Today we’d like to introduce you to Ian Casey.
Hi Ian, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I grew up in North Ogden as the oldest with two sisters. My parents had me young & were both respective creatives. My Dad founded a company for the speakers & cables he was designing (Zu Audio.) My mom grew up painting & remains an avid crafter. With the speaker passion my dad I had that meant grew up around a lot of different music influences and was very receptive to all kinds from AC/DC to Beck. I also had a lot of adventure influence with our family doing backpacking & road trips regularly. I tried out different team sports but ultimately took to & also excelled at more individually & creative focused sports like biking, skateboarding & snowboarding. Which remain big parts of my life today. Huge gratitude to my parents for supporting me in figuring out what activities I truly resonated with. In school, I always took a stronger interest in anything that allowed me to play with my creativity & actually anything else was virtually impossible to focus on. The thing that made up for that was how much I enjoyed connecting with my classmates & teachers.
The start of Jr. High was when I really began focusing on exploring my creativity & expressing it. I began spending a lot of time listening & exploring new music as well as fashion. I began experimenting with outfits & trying different outfits out trying not to be too insecure about the experimenting. I took all the art classes I could during this time – taking to mainly visual forms of expression but also enjoyed the percussion class I had lots. In high school, I took photography & graphic design & loved those so much. I developed a cool relationship to the teacher of those classes Mrs. Shaum & she would give me extra or more difficult assignments as I would put time in outside of school to develop these skills. In 11th or 12th grade I got my first graphic design gig designing a logo & business cards. However, I was spending more of my free time with my camera shooting photos & making videos. I am happy with how that logo turned out for my first one as well as a lot of those videos I made at that time. I have developed my photography so much at this point that I don’t feel that way about the photos but I am happy to feel that way about the design & video work. I should say I feel humor inspired me a lot during these times as I loved jokes & joking around & had a comedy show with my two friends on the High School tv program that ended up becoming quite popular haha. I graduated & at a party a new friend of mine said he was going to roof that summer. For some reason, I felt that was what I should do with him & did that for the whole summer which I feel was exactly what I needed at that time. I was struggling a lot with my mental health & partying too much then, so working hard outside every day all day was really healthy & helped me find some clarity of what to do with my life. It was a perfect environment to learn about & explore my more masculine qualities. As I went onto that next year to work in Eden, UT for an outdoor high fashion company named Westerlind based out of NYC where I had the perfect environment to explore, integrate & express my feminine aspects. I remain having a closer relationship to my femininity but both are big inspirations to my creative process & expression.
Anyway, in Eden I helped run Westerlind little shop connected to Summit Powder Mountain that is no longer there & do some graphic design & photography for them as well. It was an amazing opportunity that helped develop me as a person & artist so much. Through the work I got to do as well as the people I got to meet. That chapter lasted about a year and a half & at the end of it moved out of my parent’s house into downtown Ogden with a roommate Malin; she was from Sweden, the same as my boss and founder of Westerlind. I transferred over to doing all of Zu Audio’s (father’s company) design & photography. I began the new era living on my own, working the new job, reconnecting with my spirituality & continuing to explore who I am. I was Mormon until I was about 12 when my family decided it wasn’t the right thing for us but never really had any spiritual relationship during or after. Finding a relationship with a sort of spirituality was my favorite focus during this time as it provided a lot of relief for my feelings on not having any direction and the practices like meditation & eating well provided such great results I was hooked. I was still taking photos however & the spiritual influence influenced my photos heavily. As well as becoming very close with one of my favorite photographers who loved to go out on walks & shoot photos. I loved just shooting what was around me as I could now feel the universe’s orchestral presence in all of it. I remain thinking about my photography that way – I go out & it feels if I am present & in a wholesome energy, I get rewarded to notice a moment that I get to capture that I would have missed if I were in a different energetic space. It’s my favorite when they involve connecting with a stranger. I have had so many amazing interactions with people around the city out of just wanting to take their photo. I approach them with admiration & most everyone I ask is more that happy. If they are not, we usually just have a great interaction. Doing this has helped shape my full of faith & optimism worldview so much as I have personal experience that people have so much more in common than we don’t and most people are really so beautiful and trying their best. My passion with illustration & design still currently remains with a new brand & creative project I have been working on that will be heavily inspired by my design & illustrative style & taste. I also help in a prominent way on an Ogden-focused magazine titled: Salty. My photography is also contributed. That has been such a great learning, collaborative experience with such talented people. Watch out for the print issue releasing sometime this year.
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?
Ultimately it has, but I have definitely had my struggles. I got to grow up with parents that were supportive & remained together but did have its nuanced growing pains of me being the eldest and a boy. My parents had me very young so there was just some learning with me we all had to go through & I blame them for none of it. I have never been diagnosed with anything officially but around 10 I developed some quite intense OCD/anxiety symptoms that can easily lead to being depressed about feeling out of control about the other symptoms while just being generally very sensitive. I had plenty of positivity, drive & optimism in me but it took a lot not be crippled by my own internal chaos. I also honor & feel grateful for those parts of me as now later in my life being able to deal with them in healthy ways they are still a battle but I do feel a much more rich & strong version of myself for it. In school, I fit in while also being the weirdest one where I did get bullied but I also had so many friends. Later in my youth, I found that alcohol really helped quite all my mental health issues & started drinking regularly for a couple years. I knew I had a problem not doing it in moderation or responsibly but kept telling myself I can find it. I surrendered to the fact that that wasn’t going to happen after many lows & it has been almost 5 years since I have had a drink. That is my favorite decision I ever made. Around this time, I decided I didn’t need to have so many barriers on the parts of myself I accessed & expressed. I gravitated toward the more suppressed parts of my femininity which I clearly remember having some touch with those prior as a very young kid. I went out and bought a couple cute dresses & started dressing more experimentally & have found I like women’s clothes much more. That came with its own struggles absolutely. That has only expanded since then & I do have some body dysmorphia but ultimately embrace my male body & feel I am meant to have a more feminine expression in this body to help loosen up the energetic fabric of acceptance as a collective – if that makes sense.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I specialize in photography first then follows design & illustration. What seems to resonate the most with people is the street portraits I take. It also resonates with me the most & are my favorite photos I take. I will go wonder the streets with my camera looking for good photo ops but more importantly open to any photo ops. I have practices approaching people with admiration to ask for their photo as well as just getting in organic conversations, then eventually asking them If I may. I have surprisingly had such a small amount of people say no out of everyone I have asked – I am so grateful they are so receptive to it but also me. In design & illustration, I am known for minimal, easy to breathe & colors. My style would be minimal but still soulful. I do not want it to feel boring or stale – which is easy for minimalism. I would say the way I execute organic minimalism in design set’s me apart & my street photos are unique in a sense but I have worked a lot on my photography style. In shooting & in editing – I know it will keep evolving but I feel I have found a style that does feel like my own. I get the most proud of my street portraits but I do get very excited about any great photo I take as I do just shoot so much of my life & loved ones. Lots of my photos don’t get shown, only sent to the people they are of & I really enjoy getting to capture & share moments in a cool & interesting way to everyone involved.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
What I like best about living in Ogden is the community. Everyone I meet is so warm & enjoyable to interact with. I am friends with everyone at Natural Grocers where I grocery shop & anywhere I am a regular is so easy to become friends with everyone there. I have such a beautiful group of close friends here as well – so many that are so different but get along so well. The skate & art community are what I am closest with & I swear they’re the coolest people in the world. I love that it’s small enough that I can walk everywhere, there’s no traffic & almost always parking. Yet big enough to have a good amount of city energy. Then of course nothing is better than living this close to the mountains & getting to see Ben Lomond regularly. I don’t know how I could not live around mountains after being here for as long as I have.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.iancasey.art
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_iancasey
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-casey-3a88b1153/
