Meet Katelyn Fay | Visual Artist, Fashion Designer, Musician

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

Hi Katelyn, how do you think about risk?
Last year I was let go of my full time graphic design job, working for a company remotely based out of New York and I had just moved from Florida to Denver at the time with my boyfriend and had rent and bills to pay. I was scrambling to figure out what to do. I had already started to design clothing for myself years before but that was when I decided to take it seriously and give it a chance. I knew I could go get another job working for someone else, fulfilling their vision, making not very much money, or I could invest in my own future and business doing what I love using the experiences I had learned working for other people’s businesses. It was a major risk to start my own business from scratch without any resources or financial backing but I felt like this past year was a wake up call to do what you love because having something secure and stable can become stable in an instant. So I bought a sewing machine, ordered yards of my art printed fabrics, created an Instagram, started sewing outfits, photographing them, promoting them and selling them online. I have made over 300 sales this past year and made over $15,000. It isn’t enough to fund a stable lifestyle yet but I believe in time it will be and that is a risk I am willing to take to be happy and do what I love.

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.
What sets me apart from others is that I don’t confine myself to one medium, I am multidisciplinary, and that the root of my art, music, and fashion is centralized around me and my own personal lived experiences. I think it’s rarely taught from a young age to question who you are, and why you are the way you are and what makes you that way and to embrace it. I think whether you pursue a career in the arts, I think they should still be integral to the early education years curriculum for that reason. We are taught from a young age that we can be anything we want but as we grow older we are told to be “realistic”. This sense of finding our direction and who we are haunts us for our entire lives because we are told two opposing ways of viewing ourselves and the world. I live a very nonconventional lifestyle and have very “non-realistic” goals because I refuse to give up on my dreams and aspirations and I find it heartbreaking that more people don’t have the opportunity to continue with their dreams whether financially, opportunity wise, or insecurity, whatever. I have allowed myself time and time again to perceive myself through the lense of people I care about and love and have questioned myself because of it but I am actively working to not allow that to hinder me. I am extremely excited to pursue my music career, where I utilize all my talents creating my own world for other people to enjoy and be apart of. The story behind my brand is to be yourself and be confident in your skin, be strong, be ambitious be unique. My brand is a merge of art, music, pop culture and fashion. My brand is an accumulation of my childhood growing up in South Florida and in the 90’s/2000’s. I absorb my surroundings and build concepts around it. I grew up playing barbies, watching Disney movies, listening to Britney Spears, watching MTV, starting bands with friends, dancing, acting, and living between being a tomboy with the boys skateboarding in my neighborhood to dressing up with my girlfriends, and that is still who i am and what my brand is. It’s a merge of a lot of different interests both considered masculine and feminine combined altogether.

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?
If we are referring to the city as in Miami I would say either News Cafe for breakfast in South Beach, or the pop up rooftop Dior cafe in Miami Design District, Arttechouse for inspiring visuals, Puerto Sagua for authentic, affordable and low key Cuban food in South Beach, obviously go to the beach off Ocean Ave to rollerblade along the long sidewalk then go swimming, then Space club for great music!

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 want to first shoutout to the art high school I graduated from, Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2013. If it wasn’t for all of the encouragement, education, friendships, opportunities, resources, and support that I received while at Dreyfoos I wouldn’t be the me I am today. I had auditioned for Dreyfoos, got in, and studied first as a Digital Media major for two years then re-auditioned, got in, and studied visual arts for my final two years of high school. It was during these formidable years that I had the most influential teachers, classes, techniques, and opportunities to experiment that would shape how I view being a multidisciplinary artist and in my personal life as well. I was encouraged to pursue as many mediums, dress as crazy as I wanted, and be exactly who I wanted to be because your life emulates your art and that helped me understand myself and my vision. I studied drawing, painting, printmaking, dark room photography, film, sculpture, performance, video, textile, and art history. We got to meet with art college recruiters every year and show our portfolios in order to develop as an artist, they taught us how to take critiscm, develop our own unique voice, and continually reinvent ourselves and our concepts. I also want to shoutout to all of the Christian Schools I attended growing up because I was always told to dress and behave a certain way and was always pressing the envelope because I was born to stand out. I think this inherent need to rebel and be my own individual formed here and because of it I attended Dreyfoos and went on to feel supported in my artistic ventures whatever they might be. It’s important to know you have a supportive community behind you when you take big risks.

Website: https://depop.com/katelyn_fay

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katelynfaena/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpqT-b5n61H6_46AG-QTWUA/videos

Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3Ml6scZ3xigIxQMX5OKTex?si=-vzwgRobSnm6xiPA_3I1MA&dl_branch=1 iTunes: Faena – Immunity album