Kellie's Story

Tale as old as time: Art and writing won't pay the bills, Kid. Get a "real" job.

And I did, spending six years getting degrees in serious things like biochemistry and molecular biology, and then moving on to twenty years in the clinical research industry. All the while, I did my best to keep art and writing going as hobbies and side hustles.

Like many of us, I found myself in 2020 rethinking the math of what the "real" job was costing me in many ways. What was the mental and physical price of short-changing my art and writing? It took a few years, but I decided to flip the script. It was time to make art and writing my career and give clinical research the side hustle treatment.

The good news about taking the long way around to a career in art and writing is that you end up doing a lot of living. That "real" job did take me to Beijing and Barcelona and Montreal as well as various parts of the US. It also paid off the loans from those serious degrees, which is super helpful. I learned a lot about myself, my colleagues, and the world in general over those twenty years, giving me all kinds of experiences to inform my art and writing. And, of course, spending so much time steeped in science informed my art style and my writing choices.

This isn't my entire story, obviously. But it's a good starting point, an easy way to get to know me and my style. Stick around, I've got more stories to share, sometimes on a canvas, sometimes on a page.