Daily Inspiration: Meet Aimee Campbell

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aimee Campbell.

Hi Aimee, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
At my core, I am a dreamer. I envision things and then push myself to bring them into life. Radical imagination is at the heart of what I do because what we dream and imagine is the first step to a different reality. But it took me some time to get to this way of thinking.

After graduating with my BFA in Illustration at the Academy of Art University in 2019, I was burnt out and needed to reevaluate my relationship to creativity. It reminds me of the exhaustion I had in high school. I was an AP student stressed with balancing homework, track, and various clubs. Growing up as an only child (the eldest child) and raised by a single mother in a low-income household, I felt the pressure to succeed. Being Black only intensified that pressure since I was told that I needed to be 10 times better than the average person. So since I was young, I was chasing this impossible standard of excellence that led to a lot of anxiety and perfectionism. And it seeped into everything I did.

By the time I was a senior in college, I had had enough of myself. I was tired of heaving around all the weight I placed on myself. Diving into books helped me shift. And surprisingly, it wasn’t self help books that did the trick, but speculative fiction. To be even more specific, it was Black speculative fiction that showed me how powerful your imagination could be. Our minds are powerful. It was here where I studied the life and work of Octavia Butler. Just like me, she was an only child raised by a single mother in a low-income household and she poured her soul into bringing her stories to life. Witnessing how her work impacted people and created a movement sparked the dreamer in me. It inspired me to push myself out of my comfort zone to realize my dreams. It gave me the courage to create my own path.

“Thorns of a Rose” was my first self-published comic on display. I explored a Black magical sapphic knight struggling with her definition of inner strength and self-care. Once I finally forced myself to complete something I imagined, I found the nerve to do it again and again. I started to look for more opportunities to share my work. My comic “Sunburns” made it into WinC Magazine’s summer 2021 issue. Then in 2022, I created the cover art for FIYAH Literary Magazine’s 22nd Issue and published my first short story “Chrysalis” in FIYAH’s 24th Issue. I ended up as the Best Artist for the 2023 Ignyte Awards which was such an honor and surprise!

Soon, I found a spot in We Belong: The All-Black, All-LGBTQ+ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Comics Anthology with Stacked Deck Press. It features my comic “Luminous Flux” where a nonbinary wizard on the run discovers a mysterious rift in space time. I experienced my first book tour with this anthology where I was part of the book’s panel discussions. This led to me receiving the opportunity to speak on a panel at San Diego Comic Con.

My most recent project is called “This Lil Birdie Told You” in the How to Touch Grass comics anthology published by Power & Magic Press. It’s a nonfiction comic about how developing a relationship with the land around me through herbalism, gardening, etc, changed my life. And where I’m a lil birdie leading you through the story!

I have extended my dreaming towards facilitating spaces and sharing what I can offer. Last year, I created my own Drawing Fundamentals Classes for adults in my community who want to learn how to draw, but don’t know where to start. When creating the curriculum, I thought about everything I learned from art school and the most important things I’d like to learn as a beginner. The course lasted over six weeks structured so anyone could jump in at any time and still learn a good amount. I experimented with a sliding scale so that more people could join regardless of price point.

I plan to facilitate more creative workshops for my community. I’d like to share the power of imagination and hopefully spark creativity in others. It’s important to understand that everyone has the power to create. We’re creating our lives each day. I want to continue being a dreamer despite living a world that crushes dreams. My form of resistance is to continue to create and imagine. And I’ll continue to be curious about what’s possible.

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?
In the past, I wouldn’t even try things because I knew it wouldn’t be perfect. Working through perfectionism has shown me that creating something, anything, is better than not even trying. At times I still need to work on getting out of my head and stepping out of the limitations placed by others (and sometimes myself). But I try my best to do and be.

This also bleeds into expectations about how much and how fast I’m creating. I’ve come to understand my shifting relationship with creativity. It comes in seasons and in different expressions. Sometimes I’d rather write than draw or create a delicious meal. That’s okay. I’m not a robot and it’s not about production. It’s about expression. This is where it’s important to have a day job if you’d rather not create for survival.

It’s also hard when I dream of something and don’t know how to reach it. Because sometimes I let that voice of “you can’t do this” creep into my ears and influence me. And at times, I let the voice win for a while but I always come back after realizing how much it means to actualize my dreams. So, to tackle that voice means to dive in, get curious, and research to fill the gap of where I want to be.

I continually try to question why I’m doing things and where my imagination may be limited. Maybe the path I need to be on hasn’t been created yet, so I haven’t seen it. It’s my responsibility to create it and dream. Not knowing where I’m going, but continuing anyway can be scary and uncomfortable sometimes. I always tell myself to feel the fear but do it anyway. Do it scared.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a visual artist, writer, and cartoonist (someone who writes and draws their own comics). I also like to facilitate spaces where people learn and tap into their creativity.

My experience as a Black queer nonbinary person bleeds into my work. Using illustrations, comics, and paintings, I create speculative fiction visual narratives capturing the raw emotions felt within my intersectional identity. The work depicts feelings of otherness and isolation, but also the magic and wonder of the experience. My sequential art is heavily influenced by shoujo manga, where I focus on expressing emotions rather than following traditional structures. My singular works are moments of witness where the subjects are holding the weight of being seen. They have no where to escape themselves, as they are often enclosed in a white space, filling an otherwise empty void of imagination. Because when you are considered “other”, you live in spaces where many folks can’t even imagine.

Speculative fiction means so much to me because sometimes you need fiction to discuss and understand the workings in real life. It is at the heart of all of my work. I love Black speculative fiction writers because it roots me back into my culture while exercising radical imagination and dreaming beyond the now. My favorite authors Octavia Butler and Tananarive Due visualize the unknown, ultimately giving shape to the intangible. I remember that when I facilitate. When I envision a space for others, I try to meet people where they are and then see how I can nudge them into imagining more than they have now.

I’m most proud of creating my Drawing Fundamentals Classes because it got me out of my comfort zone. Instead of isolating myself to draw, I had to get out and promote the class and interact with others to make it happen. I told myself that if I can plan, write, and complete a comic then I could do the same with other projects. And the Drawing Fundamentals Classes proved that I could. I’m excited to keep experimenting with what I can do.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Anyone who is a creative is a risk-taker in our society. Wealth and stability isn’t often guaranteed in creative industries. There’s a certain amount of expressing yourself and putting yourself out there that can be uncomfortable.

Risk is part of a fulfilling life. If you never try, you’ll never know. If you fail you just learn more knowledge for what to do next time. I’d rather not be on my death bed full of regrets. I’d like to know that I’d done all that I could before I passed on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aimees.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makocakess/
• Other: Newsletter: https://aimeesart.kit.com/