Today we’d like to introduce you to Betsy Askew.
Hi Betsy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am proudly from Houston and have been living in Austin since 2007. I started out in a street art collective called the Loli Pauperz when I was 18. We painted on wood boards and bolted them around Houston and Austin. During this time, I also started painting on paper, developing my own style and characters and putting them up using wheat paste (which I feel really lucky to have discovered). I went by the street name of “B Kay”, a nickname my dad gave me as a kid, and around 2008 my good friend Graham added “All Day”. It stuck and I’ve used the name “B Kay All Day” ever since. The characters that I paint are usually a reflection of what’s inspiring or challenging me at the moment, and my drive to create mostly comes from all of the amazing, inspiring people in my life with the end goal of making people happy. If my art can make one person smile, I’ve done my job! Without street art, I’d be lost—painting and putting my work around the city has become a major part of my identity—taming and healing my anxious mind, helping me stay grounded.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Dealing with the art world, everyone wants the whole world to know who they’re, I think one of the biggest differences between them and I is I just want them to know how I feel but struggle with communicating that with them because I get turned off by the egos. I lost my twin brother a couple of years ago and that was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my life. Art has helped me a lot heal from the sadness.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I specialize in wheat pasting my art up, which I prefer over tagging because it’s not as destructive. I paste mostly on dumpsters because it brings a normally mundane, overlooked place to life. My style has always been uniquely mine and was organically created with years of self-taught drawing and painting. My hand-painted characters have evolved over the years from Cyclopes characters and people into other strange beings. Some people in my life get lucky and I’ll turn them into one of my characters. When I first started creating art, I made a lot of collages as a base for my characters. Using them as a way to communicate my feelings about current events. These days I enjoy cutting out wood shapes and faces and adding tiny colorful circles, which I find therapeutic as well as mesmerizing. I use a very colorful palette and have a fascination for eyes. I’d like to think that my love for colors is a reflection of the way I see the beauty in all things.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I didn’t do much art. Although, I would get trouble for making doodles on my school papers. In elementary school, I always was pretending to live in another time and place. I’ve always felt like an outsider looking in, watching trying to understand life. Music has always helped me therapeutically. I enjoyed dancing and singing in my bedroom.
If you could go back in time and ask my friends what I was like, I feel like they would say I was Sensitive, Mature, and always looking for a good laugh.
Contact Info:
- Email: Betsyaskew@gmail.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/bkayallday
Image Credits
Dave Creaney
