From Overachievement to Ownership:Choosing Myself as an Artist

By Kiayani “Kay” Douglas

For most of my life, I believed overachievement was how I would survive. As a Black woman, I learned early that excellence wasn’t optional, it was expected.

I wasn’t the person who stayed late. I’m a planner by nature. I led side programs, advocated for students, and took on tasks others neglected. I said “yes” often, but always with careful consideration. I set clear boundaries and showed up with integrity and intention. Yet even my most reasonable limits were seen as a threat.

What I’ve come to realize is that many of us work inside environments that feel less like professional communities and more like high school politics in disguise. It's a silent epidemic, all women across industries vent about it online daily. The microaggressions. The favoritism. The performative wellness with no structural support. Being good at your job is never the issue. It’s what happens when you’re no longer easy to control.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped being seen as a full person and started being treated like a machine that couldn’t break. I even blamed myself, performing ten times more than my predecessor yet receiving less recognition and more work.

Still, I held onto the part of me that mattered most: my art. I protected it quietly, working late nights, researching, reading, sketching. Then, in 2024, I was offered my fifth solo exhibition in six years. Peace as Privilege, Justice as Resistance. What made this show different wasn’t the number of exhibitions I’d done before, but that I had completely engulfed myself in overachieving at my job. I wasn’t actively seeking the opportunity. Instead, it found me at exactly the right time, a powerful reminder of my purpose and practice when I needed it most, along with things I had manifested years prior and somehow forgotten.

The exhibition featured 33 portraits from two bodies of work I built over years. These portraits honored Black life, loss, resistance, and love. They told stories that mattered. Alongside the show, I created The People’s Catalog, a 16-page publication featuring the show and my writings, all inspired by the Black Panther Party’s community model and Emory Douglas’s work as Minister of Culture.

But just as the show was coming to fruition, while I was finalizing installations, fulfilling press requests, and preparing to present years of emotional labor. I was met with a harsh realization. A perceived miscommunication, really a boundary I set, spiraled into something disproportionate and punitive. 

I was called into question without support, treated as a problem to fix rather than a person to understand.

It wasn’t just discouraging. It was dehumanizing.

At that moment, I made a decision: I was willing to be fired before I was willing to be disrespected. I would not explain away my boundaries to preserve someone else’s comfort. I would not keep shrinking to be seen as “easy to manage.”

I stood firm in my truth, documented everything, advocated for myself, and refused to apologize for being an artist with a voice.

And instead of unraveling, I rose.

The exhibition opened to an outpouring of support. My catalog was distributed to libraries, museums, and community centers across the Berkshires in Massachusetts. I was featured in new publications, offered professional photography, and invited into spaces that celebrated my vision, not just my labor. I didn’t have to choose between my practice and my profession. I chose myself, and the world responded accordingly.

Being unstoppable doesn’t mean working ourselves into the ground. It means knowing when the ground beneath us is no longer worthy. It means understanding that overachievement and self-respect aren’t opposites, they can coexist, but only when we’re in charge of the terms.

If I could speak to the version of myself who feared honesty would cost everything, I’d say: You were never asking for too much. You were asking the wrong people. Your work is not a burden. Your voice is not a threat. You don’t have to earn protection because you deserve it.

Today, I still work hard. I still lead. I still give. But I also rest. I draw. I research. I write. I speak up. I am no longer performing balance. I am living in alignment.

From pain, I found clarity. From clarity, I built power. That power gave me permission to be fully myself, artist, educator, mother, advocate, and beyond.

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