Art has always played a major part in Jaxson Derr’s story, defining everything he does, with little to no break in between. 

“Ever since I watched the Pixar films, and superhero films and stuff like that, I knew I wanted to be in that realm in terms of art,” Derr said. “So there wasn’t really a defined moment where I was like ‘oh you can do this for a living,’ I just always knew that’s what I wanted to do.” 

As he got older, his artwork has given him multiple forms of deserving success, one of these being his Instagram gaining over 26 thousand followers, though he still remains humble about his accomplishments.

“I still can’t wrap my head around that my most recent one got over 100 thousand likes,” he said. “But the main reason on why I got so popular is because other accounts saw [my work], bigger accounts, who then shouted me out on their account.” 

Other forms of success Derr has experienced is getting to create a film cover for the horror film “The Cleansing Hour,” to which he initially declined.

“I said no, not because I was like ‘no you don’t deserve me,’ that was like the opposite,” he said. “I had never done anything like this before, I was 16. I was like ‘I don’t know if you want a 16 year old to do your first movie poster.”

After eventually accepting the job, Derr worked long and hard to finish it. Staying up all night the day before the start of sophomore year was definitely not one of Derr’s brightest moments, but it was that determination that led him to create the movie cover in the first place.

“I was working on it until the morning, so I got like no sleep that night,” he said. “But I finished the poster, and I turned it in, and everything was fine.”

His friends have described him as hard-working, and have expressed their admiration for him.

“Jaxson makes jokes all the time, and is often critical of his own work,” junior Dewitt Maxwell said. “However I feel [his art] is really good and I’m proud of him.”

Despite seeming to have a long way to go, Derr surrounds himself with people that only love and support him throughout his journey.

“Throughout my whole experience through art, it really is a testimony to how great the people around me are,” he said.