(bright music) - Pretend that if you're not careful, your hand will just literally fall away.

- My name's Claire Kiester.

I'm a local artist here in Charlotte.

I do a lot of things with crochet and textiles, and I do a variation of two dimensional wall pieces and larger 3D installations.

(bright music) I really like crochet because I feel like it has the most flexibility, like it's basically just a series of loops that go together.

Anything that has holes you can crochet onto.

So basically what start off is a chain, and then you kind of go back and forth into that chain, just continuing to make those loops.

A great part of crochet is you can kind of go into itself.

So you can start working in a circle, or you can come in on one side, and create a more sculptural shape.

(bright music) It's really important to me that, you know, everyone sees themselves as an artist.

I think a lot of times, the more traditional home crafts or thing like, things like that get seen as kind of less important for the Charlotte International Arts Festival.

Yeah, I created this big installation that audiences could walk through and really experience in kind of all directions.

So I really wanted to use crochet to build a space that people could immerse themselves in to kind of empower everyone to see themselves as artists.

Because I think a lot of times people have these really amazing skills, and these things that they put so much time into.

And whether it's like throughout their maybe nine to five job or other things, maybe they're not feeling valued, or feeling like what they're creating has value.

So I think it's really powerful to feel like, yeah, you can create art, something really special and amazing.

(upbeat music) So every afternoon, I work with a nonprofit here in Charlotte called Arts Plus.

And it's an afterschool program for high school students.

It's free for them to attend.

The classes are free.

We give them all the materials, and we teach them a lot of art processes that they might not be exposed to within the public school system.

I was definitely excited to work with the kids one-on-one.

I think it's very powerful to them to see a person not too far from their age, like a younger person working as an artist and sustaining themselves with it and making a living.

I think it can be very daunting for kids, and teens, and young students to make that commitment to being an artist as what they wanna do.

I feel fortunate enough to grow, have grown up in kind of a creative household where my parents were very encouraging of my art, and my choice to pursue a creative career.

But I know I have a lot of fellow friends who are artists, where that maybe wasn't the case for them.

So I really love having that opportunity to give young artists and students that support that maybe they're not getting at home or in other parts of their life, to hopefully give them that confidence to make that decision.

(upbeat music)