Given her stellar role in the Atlanta street-art scene, you would never guess that illustrator, muralist and animator Drew Borders graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design a mere two years ago. She recently landed a prestigious commission to muralize the Ormewood Avenue bridge for Art on the Atlanta BeltLine. Her work was featured at the 44 Murals Project and at the Stacks Squares festival in Cabbagetown.
Borders recently sat down with ArtsATL to discuss her influences, how her interest in murals developed and what advice she would give to fledgling artists.
ArtsATL: Tell me about your formative years and their influence on your work today.
Drew Borders: Race had a lot to do with the evolution of my work. I grew up in a predominantly White neighborhood. I also went to predominantly White schools. I talked about race with my family all the time; it was a regular dinner table discussion. It was strange for me to go to school and realize that most of my friends or classmates avoided the subject, yet I still had to pretend as if the daily microaggressions, prejudice and general ignorance didn’t bother me.
I fell in love with drawing very early on. It was a good escape for me and it also gave people something to associate me with other than my skin color. It wasn’t until my teenage years that I started making more of a statement with my work. I stopped thinking about what made my White classmates comfortable and started making work that was important to my identity and background. As I got older, my friends group diversified and my voice became louder.
ArtsATL: What drew you to animation?
Borders: I watched animation all the time with my siblings when we were little. Every day after school, we’d finish our homework and then draw for hours while we watched cartoons. Most of the cartoons we watched were anime. I loved the big sparkly eyes, long flowing hair and funky outfits they wore. A lot of that has leaked into my work today.
Animation was like an escape. These characters lived in fantasy worlds and did whatever they wanted. That kind of freedom was unknown to me. Even though I had never animated anything before, I knew it was exactly what I wanted to do once I went to college.
ArtsATL: What led you to add muralism to your skill set?
It was actually a family member. One of my aunts asked me if I’d paint orchids in her bathroom. I’d just graduated college a few months prior, at the start of the pandemic. I was frustrated because it was hard to find work in my field. Barely anyone was hiring. I thought that if I started accepting jobs that didn’t fit my degree perfectly, then it was all just a huge waste of time and money. I thought it made me a failure. I accepted her job anyway and ended up really enjoying the process. After that, I became more open to new opportunities that came my way.
ArtsATL: In what way does your approach to murals differ from your approach to animation and illustration?
Borders: For murals, I plan them in a logistical sense instead of just what looks cool. For animation and illustration, all I have to worry about are my fundamental principles. But with murals, there are so many variables that affect a job. I’m often pushing my body to its physical limits with murals while still having to think critically about the overall design. So, for that reason, I try to make the execution as easy as possible. Murals are always a learning experience and that’s why I like them.
ArtsATL: Tell me about the dramatic mural you created as part of the Stacks Squares mural festival in Cabbagetown.
Borders: The piece is less about a story and more about the feeling that it evokes. The woman in the piece gives off a strong sense of power but still wears a solemn expression on her face, like she knows there’s more work to be done. The interpretation is pretty much left up to the audience. For me, it’s a reminder of my own ambition and those of other women of color as we attempt to make our mark in a world full of adversity.
ArtsATL: Why was it important to represent the three Fates (from Greek mythology) as Black women in your recent Ormewood Avenue bridge mural?
Borders: Often when you see work about Black women or Black people in general, it’s about the “beauty in the struggle.” But I don’t like that. I feel that only focusing on the pain and trauma that we and our ancestors experienced normalizes it too much in our society today. It’s almost like we are expected to struggle and that there’s something heroic about it instead of it being a commentary about the flaws in our society. This bridge mural was specifically about putting power and control in the hands of a marginalized group of people.
ArtsATL: Do you have any advice for young people who are thinking about art as a career?
I’m understanding more and more that life is so unpredictable. If I hadn’t struggled to find work after graduating, I probably would’ve never turned to murals as another alternative. I probably wouldn’t have made the same friends that I’ve made today in this community. I would have missed out on so many opportunities. So, take a leap of faith! You never know where it will lead you.
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Arthur Rudick created the Atlanta Street Art Map in 2017 after retiring from a successful career as an engineer with Eastman Kodak and the Coca-Cola Company. His first experience of art was seeing an Alexander Calder mobile as a child in the Pittsburgh airport. Rudick is ArtsATL’s street art expert and a regular contributor.
