Today we’d like to introduce you to Atom Basham.
Atom, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I actually don’t remember any part of my life when I wasn’t drawing. It’s one of my earliest memories, so I guess that’s always been a thing. Intentionally creating characters with well thought out names and entire back stories has been a little more recent though. Like, just over the past ten years. Now everything I paint I could easily get its own book (If I ever find the time). As far as being a full time artist without another “side job”? That’s been about five interesting years now. It hasn’t been particularly easy, but it’s definitely one of the best decisions I ever made for myself, and my still evolving art career as a whole
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Nope. Just nope.
That’s not to say it’s been a bad road, it’s been an awesome life experience, but there’s definitely something to be said for the starving artist cliché’. Trying to survive on just your art without some sort of side income is hard. Like, really really hard. I’m entirely self-taught though and knew that if I wanted to take all of this to another level, I’d need to invest every minute of my time in honing my craft and figuring out exactly what I wanted to do with it, so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past four or five years. Somehow this sort of thing is possible in Chicago, where I can’t really imagine being able to do it anywhere else. Still, thanks to (very) creative budgeting, generally really understanding landlords, and faithful art collectors who are always looking for something new for their walls, I’ve at least made it this far, and I’m fairly optimistic about the direction I’m heading in now
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I’m a painter/illustrator/sometimes sculptor/hopefully eventually an author, with a studio gallery in the Wicker Park Flat Iron Arts Building. I specialize in monsters and character portraits but sometimes redirect landscape paintings I find in thrift stores and antique shops with more popular pop culture characters. For the past several years I’ve been focusing on trying to tell an individual’s entire backstory in a single painting. It’s rarely just Joe Somebody sitting bored in the middle of a canvas, but he’ll be surrounded by subtle background clues about who he is and how he’s gotten into this particular situation. Obviously I’d really REALLY like to be writing and illustrating my own books by now, but that’s a bit more likely to happen next year than this year unless I suddenly win the lottery and can afford to take the time off to tackle such a huge project
What were you like growing up?
I grew up on a farm in Midwest Wisconsin, actually. Lots of dogs, lots of horses, some pygmy goats and a pair of very loud peacocks that we had for some reason or another. My home life was pretty complicated, so I was always the quiet/anxiety ridden kid in school, but I was also drawing constantly, so that’s what I was better known for. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but the ones I had were always encouraging me to pursue an art career more seriously. As it was though, the idea of growing up to be an “artist” seemed a little impossible, but I knew I’d never be able to do it in such a small town, so a couple pit stops later, I made my way off the farm and found my way to Chicago. It was the best decision I ever made.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago. Studio #341
- Website: www.atombasham.com
- Phone: 872-999-5172
- Email: evil.killer.robot@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/atombasham
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/atom.basham
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/atombasham
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