Cover Artist Profile: Cave Spider

When Cave first visited Tennessee years before moving here from California, he was struck by the landscape in a way that would forever change his artistic vision.

“I was shocked almost to the point of fear seeing the mass of green that faced me. I was just so floored by it. That and the amount of water.” He adds, (mostly) joking, “It’s inconceivable as a Californian.”

This 28-year-old Chicano artist, whose work graces the cover of this issue of Breaking Ground, has crafted a vibrant digital illustration celebrating Tennessee’s spring flora—prominently featuring the state flower, the bearded iris, alongside black-eyed Susans and butterfly-attracting plants.

From Pain to Creative Purpose

Cave’s journey as an artist has been shaped by his experiences with chronic pain, fatigue, and mental health challenges. Originally trained as a musician, he pivoted to visual art when chronic pain made playing piano too difficult.

“A lot of my life has been struggling,” he explains. “Both with the denial of how important my spine is, and an acceptance of it.”

This relationship with physical pain manifests in his artistic themes. “Aside from plants, one of my favorite things to draw is skeletons,” Cave says. He explains that skeletal imagery became a way to process his experiences with chronic back pain that began following an injury at a young age.

“When I was younger, overcoming that feeling of ‘Oh, I’m doomed by the ways that I’m different from others’ and feeling that it’s more central to me.”

Over time, his work has evolved from skeletal imagery to vibrant plant life—what he describes as “a thematic gradient” in his artistic journey.

Adapting Processes

For Cave, the process of creating art is as much about adaptation as it is about expression. His physical limitations have led him to embrace digital tools that allow him to continue creating even when pain or fatigue are overwhelming.
“I used to do more painting and I really liked large canvases,” he explains. “But getting an iPad and being able to draw on my tablet has been a real saving grace, especially since my chronic pain and fatigue has worsened.”

His Apple Pencil (a gift from a friend) has been particularly transformative in managing his carpal tunnel syndrome.
“That has improved my ability to just be productive and make more art immensely. I’ve done so much more work since I got that Apple Pencil.”

On particularly difficult days, Cave adapts further: “Sometimes I can’t even really sit up, or draw, or have the energy to like, go get my tablet. Procreate exists on the cell phone too, so sometimes I’ll just draw on my phone.”

Finding Productivity Through Challenge

Creating art provides Cave with something essential that might otherwise be difficult to access during periods of symptom flare-ups—a sense of productivity and purpose.

“Art is something that I almost always can do. And I feel like it’s easy to underestimate how important it is for a person to feel useful, even when they know that they’re not functioning at their best. I just want to work. And sometimes my body and brain are trying their best to make that impossible. So art helps me to just move forward.”

This drive to create despite barriers has led Cave to develop a distinctive artistic process. For the Breaking Ground cover, he created custom digital brushes that allow him to produce finely detailed line art inspired by botanical illustrations. This attention to technique reflects his desire to personalize every aspect of his creative process.

“I want to understand every level of my technique,” he explains. “On the digital side, that manifests in making my own tools digitally.”

Tennessee’s Influence on Palette and Perspective

The natural environment of Tennessee has profoundly influenced Cave’s work, particularly his use of color. “I never really used green in my art, to the annoyance of my painting teacher. I much preferred more muted colors because neutral tones and also warmer colors are more common in the California naturescape,” he says.

Now, his palette embraces the lush greens of Tennessee alongside “little purple flowers and little white flowers, a lot of little blue flowers” that characterize the state’s spring landscape.

His creative inspiration comes directly from immersion in this new environment: “It always starts with either research or inspiration. And that usually comes from either walking in nature and or gardening and just seeing something like a cool bug I’ve never seen before, a plant that I don’t recognize and needing to know more about it.”

Advice for Other Artists with Disabilities

When asked what advice he would give to other disabled artists who might feel discouraged, Cave offers insight that bridges the parallel challenges faced by both artists and people with disabilities in a society that often undervalues both.

“You can’t let society stop you,” he says. “A lot of times artists internalize this struggle to prove yourself... and it’s easy to view every time that you didn’t live up to standards, or you didn’t finish something as quickly as you would have liked, or you didn’t make an opportunity as another proof that you’re not cut out for this.”

He notes the similarities between how society views art and disability: “There are some parallels between art being considered not productive and disability, disabled people being considered not productive.”

His response is to embrace the subjective human experience that both art and disability can offer. “I’ve always been friends with other disabled people, and I’ve really enjoyed the amount of difference in perspective that making friends with other disabled people provides,” he explains. “Art is another manifestation of the value of subjective human experience... it’s not just the image or the outcome. But it’s the process and the fact that a human person experienced the struggle and the joy.”

For those just beginning their artistic journey, particularly those managing disabilities, Cave’s advice is practical: “Embrace imperfection,” and “go outside... you need to see the sky.”;

Looking Forward

Currently, Cave is exploring new artistic terrain—learning to make paper by hand from different natural fibers, with plans to create and sell handmade stationery. He’s also designing printable stationery that reflects his love for “nice, high-quality little office supplies.”

When asked what he hopes people feel when they see his work, he says: “Mostly I hope that people can see that I loved the thing that I made.” In a world that often measures worth through productivity, Cave’s art and perspective offer a powerful counter-narrative—one that values process over perfectionism, adaptation over limitation, and the unique vision that can only emerge from embracing one’s own distinctive experience of the world.