Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Lynn
Hi Katie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Originally from Escondido, I grew up very fortunate with a big, funny family around and a lot of support for my *interesting* personality. Most influenced by Steve Irwin, I would explain my Halloween costume of khakis every year, and that I wasn’t a fisherman, I was the Crocodile Hunter. I was always catching or rescuing something: birds, rodents, lizards, spiders, snakes(with a few close rattlesnake encounters), basically any species I found.
My parents finally gave in, although I think they were just as excited, to acquire dogs, cats, chickens, even a couple horses! They even let me save as many tadpoles I could catch from a drying up pond one summer, and watch them all turn into frogs & toads. I was in heaven, and became what is now known as a “horse girl,” with wolf shirts and all. My grandparents would often take me on nature walks in San Marcos, or my favorites, the Safari Park or San Diego Zoo. My family will all tell you that I always had bugs in my pockets, or would quickly disappear to catch a lizard. I was a very shy kid, but with animals, I felt right at home. At 12, I started racing horses in long distance endurance riding, 20+ miles at a time, which was both thrilling and challenging for me as a quirky tween.
In high school I was able to come out of my awkward shell with art, and by 18 I was already selling my work and was asked to start painting murals throughout California & Hawaii. I paint with a lot of color, and incorporate my love of nature, animals, & comedy in my art.
To everyone’s amazement I married at 20(I was definitely cat lady, or more like, lizard lady material), had a daughter at 21, and finished college with a Communications degree at 23. I always prioritized laughter, and it was in college where I started to focus on making people laugh in all of my speeches. As I knew from my obsession with the Crocodile Hunter, the best way to catch attention and teach something, is if you can keep things fun and entertaining.
I married a Malawian(African) man I met in college and spent 7 months in Malawi with our daughter getting to know the beauty of the land and people. Luckily, as an adult I was smart enough to not pick up a baby black mamba I found(one of the world’s deadliest snakes). I was able to paint a mural of the local children & make a short film of my daughter’s time in Africa. The experience over all was definitely not the tourist perspective. I was truly grateful to learn from the culture and humor of my daughter’s family, some of the kindest and wittiest people I’ve ever met.
By 25, I was back in California and feeling the itch for adventure again. My passion for nature and love of the ocean and tropics drew me back to Hawaii, where I had spent some time painting murals & living in a yurt after high school. Ultimately, my husband and I grew apart, and while we coparent our daughter well to this day, we parted ways and I’ve been raising my daughter in Hawaii since 2018.
I met my now fiancé & business partner, Yasir Bey, at an Alehouse in Kona Hawaii, called Humpy’s(no pun intended). I was amazed that he and I were both from Southern California, both fascinated with zoology, and both loved the arts, especially comedy. He said he did stand up locally, and I was very intrigued. He encouraged me to try standup comedy myself, and within months I had tried my first open mic and was hooked.
In 2021, in the midst of covid and adding a baby girl into the mix, we started Pineapples Comedy, a production company that hosts comedians from all over the world. Yasir and I now travel and perform comedy throughout Hawaii and California every year. Our home base is in Kona, Hawaii, but I sell my art and perform in comedy shows throughout San Diego.
Right now I’m expecting my third child, just performed in a Don’t Tell Comedy show, and continue to grow my independent art business. In our downtime, my partner and I are either at the beach or in the forest, hanging with our kids, two dogs, two tortoises, and two goldfish. For the future, we’re planning on a good old fashioned hippie homebirth in December, a wedding in San Diego in 2025, and have a comedy festival in works!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has been an exciting road. There have definitely been challenges. I would say becoming a mom at 21 was a challenge but at the same time, the greatest gift. I was so young I didn’t really have time to overthink anything, I just had to grow up. It made me focus on what I really want, and there was no time to mess around.
I think the main struggle many mom’s face, myself included, is balancing identity and mom guilt. I’ve watched so many women lose themselves with external pressures of being the “best mom,” “best wife,” “best career woman,” or all three at once! It’s impossible to juggle it all perfectly. I still struggle with this, but I think we all have to remind ourselves that we’re doing great, and it’s ok to not do it all perfectly. Since perfection isn’t real anyways! I want to be there for my kids and partner, but I also want to be there for myself, and do things that make me happy too. That’s where my art and comedy come into play.
Sometimes I’m too tired to paint, or don’t feel like going out for a few hours to perform standup, but after I do, I always feel so much better. I’m grateful to have such a supportive partner, and that our kids get to grow up seeing mom and dad work hard, but also pursue their passions.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a painter, with my specialty being large scale murals. I’ve been drawing since I was little, and I took an advanced art class in high school with an amazing art teacher, Larry Alberts. He would blast classic rock and give the students blank canvases so we could all express ourselves without rules or judgement, how I believe art should be.
I’m known for bright, whimsical pieces with lots of colors. There’s usually an element of humor hidden in a lot of my paintings, with the focus usually being nature, animals, and the female form. I’ve painted murals throughout California, Hawaii, and even painted a mural in Africa during my time there. My favorite works include a massive whale mural for a circus school in Hawaii, a street restoration project in Sacramento, an octopus woman used in a conservation project in Southern California, and a few awesome mural camps where I led students to make some special group murals for their school.
I use mostly acrylic paint, and I play around with other mediums as well, including watercolor, clay, and more recently jewelry. I’ve been enjoying making “lady business jewelry” wire wrapped female form earrings, which celebrate women and bring giggles to my customers.
Since I’ve always loved making people smile and laugh with my art, stand up comedy also came very naturally. It’s my most recent artistic love, and I’ve enjoyed challenging myself in this very vulnerable medium. I’ve always been able to remain anonymous with my painting, but comedy is front and center rawness. My style remains lighthearted, with a hint of sass, and a little raunchiness to top it off. My content covers being a woman, mother, partner, recovering people pleaser, and all the intricacies of existing in the crazy world from my humble perspective.
I think what sets me apart, is growing up as a very awkward kid, with the support to develop myself in an authentic way. From my childlike love of animals, to my experience with young motherhood, I bring elements of honesty and playful vulnerability to my work. Because it’s too exhausting to pretend to be something I’m not. I had to work really hard to get to where I am, from overcoming a debilitating shyness, to experiencing parenting, graduating college as a young mom, divorce, moving to Hawaii, and running businesses all before I turned 30.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
My family, nature, health, art, and learning. I believe that everything comes back to nature. It’s easy to get caught up in our fast paced world, and as someone who struggles with ADHD, the quiet of nature, animals, & art helps center me greatly.
My partner and I also both value learning, and I’d say it’s helped strengthen our relationship and has brought us closer through all the challenges that couples face. The fact that we both do standup comedy also keeps the relationship interesting, and I’d say the ability to be both serious and funny in a relationship makes such a huge difference. Being able to share laughter is such a gift that we are both grateful for, in both our relationship and our relationship with our daughters.
Our daughters are such a light and the opportunity we have to share what we know with them is truly an honor. They’re the coolest humans and have already taught us so much more than any other life experience could. Not to mention they are both hilarious and talented in so many areas already, from singing to drawing, dancing, football, and rock climbing, basically anything they set their minds to.
We all find ways to incorporate movement into our lives, as we’ve found we all function at our best once we’ve been outside and challenged ourselves physically. Whether it’s going to the beach for a swim, going for a run with the dogs, even serious monkey bar training.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pineapplescomedy.com
- Instagram: funnygirlarts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100035680404100&mibextid=LQQJ4d
Image Credits
Keith Eikre
Bella Donna
Cheyenne Atkins
Paige Hyatt
