Introducing Caitlin Keegan
Posted by East End Prints on 5th Mar 2020
So we know you are based in New York, have you always lived there?
I grew up in Connecticut and moved to Brooklyn after college, around 2002 or 2003. That was when I started working as an art department assistant (and later as a designer) for Nickelodeon Magazine. I’ve been here ever since, so almost 17 years now.
When and how did you become interested in illustration and design?
I’ve loved making things for as long as I can remember. I remember taking Ed Emberley’s drawing books out from the school library and renewing them over and over. When I was in second grade the children’s book illustrator Steven Kellogg visited my school and signed our books, and that was when I realised that being an illustrator was a real job. I eventually studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. For about ten years after school, I worked as a designer while illustrating on the side, and in 2013 I finally made the leap to full-time freelancing. It can be challenging at times but I’m really happy I made that decision.
Your website has a fantastic surface design section, can you talk a little about that area of your work?
Patterns have always been part of my illustration work, but I became more skilled at making repeats when I was working at Sesame Workshop. Creating patterns for style guides was a big part of my job there. When I first went freelance, I decided to make a new pattern every week as a side project. I did this for about two years, so I have a decent-sized catalogue of patterns available to license. I just need to work on the business part of the equation! So far, I’ve licensed a few patterns to Chasing Paper [https://www.chasingpaper.com/collections/caitlin-keegan] for wallpaper but I would love to get my designs onto more products in the future. A fabric line is the dream.
I get a lot of inspiration from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which is about a 30-minute walk from me. My design process evolved a lot during the years when I was making a weekly pattern. I now start with a loose brush pen drawing in my sketchbook, and then I scan the drawings and compose the pattern in Photoshop. So, my recent patterns have a looser style than my other illustrations, which are more graphic.
What are some of the thoughts that fuel the direction of your current work?
Right now I’m working on a new weekly collaboration with a friend, DJ Trouble, who has an excellent weekly show on Thursday mornings on WFMU and is also a high school art teacher. She picks an artist (a writer, musician, or visual artist) each week in 2020 and I draw their portrait, and all of the artists are women. I post a new portrait to Instagram every week.
The idea behind the project is to pay tribute to a variety of women artists. Some of these artists are very recognisable, and others are lesser known. A lot of them were brand new to me. So, a lot of the work I’ve been doing lately has been inspired by women artists of the past—that’s true of the Sister Corita Kent series as well.
I’m also very interested in psychology, and in the ways that we react to images on a subconscious level. Those interests come through most clearly in my tarot deck, The Illuminated Tarot [illuminatedtarot.com] and Dreamer’s Journal [dreamersjournalbook.com], an illustrated dream journal and dictionary that I worked on with the same publisher, Clarkson Potter [clarksonpotter.com].
What's your earliest memory related to art? First museum visit or first artwork that really caused an impact on you?
My mom was always working on some kind of project when I was growing up; painting furniture, making crafts, designing, decorating. She never made art “professionally” but she was (and is) a very talented artist. My mom was definitely my earliest creative influence. I also have a lot of good memories of coloring with my grandparents. I remember feeling upset that my grandfather filled in Snow White’s face green in my Disney coloring book, but green-faced Snow White is very much my style now.
What should we expect from you in the near future?
I’m working on a new tarot-related project with Clarkson Potter that will be out in Spring 2021. It’s very much under construction right now, but hopefully I can share more details soon. The best way to find out more would be to follow The Illuminated Tarot on Instagram [Instagram.com/illuminatedtarot].
What’s on your playlist in the studio at the moment?
I’ve been pretty consumed by politics lately, so I listen to a lot of political podcasts and public radio during the day. In terms of music: I recently discovered Anna Calvi [http://annacalvi.com/] through the song she wrote for The Souvenir (great movie)—so I’ve been listening to her a lot lately. I’m also a big U.S. Girls [https://4ad.com/artists/109] fan.