Art & Life with Suede Silver

Today we’d like to introduce you to Suede Silver.

Suede, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I am a middle sibling in-between two sets of twins in my family, was a “kid who can’t read good” in Zoolander, I surf, am a tattoo artist, I got roasted on X factor once, went to school for business, I love breakfast foods, I love people, and I love art.

I’ve always loved art. My mom tells me that I would sing Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love” before I could even talk. I remember being in elementary school and hearing some piano song and thinking to myself “I can make a song better than that.” Now that I’m saying that out loud, I’m realizing how that is a big part of my artistic story. For as long as I can remember I’ve admired various forms of artwork and had a voice in my head saying “you can do that… you can do something even better than that”.

My father is a phenomenal visual artist, so I learned a lot from him. I grew up understanding what good art is and accumulated interests in photography, painting, graphic design, and of course the guitar he had sitting around in the living room.

Fast forward through years of listening to The Beatles and The Beach Boys, having my emo phase, being homeschooled for some time, surviving the pimple years, and by the end of high school I had taught myself how to play guitar, bass, drums, piano, and started songwriting.

Since then I’ve just continued obsessing over art and music. When people ask what I do, I can honestly answer “I am an artist,” and that is something I’m extremely grateful for and proud of.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Although I’m primarily a musician, “my art” includes tattoos, shaping surfboards, photography, videography, illustration, graphic design, and other miscellaneous hobbies. Getting into the “how and why” of all of those would take way too much time, but there are a few things that permeate all of my artwork.

The main one is that I really strive for an element of “freshness.” If it’s been done before I’m not interested in it, that inspires a lot of my work. I have a huge desire to lend massive contributions to the creative world, especially music. I really revere albums like “Sgt Pepper’s” and “Pet Sounds,” which changed the way people viewed pop music.

I know I’m not there yet, that is making massive contributions, but I know I’m on the right track. I’ve gotten to a point where I can make everything I imagine in my head exactly the way I imagine it. I come up with a song, write all the parts, record all the instruments, produce it, mix it, master it, make the album artwork, and direct the music video. I get as much creative control as I want for each part of the process. I know I have a long way to go to reach the creative goals I have, but I’m a completely liberated artist, and that’s pretty tight.

It’s also worth noting that I love art that brings people joy. There’s so much brokenness in the world I love to create things that put a smile on people’s faces.

How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
Success means different things to different artists, but typically it includes something about recognition and having the art sustain the artist’s financial needs. All good things, but success HAS to come after craft.

True success comes from pursuing art for art’s sake… not for acceptance, fame, followers, money, whatever. None of those things are permanent, and none of them will ever truly satisfy your being. Once you start creating for creation’s sake, you’ll feel so happy and fulfilled as an artist that you won’t care about “success” as much. You’ll also find your work gets WAY better. It becomes more unique, more genuine, more interesting, and people start to gravitate towards it. Ironically after you’ve come to that place of being a healthy artist with good motives THEN, you have a chance at getting noticed and becoming more successful blah blah blah… but the artwork HAS to come first. Anything else is just a waste of time.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
All my work is as available as possible. I post all my stuff on my website, social media, and all streaming platforms. A quick google search should take you to my artwork pretty easily.

Nowadays artists can get a lot of opportunities simply from numbers. Numbers of likes, comments, streams, shares, subscribers, downloads, whatever… It’s kinda dumb, but that’s the world we live in now. Luckily it costs consumers exactly 0 dollars to do these things, but it can completely change an artists’ career!

That being said, if I could only ask for one type of support from people it’d be that they’d simply interact with me and my artwork as much as possible. A quick double tap on insta, dropping one of my songs in your playlist, making a quick comment about the music video I just released, texting a screenshot of a cool tattoo I’ve done to your friend that’s always wanted a little flower on her wrist or all of the above! A little bit goes a long way, and I encourage everyone to do this for the artists they love.

I also just love chatting with fellow artists and enthusiasts online, it gets me so pumped up about what I’m working on. It also reminds me that my artwork worthwhile and people care.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SuedeSilver.com
• Email: SuedeSilver@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/SuedeSilver
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/SuedeSilver

Image credit:
Suede Silver

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