected treats! Our day from there will take place at Kings Island! We’ll spend the day enjoying rides, good food, fun games, a water park adventure, and end the night a little early with the firework show. We are then heading to Over the Rhine and bar hopping for the remainder of the evening! and thus, the trip concludes!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to first off thank the man up above, cause no matter what he’s always been there for me. Without him, I honestly would not be here and would not be fortunate enough to have my craft/talent in art. Next, I have to send a huge shout out to Ma Dukes aka my amazing mother and my father as well for both being a huge source of inspiration my entire life. They both are artists and creatives as well, so I have always been thankful for them inspiring my craft and their love/support. I would also love to shout out my Gran Gran, Ma-Ma, and Pa-Pa for all the love and support they have shown to me. Since I was a child, they have always encouraged me to stick with art and overall perfect my craft. My Gran Gran got me involved at an early age working with numerous other artists and several programs through her job at the Peaslee Neighborhood Center. That was where I really got the opportunity to explore so many mediums of art that I love and practice still to this day! My Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa always got me an unlimited amount of art supplies every year and showcased my work all over their house. They both embedded the idea in my head, that as long as I kept working hard and practicing, that I would one day become successful in anything I wanted to do. Next, I would like to take the time to shout out Mrs. June, Mrs. Jen, and the entire staff of the Peaslee Neighborhood Center for all the love and support they have shown to me. As mentioned before, I was involved with so many other artists and programs through Peaslee and my Gran Gran. Everyone that worked there really went out of their way to support me and help me perfect my craft. I loved being able to discover so many mediums of art that I never even really knew existed at a very young age. I gained such a sense of identity within myself as an artist and creative. They all gave me and my work so much exposure from my childhood until now, and I will forever be grateful for that. Another shout out that I would like to give is to ArtWorks of Cincinnati. This amazing company gave me my very first opportunity and chance to professionally be employed as an artist. The portion of the company I worked with was called “Hero Design Company” in which we worked with numerous different groups of people drawing up designs for our clients that we would eventually transfer over and sew into their very own personal superhero capes. This job inspired me so much and really gave me the idea and push to continue forward with being an artist as a career choice for myself. They also focused not only on the art but the importance of giving back to the community and how we could combine that with our love for art! Next, I cannot forget to shout out and show some love to my amazing friends Shania, Brettanie, Drea, Kali, and AJ for always going out of their way to show me and my work so much love/support. During my undergraduate experience, these five specifically went out of their way to help me gain a sense of confidence in myself and my work. They were always on me about getting my work out there, always showing love when I didn’t even know I needed it, and always encouraging me to perfect my craft. Lastly, I would love to shout out everyone else from my family, friends, professors, classmates, coworkers and so many others that have shown my work any love and support. I personally struggled with sharing my work in fear that nobody would ever like, understand, or perceive my work the way I intended them to. Without receiving everyone’s love and support, I can honestly say I would not even be here sharing my work today or even have the confidence that I have in my work nor myself. So again, I want to personally shout out and thank everyone that has shown me or my work any love or support!

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