Artist Brynn Casey on Fear, Fun, and Staying in Your Lane

Yeah.

So my name is Brynn Casey.

Man, my story.

I went to college for art.

I've always known that's what I wanna do, be an artist.

Like, you know the Game of Life, like the board game? I was like, "There's no other card besides artist [laughs] that I want to get." I always wanted to do art, and I went to Georgia, University of Georgia, and graduated with a drawing and painting degree in 2011.

Or no.

Wait, that's when I graduated high school.

2015.

That's more like it.

Graduated 2015, and then I actually apprenticed under another artist.

Her name's Britt Bass Turner.

She's an abstract painter and a dear friend.

And it was just perfect timing.

I was kind of like, "Should I go to grad school?" I was engaged to my husband, and I was like, "I don't really wanna go to grad school, but I don't know what to do." And then Britt was like, "You can be like my shop manager, basically." And that's when Etsy and Pinterest and just self-representing artists started to become a thing.

And so I jumped in the studio with her and just kind of like observed her, [laughs] just watched what she was doing, and I was like, "Okay, this seems pretty cool.

Seems like she knows what she's doing." And I just learned like, oh, okay, that's how you talk on the phone with somebody, or that's how you communicate about this, or this is how you package that, and just learned by observing.

Mm-hmm.

And so she taught me the ins and outs of running an art business.

And meanwhile, I was painting by candlelight [laughs] at night.

[laughs]

You know, doing my personal work, and I started painting ocean, water landscapes back in college.

There was a popular song called Oceans by Hillsong United that came out, and I just really connected with it, and I started doing these ink drawings on paper, and they were really moody and emotional and connected with my life season.

And then I started to notice a lot of other people connected with it, too, and I was like, man, I don't think I'm the only one who loves, you know, water, and the symbol of water, and the symbol of the ocean and what it could mean for people.

And so then it started to build on itself.

Yeah.

So my name is Brynn Casey.

Man, my story.

I went to college for art.

I've always known that's what I wanna do, be an artist.

Like, you know the Game of Life, like the board game? I was like, "There's no other card besides artist [laughs] that I want to get." I always wanted to do art, and I went to Georgia, University of Georgia, and graduated with a drawing and painting degree in 2011.

Or no.

Wait, that's when I graduated high school.

2015.

That's more like it.

Graduated 2015, and then I actually apprenticed under another artist.

Her name's Britt Bass Turner.

She's an abstract painter and a dear friend.

And it was just perfect timing.

I was kind of like, "Should I go to grad school?" I was engaged to my husband, and I was like, "I don't really wanna go to grad school, but I don't know what to do." And then Britt was like, "You can be like my shop manager, basically." And that's when Etsy and Pinterest and just self-representing artists started to become a thing.

And so I jumped in the studio with her and just kind of like observed her, [laughs] just watched what she was doing, and I was like, "Okay, this seems pretty cool.

Seems like she knows what she's doing." And I just learned like, oh, okay, that's how you talk on the phone with somebody, or that's how you communicate about this, or this is how you package that, and just learned by observing.

Mm-hmm.

And so she taught me the ins and outs of running an art business.

And meanwhile, I was painting by candlelight [laughs] at night.

[laughs]

You know, doing my personal work, and I started painting ocean, water landscapes back in college.

There was a popular song called Oceans by Hillsong United that came out, and I just really connected with it, and I started doing these ink drawings on paper, and they were really moody and emotional and connected with my life season.

And then I started to notice a lot of other people connected with it, too, and I was like, man, I don't think I'm the only one who loves, you know, water, and the symbol of water, and the symbol of the ocean and what it could mean for people.

And so then it started to build on itself.