When Jadie Keck graduated from Vandalia High School in 2022, she carried more than a diploma. She carried a spark that had been kindled years earlier in art classrooms, where teachers with kooky earrings and bright personalities showed her that being different could also mean being gifted. That spark has since grown into a life path that blends fine art, entrepreneurship, and the courage to embrace discomfort as a tool for growth.

Today, Jadie is pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in photography at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The road to SIUE started at Blackburn College in Carlinville, where she majored in graphic design and played golf, before deciding she needed a bigger challenge. “I was a bigger fish in a smaller pond,” she says. “It was time to go downriver and find a different pond.”

Her creative journey, though, began long before college. As a senior at Vandalia, Jadie joined both the graphic design program and the CEO program. With guidance from her teacher, Brooke Renfro, she realized she didn’t have to follow the paths she saw other young women taking into nursing or dental hygiene. “Brooke told us you can make money being an artist. Maybe it’s not a lot, but you can do it. That’s when I decided to go for it.”

That decision led to the launch of her own business, Create—stylized as CRĒ8. “Eight is a special number in our family,” she explains. Her father always wore the number in sports, her brother was born on the 18th, and her parents even have matching infinity tattoos. Through CRE8, Jadie sold prints, stickers, tote bags, and T-shirts, often thrifting frames and upcycling them to keep her work sustainable. What began as a high school project is still operating today, now expanding under her growing photography portfolio.

College has given her both a broader canvas and a deeper sense of purpose. At Blackburn, she fell in love with photography, and at SIUE, she has been pushing herself into new territory—double exposures, narrative projects, even self-portraits that highlight insecurities in order to strip them of their power. “It was nerve-racking but also exhilarating,” she says. “I put myself out there, and I walked away feeling empowered.” Those projects are now steering her toward thesis work that may explore psychology and mental health through fine art photography.

Her work experiences are just as layered. Jadie is a photographer and social media manager for Lanracorp, a right-of-way clearing company adapting to work with solar energy. She also collaborates with The Better Contractor, an online training platform and podcast elevating the blue-collar industry. Mentors she met through the CEO program even gifted her first professional camera, sparking a leap forward in both skill and confidence.

For Jadie, failure has been a teacher as much as success. “If I’m not failing, then I’m not completely understanding the process,” she says. She recalls test strips gone wrong, photos that didn’t turn out, and experiments that felt uncomfortable—but she sees them all as essential steps. “There’s no comfort in your growth zone and no growth in your comfort zone. I try to always stay a little uncomfortable, because that’s where the growth happens.”

Looking ahead, Jadie expects to graduate in 2027, giving herself an extra year to fully build her portfolio and prepare for gallery work. She is considering an MFA, but she’s weighing the value of debt against the belief in her own ability to make art that belongs in exhibitions. “I know I can make work that deserves to be seen,” she says. “The question is, what’s the right path to get there?”

No matter what comes next, Jadie is clear about one thing: she doesn’t want to be boxed into a cubicle or a narrow definition of success. She wants to create—and she wants to remind others that there’s a space for artists, even in small towns. From Vandalia to Edwardsville and beyond, Jadie Keck is proving that creativity isn’t just a pastime. It’s a way forward.