For Cade Kegerreis (‘17), art was never something he had to discover. It was something he grew up with — passed down through generations, expressed differently on either side of his family, and eventually carried onto his canvases and murals.
“I just always loved art,” Kegerreis said. “I was one of the kids that never stopped creating because of my family’s appreciation of that and understanding that that’s what I do. It was never weird or different. Art was always just my thing.”
For Christmas and birthdays, Kegerreis could expect art kits as gifts from his family, recalling that even before he had decided to pursue art, his family recognized his talent and the passion he had for creation. His passion only evolved through his education, participating in art classes throughout middle school and high school and always seeking a way to challenge himself and learn more.
“I don’t think I was ever not in an art class,” he said. “I was really tight with my art teachers and would usually ask them for extra projects to do.”
He credits his high school art teacher, John Storm, for inspiring him to pursue art as a degree, with Storm teaching Kegerreis different mediums and the ability to play and have fun while creating art.
As an eighth-generation Wacoan, Kegerreis didn’t see a future pursuing art in the city, initially planning to attend the Chicago Art Institute. However, when it came down to the finances, Kegerreis’ plans had to shift.
“By the end of the day, I was going to be in debt, probably a quarter-million in student loans. It was just too impractical, especially for an undergrad art degree,” Kegerreis said. “I had applied to Baylor and got accepted and had decent academic scholarships, and so I started at Baylor.”
As his freshman year at the University began, Kegerreis admits he wasn’t the best student, dreading his 8 a.m. classes and going through the motions relearning the foundational lessons of art.
“I had a little too much ego on my shoulders,” Kegerreis said. “I thought I was too good for the foundational stuff. Because I’d been so obsessed with art for five, six, seven years prior to that, it just felt like I’d already done all those things and made no sense why I was waking up at 7 every morning for art class.”
He started at Baylor majoring in photography, but an oil painting class that same semester shifted his direction.
“I had never really painted before, and that just blew my mind and opened up a completely different world to me,” Kegerreis said. “Since then, I’ve painted 360 days out of the year, every year.”
By the end of his freshman year, Kegerreis had grown to appreciate the foundational lessons he had relearned, developing strong relationships with his professors and peers. He remembers the professors that impacted him most, including Winter Rusiloski, Greg Llewallen, and Leah Force.
Rusiloski, an associate professor of art at Baylor, remembers Kegerreis as a hardworking and ambitious student who has continued to give back to the community surrounding him.
“Cade was driven and outstanding in his work technically,” Rusiloski said in an email. “He had a beautiful way with color! He was really supportive of all his classmates as well.”
In the summer of 2017, following his graduation, Kegerreis joined Creative Waco’s budding ARTPrenticeship program as an assistant artist. He was paired with lead artist, Will Suarez, to teach youth art camps and paint his first mural.
“I had no idea what we were creating, or how to teach that process. I was learning just as much as them and Will took me under his wing,” Kegerreis said. “He taught me that summer almost everything I needed to know, and since then we’ve done multiple projects together.”
A mural they worked on together as part of the program, called “1,000 Hopes for Waco,” is still seen at 320 S. Second St., depicting origami birds taking flight. Following that first project, Kegerreis started his own mural company and dove into his career with DVLVD Murals.
“I don’t know if it was just the timing of other cities doing it, or a few popping up in Waco, but then, all of a sudden, everyone wanted a mural and I was kind of the only one jumping on it and quickly did maybe 20 in Waco,” Kegerreis said.
This eagerness to jump onto mural art turned into massive opportunities for Kegerreis as he painted murals for the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the Dr Pepper Museum, the first mural on Baylor’s campus, the first mural at Baylor Law School, and the first mural on Texas A&M’s campus. He has since hired a bookkeeper — helping him juggle the business aspect of his artistry — and he occasionally hires other artists onto his projects to help with the grueling work of painting murals.
“Usually my summers are the busiest mural time, and it’s usually four to five hours of work at a very early hour and then the same thing in the evening just to avoid the sun,” Kegerreis said. “It definitely controls my life schedule because there’s really no time to do anything other than sleep and rest.”
Over the past two years, however, Kegerreis has become less active in the mural industry as more talented young artists have entered the field and economic uncertainty has made clients less willing to invest in murals.
“For a long time I was kind of a top name, and now there’s just a lot of great names,” Kegerreis said. “It’s a tightrope balance, but it’s an interesting time right now as well with the economy and everything. People just aren’t spending money like they used to.”
Additionally, opportunities in the art community are fleeting, and Kegerreis pointed out that missing a phone call could mean missing out on a job opportunity.
“As crazy as that is, I’ve missed out on a lot of things by being five minutes too late,” Kegerreis said. “I’ve learned now that if it’s meant to be I’ll catch it at the right time, and otherwise I just have to dedicate my time and dive into what I need to work on.”
Kegerreis is now diving more into studio art, focusing on physical canvas paintings and working with local galleries to balance out his work. He still wants to be a muralist but isn’t sure if his time in Waco as a mural artist is over.
His relationship with the Washington Gallery in Waco has been mutually beneficial as he’s worked on rotating shows with the gallery and is actively preparing for other art shows around Texas.
Days in the studio are long and mostly controlled by how his inspiration flows through his paintbrush and onto the canvas, starting around 8 a.m. and staying some evenings until 1 a.m.
“It’s usually just all day, every day at the studio,” Kegerreis said. “That seems crazy to most people but it’s kind of my happy place, and I usually have 10-15 paintings going on at once, so it’s never a dull moment.”
Kegerreis’ artwork ranges from impulse works to memories, to long-term intentionally developed pieces. His first solo show opportunity was an example of a long-term developed piece, as he spent two years researching and imagining what the project would look like before he even began painting it.
“It was called the “Devolved Series.” It was definitely the most influential series that I can imagine making,” Kegerreis said. “It sadly opened right at the beginning of COVID, so it did not have the public interaction that I was hoping for, especially after that much time spent.”
“Devolved” was meant to be a journey through humanity, with each piece capturing humanity through different areas of thinking like religion and civilization. Kegerreis took the unfortunate timing of the gallery’s debut as a sign that it simply wasn’t the right time or place to open it.
Additionally, with the rise of social media marketing, many artists like Kegerreis are also at a crossroads in their careers where they can either continue to rely on galleries to sell their work or build an audience online and sell directly to their followers. For Kegerreis, the gallery model remains his preference, even as he recognizes the changing landscape of the art world.
“It’s a hard tight rope of real life versus virtual life that still brings in the money to pay the bills,” Kegerreis said. “It seems very glamorous on the outside, but at the end of the day I have to sell a certain amount of paintings or get a certain amount of jobs to afford my life.”
Nonetheless, Kegerreis is looking forward to continuing to work on different projects with other local Waco creatives. He’s also still figuring out his specific art style, so every day is a new endeavour to find what feels most like him.
“Some artists go 30 years before they figure it out, but then also anyone that has figured it out says they still haven’t figured it out,” Kegerreis said. “I know it’s an everlasting continuous problem, but I feel like I haven’t found the first step.”
Kegerreis is traveling to Italy to further explore what his style looks like. He also continues to innovate, exploring different ways to produce art, including co-producing a multimedia project with Collin Selman in which each song is interpreted by a different visual artist.
The direction of his career may continue to change, but the constant has remained the same: Kegerreis is still creating. Just as he did as a child with the art kits his family gave him, he is still figuring out what comes next — one project at a time.
