GULF SHORES — John David "JD" Swiger wasn't brought home from the hospital to the white sandy beaches of Gulf Shores, but he is a local through and through. The Swiger family would pack up and leave their Hoover home as soon as school let out for the summer. He spent the break perfecting his tan and skimboard skills before heading back to school.

Until it all changed.

The New Orleans-style snowball shop his parents opened and operated during the summer was doing well, his sister, Kristen, was getting ready to enter high school, and JD was entering middle school. It was a perfect time to transition. The next thing he knew, Swiger and his three siblings were bidding farewell to their Hoover friends and moving into a house in Gulf Shores.

"It was different. Going to Gulf Shores Middle School compared to Hoover Middle School was different. Everyone had crazy hair that was naturally long, and I had gel all over my hair spiked up everywhere. I was definitely not fitting into the look," Swiger said with a laugh. "Thankfully, we were blessed to be talented enough to play sports and made a lot of friends through sports and made friends quick."

Swiger found his place playing baseball, football and track and field. He and his brothers also formed a skimboard team and dreamed of opening a surf shop called Swiger Brothers Surf Shop.

Swiger wasn't in art class in high school, but he did design his first logo in eighth grade for his skimboard team, UNO Skim Boarding Team, and started making and editing videos. He said he was inspired by the television show Jackass.

Art and graphic design were not on his radar when it was time to head to college. He went to Huntingdon College on a football scholarship and opted to study business. He always knew he wanted to be his own boss and own a business, and he felt that major would give him the basics he needed. He excelled on the football field but not in the classroom.

"I went to school for business and immediately began flunking everything," he said. "It was all macro and microeconomics and quantitative methods. I am not a numbers guy, and it was way over my head. I just started failing school, and I wasn't going to be able to play if I didn't get my grades up. It wasn't something I was into, but in the back of my mind I thought I needed to go to business school to own my own business one day."

One thing he was excelling at was creating T-shirts. He was underwhelmed by the school's branded merchandise available in the bookstore and wanted a cooler design, so he started making his own using simple supplies in his dorm room. The shirts caught on. Soon, he had intermural teams coming to him for custom team shirts, and his football teammates wanted shirts. Even the coaches got on board. Soon, he was ordering bulk T-shirt blanks and upgrading his equipment to keep up with demand.

Just before it was time to register for classes his junior year, his position coach called him into his office. Swiger was doing OK in school since switching to sports management. He was doing good on the gridiron, but he was crushing the T-shirt business. The coach asked if he ever thought of studying graphic design and helped Swiger see he was already doing some of the coursework with his T-shirts. Huntingdon had just created their graphic design program, and Swiger signed up.

"I remember going to class on the first day of graphic design, and I had never been more excited to be in a classroom. I was so stoked," Swiger said. "When he pulled up Photoshop and all the Adobe software, I was so eager to learn how to manipulate photos and get out of Paint. I had been using this rip-off program for years. I was like, 'Let's professionalize this, and this is going to make my life easier.'"

Swiger learned how to use Adobe, about different painting styles and photography and was exposed to a wide variety of artists. Soon, his spare room in his off-campus housing became an art studio where he experimented.

His trials with spray paint and graffiti even chased out his neighbor who couldn't tolerate the noise or smells.

He soon found an artist, Shepard Fairey, whose work he was inspired by and began to emulate. He liked his rouge nature and large-form work. Fairey was the inspiration for Swiger's senior capstone project in which he had to create an art exhibit of his work to display in the Seay Twins Art Gallery. He had a whole wall to fill and knew he wanted his project to have a message and a meaning.

During his time as a bartender at the end of Commerce Street in Montgomery, Swiger made friends with a homeless man who would ask for money in exchange for taking out the garbage at the end of the night. Swiger would give him rides to the abandoned building he called home and let him sleep on his couch when the weather was too cold. He said he found all the homeless people sleeping on a place called Commerce Street ironic.

He titled his project Commerce Street Refugees. Swiger went out with a bag full of McDonald's cheeseburgers and a blank cardboard sign. He asked the men of Commerce Street if he could photograph them with the sign. He was cussed out and chased off by some but found six willing to participate. Swiger said his friend helped him gain trust and access.

"The sign was blank because I wanted to type my own message into what they were holding," Swiger said. "One sign said, 'Keep your money I want change.' Another said, 'God picks favorites.' Another said, 'Be all you can be,' and the man holding the sign had an Army hat on. They were all saying very heartfelt things that were making you think and were kind of ironic."

He printed the photos in large format and created a mixed-media background. The photos were also hung high so people had to look up to the subjects. It went over so well that the library purchased some of his work from the show, one of which is a self-portrait that still hangs there today.

After graduating, Swiger landed a job working as a digital marketing manager and graphic designer for a construction company. The money was good, but it wasn't what he saw as a long-term situation. He dreamed of traveling and exploring his art abroad, so he saved and made plans to take a year off in Australia. His parents begged him not to go, but he took off and worked and enjoyed being creative again.

While in Australia, Swiger honed his videography skills documenting his adventures.

When he returned home in 2016, his parents saw a way to use those skills in their real estate venture. His parents purchased a drone, and he got certified to fly it. He created listing videos at a time when real estate companies in the area were not use much video. His videos doubled the real estate company's sales in one year.

His brother Michael graduated from Flagler College with a degree in graphic design and spent a year working in Hilton Head, South Carolina, before returning to Gulf Shores. He was pulled into Swiger & Company Realtors, too. JD focused on photography and videography while Michael took on more of the graphic design work.

The money was good, but they were still working for someone else.

The duo branched off on their own and created Swiger Creation Studio. They were painting, filming weddings, shooting commercials for a local business and making commissioned artwork, business logos and websites. He laughed when he said they would do anything if people were paying. The experience was vital because it helped them learn what they didn't find creatively fulfilling, like creating websites.

Over time, they decided to rebrand and focus on their fine art and became Swiger Studio. Over the years, Swiger has explored different mediums and styles and found artists whose work he liked enough to emulate. He and Michael started creating more art and hosting art shows out of their house. He created his first mural in his bedroom and worked to get out in the community.

It didn't happen overnight.

The first local break came in 2017 when they brought a load of their work to the Gulf Coast Arts Alliance and asked if they could display it. It was their first time being accepted into a gallery.

"Being able to post on social media 'come see our artwork at the Gulf Coast Arts Alliance' gave us a huge boost," he said. "Then we became sponsors and volunteers for Ballyhoo Festival, and we did all their design and promotion throughout the year. We also shot a highlight film during the festival. Then, the Gulf Coast Arts Alliance was introducing us as their new marketing managers and graphic designers."

Swiger said the experience with GCAA, showing yearly at the Ballyhoo Festival and being in the gallery was giving him more credibility as an artist. His art improved every year.

But by 2019, he felt his art had lost its message. He spent the car ride home from a family trip in Key West thinking of what his message would be, should be.

"I realized if I ever wanted to be known for something, I needed to have a meaning to what I am doing," Swiger said. "The day I got back to Gulf Shores, I hit the ground running. I knew in my head I wanted to use trash because that is something I have always been passionate about. I was a lifeguard on the beach. I started being a Captain Planet-type guy. It would be nothing for me to just walk on the beach and pick up a bunch of crap and throw it away."

He grabbed a bag and headed to the beach near his house. There was no plan, no vision of what he would make. He just felt a need to collect materials. He started working in abstract, taking a canvas he built and hot gluing pieces of colored plastic to it. His first piece was completed Jan. 10, 2019, just days after returning from Key West. His work continued to evolve and pick up steam on social media. He gave them titles like "War on Plastic" and "Plastic Invasion." Keeping the beaches clean was the motivation behind it, and he had found again in his art found joy.

In the first year, he came out with 20 largescale pieces that were well-received because the community could latch on to the message. But a pinnacle for him was finally having his work recognized by the Orange Beach Coastal Art Center.

"For the first time in my life, I walked into Big Beach (Brewery) and someone was like, 'I love your art.' I was being recognized for the first time in my life as an artist, and I was ecstatic," he said.

Much of what he creates now are 3D sculptures made with found objects, AKA litter. In his studio, you can see a knight covered in Swisher Sweet wrappers, a life-sized pelican made of plastic found on the beach and a life-sized alligator head made of plastic. There is also a shark that will soon be headed to the University of Southern Mississippi Marine Education Center in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

"I knew if I could beat people in the head with another piece every single week people would be like, 'damn, this is who he is and this is what he is known for now,'" he said.

He has found a medium and a meaning, but that doens't mean he has his next project pre-destined.

"I am excited myself. I truly don't know," he said. "Every year, I wonder how I am going to top last year. I don't even stress about it because I have full faith that the creativity is going to hit me one day."