We recently had the chance to connect with Ryan Oakley and have shared our conversation below.
Ryan, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What is a normal day like for you right now?
I currently work a full time job as a General Manager of an art supply store. Most of my day is spent running the store, taking in custom framing orders and helping customers with questions about art supplies. After a full shift at the day job, I eat dinner then get right to working on my next job being a visual artist and comic book artist. The few hours I have left before bed, I will spend answering inquiry emails, work on commissions or work on personal artwork that can be sold at an upcoming comic convention.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am an artist and specifically, a comic book artist, and illustrator. My business is centered around my art and selling my art. I complete commissions for other writers and organizations. It took me a while to figure out that this was what I wanted to do. I had went to undergrad with the pursuit of becoming a physician, but I was waitlisted after applying to medical school. I did not want to continue on that journey again, and felt as though I was no longer doing it for me. I was doing it to have some sort of value and sense of purpose within society. I pivoted into making art and specifically posters for different nonprofit organizations. I eventually did have some fanart published in the back of a comic book, which is called Bitter Root. It was in the back of the third issue. From there, I begin to teach myself more about the medium that is comic books and to get better with my skills. I was not the artist that I am today back then. I had a lot to learn and in a way I was a late bloomer. Now I have been a part of a couple of anthologies and I am working on one that is all about fantasy, specifically fantasy stories from black women and black femmes.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
I had let go of my fear of not feeling like I would be of value to society if I was not a physician. I still keep with me all the experiences that I learned on my path of being premed and applying to different medical schools. I had all these amazing experiences working in a research lab. Even though I didn’t continue with this path, I did not have to hold onto the hurt and this idea that I would not make a difference being an artist. I think that was what I was afraid about. I didn’t think that people would care about what I had to show with my art, but now that doesn’t matter to me. I care to write and create these stories regardless because I know that someone out there whether it’s one person or two or hundreds of people there is someone out there that can relate to my perspective.
Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
I recently wanted to give up and stop doing art. I was feeling like my work was not being valued, and that I was being overlooked as an artist. I love making art, but it just felt like an aimless pursuit at the time. I took a break from what I thought I was supposed to be doing and begin to have fun. I had always wanted to do these fun redesign of X-Men characters and draw them in their everyday clothes. I used this project as a way to figure out a new drawing software, and that software was procreate. I started to become more comfortable completing projects and drawing in procreate through this fun exploration of art and comics. Then it became another project where I was drawing variants of this character called Jeff the land shark. Here is this cute little four legged shark that has taken the world by Storm after his second introduction to the world through the video game Marvel rivals. He has become famous and infamous due to said game and so I wanted to create variants of him. I had come across a comic book cover that was done of Jeff going through his closet and trying to pick out different costumes of other well-known Marvel characters. From there, I took my own ideas and applied them and made a New York Jeff that sports Timberland boots and a durag and then I eventually did a Sailor Moon variant and now I have six variants total. This fun project that purely was just away for me to find my love for art again now has become this project that people expect from me now. In a way, I’ve become this shark lady for the time being.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
I think there’s this idea in comics that there isn’t enough room for everyone. However, I would have to disagree. You know comics is for everyone. Not one writer and not one artist can draw and write all of the stories that are gonna relate to everyone in the world. We need a diversity of voices to tell these stories. What one person does someone else can’t necessary replicate and so helping out someone else is not gonna take away from what you do. You giving an opportunity to someone else to tell their story from their perspective is not gonna take away from you. We all have so many different perspectives that only you can tell your story.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I think now I am doing at least an aspect of what I was born to do. I think I get to help people in a different way than how I would’ve helped people being a physician. Even though I’m doing what I believe I was born to do that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard work to get to where I am now. I also understand that it’s gonna continue to be hard work in order to grow and to stay on this journey that I’ve been able to create for myself. I had always been artistic and loved art of all kinds, so I’m definitely not surprised that this is what I’m doing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://oakleyrlo16.wixsite.com/hartestudio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanoakleyart
- Other: https://m.twitch.tv/ryanoakley28/home?tt_content=channel&tt_medium=mobile_web_share
https://linktr.ee/ryanoakleyart?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=01550136-5f94-41dc-b9e3-453c862551e7
