Make a body of work that feels undeniably yours

If I could sit down with my teenage self, the kid who loved animals but was already learning to dilute himself to fit in, I would not tell him to be realistic. I would tell him to be precise about what he is refusing.

Do not give up on art. Not because it is safe. It is not. Not because it is glamorous. It rarely is. Do not give it up because it is the one thread that runs clean through your life. Everything else you try to mould yourself into will feel like borrowed identity. Art is not a side quest. It is the spine.

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Then I would show him the Honey badger and say, study this creature like your livelihood depends on it. It survives harsh country because it does not wait to be validated. It digs. It commits. It endures the sting and eats the honey anyway. That is the posture. You are going to hear that art is not a real job unless you are elite, lucky, connected, or conveniently tragic. Smile. Then keep digging.

Make a body of work. Not a scatter of experiments you abandon when applause does not arrive. A body. Something with weight and repetition and pattern. The honey badger does not dig one shallow hole and call it a career. It works the same territory over time. Your uncommon animals, your conservation stories, your strange dream imagery, your pattern obsession. Stay with them long enough that they start to speak back.

Stay weird. One hundred percent authentic. The world will try to sand you down into something easier to categorise. Resist that politely but firmly. The parts of you that feel too niche, too biological, too pattern driven, too sceptical of shiny systems, those are the coordinates. The honey badger does not audition for elegance. It owns its shape.

Show up unapologetically. Not arrogantly, not loudly for the sake of it, but without shrinking. Keep making the work and keep putting it into the world. Even when it feels like you are posting into a void. Even when the response is thin. Consistency is territorial marking. Over time, people learn where to find you.

Position the work where the right people cannot help but notice it. That does not mean chasing everyone. It means placing your art in ecosystems that align with it. Conservation circles. Slow craft spaces. Education networks. Podcasts that talk about sustainable creativity. Do not beg for attention in rooms built for speed and disposability. Build in rooms that value depth. The honey badger chooses its battles. So should you.

Grow a thick hide. Algorithms will ignore you. Some people will misunderstand you. Others will tell you to pivot towards whatever is monetisable this month. Compost it. Let criticism rot into fertiliser. Keep the parts that are useful and discard the rest.

Be adaptable without becoming diluted. Use AI as a tool, not a master. Let it handle the bureaucratic sludge. Let it collaborate in strange dream experiments. But keep your hands in real materials. Ink, paper, slow books. In a culture sprinting towards frictionless output, human texture will become rare. Rare becomes valuable.

Do not build a life that looks impressive and feels hollow. You will be tempted. Hustle can disguise itself as purpose. Learn to distinguish between expansion and exhaustion. Thriving is not about scale. It is about sustainability. A thriving artist has energy left for family, land, curiosity.

And when doubt creeps in, which it will, remember this. The honey badger is not fearless because it feels nothing. It moves despite feeling everything.

So I would tell that teenager, keep drawing. Make a body of work that feels undeniably yours. Stay strange. Stay sovereign. Show up fully. Dig deep instead of wide. Place your work where it can take root. Let the world underestimate you if it wants.

Over time, persistence stops looking naive and starts looking inevitable. That is when thriving begins.

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