Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Marks.
Hi Katie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started drawing at a very young age, and have always wanted to create animation. Being lost in a cartoon or music video was the status quo when I was indoors as a child, and every chance I had I wanted to make art.
I figured out mouth movements on characters when I used to experiment with KidPix, an old art software from the 90’s that you could alter a slideshow to a fraction of a second to create a low frame-per-second animation.
We didn’t quite have the internet yet, but I was able to do some cool things on our computer at home. I think later on I was thwarted by the “traditional” approach to American life; get through school, go to college, then get a job. Since my college graduation was around the recession, it was hard to find much work.
I finally was able to get a job in my field while I worked on my Bachelor’s, but unfortunately, I needed health insurance and couldn’t work the hours of a full-time schedule plus go to school. Instead, I opened a food truck, using the knowledge I gained from school and from the job I worked since I was a teenager running a food establishment.
After dealing with some health issues, I decided that the preservation of my body was more important to my well-being long term than keeping the business open. Since my current staff was changing careers or heading to other opportunities, I made the difficult choice to close up shop after running it for 4 years. From there I was able to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of my business practices and apply them to my art.
While there were some very hard aspects of running the food truck, I am grateful for the myriad of lessons I learned while in business. I feel like I can amplify my platform for good and share my art with a wider audience. My latest project is Ambiguously Lost Studios, an animation production studio bringing images that subvert conventional media and stories to life. The first show, “The Sum of Sindy”, is out spring of 2023.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road! But I am grateful for the experience I’ve gotten that helps me have a unique perspective and shaped me to be a more compassionate person. I think it’s been a struggle to switch career paths as often as I have and to give myself the time and space to learn new ways of creating and ways of being a human in the world.
I’m proud that I’ve taken risks along the way and taken so many big leaps to be where I am now as an artist and the struggles have made life interesting. I don’t always do well with change (ironically given how often I’ve invited change into my life as an artist), but I’m glad I’ve been able to see so many sides of operating a business and how our systems work. Tenacity and a good support system have helped me through issues big and small, and always finding the next step has led me through a lot.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am primarily an animator and have the most experience these past two years animating music videos. Lately, I am specializing in show and story production, with a web series releasing around the spring of next year. On top of that, I also do graphite portraits, graphic design, and screen printing. I’ve also worked in the music industry and enjoy working a part-time job so I don’t turn into a troll in the house.
I’m most proud of my ability to use my talents and skill sets to keep everything interesting in life. While I do not believe everything happens for a reason, I do believe that after healing from challenges we can use the experiences to grow and learn. Working for myself and being able to negotiate my worth despite the risk of losing jobs is something I have worked painstakingly hard for, sacrificed a lot of fun for, and used the opportunities and privileges I did have to the fullest capacity.
I believe an above-average ability to reflect on where my weaknesses lie helps to sharpen my skills from an artist’s perspective and a business perspective. Stylistically, I believe the ability to blend my stop-motion work with digital art helps my work to stand out. My latest work released, the video for The Gabbard Brothers’ “Pockets of Your Mind”, shows an increase in skill and attention to detail in my art. I’m excited about the series I am going to release soon and for the world to let me know what they think!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
There are quite a few ways to collaborate and work with me! Musicians/labels can book music videos, folks and organizations can send footage to be edited for social media, and there are commissions for portraits, screen prints, and design work. Along with hiring me as an independent contractor, writers, voice actors, and visual artists looking to animate their work can reach out to create projects together.
Outside of participating in the creating process, people can support themselves by following/interacting on social media, watching the content created, and purchasing merch or prints when they’re available. Following the Ambiguously Lost Studios page on YouTube plus Instagram will keep you abreast of the release dates for episodes and new work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.katieannmarks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i_am_katie_marks/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClFUBq6YepwagDgXNxZiemw
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/ambiguouslylost/
Image Credits
Clyde Petersen, Gabbard Brothers, and Paige Beller’s
