Blank Slate: Featuring Kelly Kielsmeier
Well, folks, it’s time for another installment of Blank Slate — our monthly collaborative art project where we bring in Houston artists and ask them to go BIG (or go home) on our office’s chalkboard wall.
Although spring has sprung and we’ve moved on to summer, we’re still reminiscing about Kelly Kielsmeier’s piece. For May, Kelly brought life to our wall with the cutest little scene we ever-did-see. Frolicking animals holding vibrant ribbons were just what we needed to get through this month of rain and muck.
Like many of our artists, Kelly took a gigantic leap (she usually paints on vintage china) to work on our wall — and we are SO glad she did. But, we’ll let her tell you more about the experience. Here’s Kelly Kielsmeier!
Describe your style as an artist.
I can try my best to answer this question. I feel every day I learn something new about myself, the media I use and where I want to push my work to go. I’m a rescuer of unwanted fine china. I take the relics of holiday family dinners and fancy parties and create them into portals to a sweet but slightly eerie, nostalgic and sentimental illustrated world.
Can you tell us a little bit about the work you created for the Black Sheep Agency office? Where did you get the idea, and what do you want the viewers to learn from it?
My work is an homage to May Day and was inspired by a collaborative installation with fabric artist, Jason Villegas we created for Pop Shop America. I was braiding long, colorful ropes to tie between tree stands I had built from the remnant of logs from a local lumber company. My kiddo was playing around with the ropes and memory of dancing around a maypole at school just popped into my head. Since I was going to be working in chalk and on a large surface I wanted to do a big narrative scene with the animals dancing around celebrating spring. I had a vague idea and did one very sloppy two minute sketch in my truck before I walked into the office. I wanted the creation of the mural to be like how a child just picks a piece of chalk and immediately comes up with an idea, letting the mural be a visual storytelling process.
What inspires you?
The classical tales, fables, legends, mythology and folklore that I read to my daughter inspire some of my work. The fantastical worlds and characters within these stories magnify desires and anxieties and question existential mysteries with characters that anyone can relate to and children enjoy. I am inspired by other artists, life experiences, travel and special requests from my kid. The well of inspiration is infinite.
If you could be any artistic tool- pencil, crayons, oil pastels, computer, etc.- which one would you be?
An oil paint pen. It’s a fickle piece of media, each pen with its own “personality” day-to-day. Some give you big nasty paint blotches one day and the next day beautiful thin lines. No two flow the same, even when made by the same company, which can be frustrating when I need a type of line. I usually have to buy 10 or so pens at a time to make sure I have a variety of “lines” to pick from. So the paint pen, the media with a mind of its own!
What is your most favorite thing you have created?
While I love my plates, my most favorite piece was created for Lizbeth Ortiz's’ solo show “Corazon Anatomico.” I and other guest artists were given a 12”x12” square wood panel to make a statement about the heart and what it means to us. I hand-sawed this piece of wood over my kitchen sink with a drywall knife in a half circle shape and cut out roses for the other half of the circle, with an acrylic portrait of a bear holding a gold leaf, anatomical heart in its wide snarling mouth. It was my first time ever working with a wood panel and gold leaf. I can’t wait to have some extra time to do more wood hand cuts!
What is the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?
I start my first pot of coffee and turn on the news.
What is the first thing you do when you begin a new art project?
I pour myself another cup of coffee, turn on some music and look at my collection of plates to see if something catches my eye and inspires me to incorporate the plate’s design with the idea brewing in my head.
Artists are notoriously weird. Prove it. (Or argue it.)
We all have our weird tics. Artists are just better at expressing them.
Has anyone ever said to you, “I don’t get it?” If so, how do you respond to that?
I’ll get this everyone once in a blue moon in response to telling people that my plate art is not meant for everyday dinnerware. I’ll explain that sometimes I use non-food safe paints, acrylics, glitter — which don’t mix well with a slice of microwaved cheese or your stomach — that my work is meant to be a modern, yet old fashioned touch of the plates on your grandmother’s wall. Grandma would beat you with a broom in you even thought of microwaving cheese on her state commemorative plate collection.
Fill in the blank. “I would die without _______.”
The love and creative energy of my kiddo!
What advice do you have for other creatives?
Keep on truckin’ and create for the love of creating.
Where can people see more of your work?
Online
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