(paper scraping) (lively music) - I wanna get right into an intense statement that I have found on you.

Your work as an artist comes from wrestling with the unknown.

Take me there.

- Yeah, well, you know, the older I get, the more I'm trying to find ways of putting myself into my work, and really exploring deeply what that means.

And I've been finding common themes in more recent years of a lot of life is unknown, and a lot of things we want to control, and we just can't.

And so what does it mean to make peace with that, and to trust process?

There's a lot of parallels with that in art making itself.

You know, I start a painting, and I don't necessarily like where it's going, and you just have to trust the process and be diligent, and follow through and dive into the unknown, 'cause you never know what's waiting for you.

It could be something really beautiful.

Make peace there, live there, abide within it.

- So talk a little about this journey to where you are today.

- Oh, wow.

Let's see, I graduated from U of M in 2013, so it's been a while now.

Since then, I came to Kalamazoo, and got a studio at the Park Trade Center, which I still have.

I've also been working from home lately.

And I've just been panning this whole time, ever since.

Oil on canvas, watching my work kind of evolve, trying different styles, trying different ideas.

- Describe your work, your niche.

Where have you found yourself recently?

- In my efforts to bring joy to people, to give people respite from the weight of the world, to make people feel seen, to feel happy for 10 minutes, I've been wanting to use lots of warm, bright colors, lots of florals.

I really love incorporating kind of 2D, like, sixties wallpaper pattern kind of motifs, alongside 3D stuff.

I've been wanting to branch out more lately.

The last big show that I had, I had a bunch of paintings, but then I also had a couple of pieces that were crocheted, and one that was sculptural.

It was concrete.

I like to nod towards fabric work like that.

So you can see in this painting, it's kind of got a little bit of everything.

It's got- - "Limbo Sweet Limbo."

- Yeah, that is a...

So I painted it to look like it was cross-stitched, 'cause I- - [Shelley] But that's paint?

- That's paint, yeah.

I admire those art forms.

It's something very meticulous.

It's something very time consuming.

And that kinda speaks to what I was talking about earlier, as far as, you know, there's darkness in our lives, and we learn how to abide within it, 'cause that's life, especially in my own personal life right now.

I'm in a transitional time.

I'm gonna be moving soon.

And for a while, this past year, we didn't know where we'd be moving to.

And I've had to learn how to abide within that liminal space, within the limbo.

And so this painting is, on a personal level, a reminder that, you know, most of life is processed, most of life is unknown.

Get comfortable with it.

Make your home there.

- All right, take me through the process of making what you make on canvas.

- So start to finish, it all comes through my hands.

I build all my own canvases with my dad in the wood shop.

Stretch canvas over, prime it with gesso, and then lay the imprimatura.

- Wait, lay the?

- Imprimatura.

- Okay.

- So that's the kind of the wash, a light wash of paint, that goes underneath every single painting.

And we do this for a couple of reasons.

For starters, oil paint is very luminous.

It reflects light from behind layers, from all different angles.

So the wash that you put underneath it kind of helps set the tone, and inform the colors of the painting, how it's gonna feel.

- So you kinda knew where you were going, but then creativity took over.

- Well, I have the ideas of what I want in my head, and it's a matter of kind of wrestling that out onto the canvas, one piece at a time.

So I'll do one flower at a time, and then I'll do the next layer in, and then the "Limbo Sweet Limbo" is what I wanted.

I knew that I wanted that in the middle, so.

- And oil painting, what's good, what's bad, what's ugly?

You obviously have found your talent there.

- Yeah, well I love oil painting, because it doesn't dry right away.

You can continue to work with it, it can be, really make it soft, and as I mentioned, it's very luminous.

It has kind of a life of its own.

I love it.

So we've got the canvas, it's all built and stretched, and it's got two layers of gesso.

It's all ready to go.

Now we start the imprimatura.

So I'm gonna use mineral spirits.

It's kind of a paint thinner.

And I'm gonna use a couple of colors that I really like to use for my imprimatura.

I've got Venetian Red and Indian Yellow, so, very bright, warm colors.

Just kind of dab it in.

(paper scraping) And very lightly wash it over.

(gentle music) (paper scraping) As you can see, the paper towel kind of crumbles a little bit on here.

So before I'm ready to paint on it, I usually give it a good vacuum.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) That was a little faster than I thought.

- You got a quick arm here.

There's another painting we'll describe.

Talk to me about, maybe, a darker painting.

- Absolutely.

That one's a landscape.

That's a new thing for me.

In recent years I've been doing landscapes.

I did that one.

The painting is called "Making My Home in This Darkness."

And I did it at a time when I was depressed, and I was kind of thinking that I wanted to do a landscape, not really sure what to do.

And I was flipping through my photos, and I came across that one, and it was exactly what I had been dreaming about lately.

And I saw that image and I just had to paint it.

And it has been one of my favorites.

- Where have we seen your work throughout Kalamazoo, and how has this city lent to your success?

- Well, so I've shown my work a lot at the Park Trade Center.

I had a big show this past spring at the Arts Council, solo show.

Just of everything I've been doing for a while.

I have a few murals in town.

I've got one on the Vine Neighborhood Association.

Yeah, few in town.

Kalamazoo's been great.

It's a very warm community for artists.

- Were you a painter as a little girl?

- Oh yes.

- Was this planted in you early?

- I have always wanted to be an artist.

Like if you would've asked me in kindergarten, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?"

"I wanna be an artist."

- And I imagine you also tell someone who has these artistic needs and wants at age nine to, "Go follow your dream, dear."

- Well, yeah.

I understand I'm also very fortunate to be able to do what I do.

Life's hard.

It's a tough world out there, but there are definitely ways of making art, and continuing to follow what you know to be right, what you wanna do.

And it looks different for everybody.

- Did your art look different than it did in 2013?

- Oh yes.

I actually just took apart the last of my senior thesis paintings, and I cut up the stretchers to make new ones for my new series.

So that's that.

(laughing) - Onto the next chapter.

- Onto the next, yeah.

- What is the next chapter?

What still needs to be done?

- Well, soon I will be moving to Chicago, and I'm really looking forward to the opportunities that a bigger city can lend, a bigger market for actually buying work, (chuckles) networking with other artists from all over.

I'd like to show my work on a bigger scale, I think.

If I can, I'm gonna try.

- Yeah, good.

All right, take-home message from you.

How would you summarize what you do in a nutshell?

- I do, in a nutshell?

In a nutshell, I wanna make beautiful pieces of work that inspire people, with color, that give people, if anything, just a little respite from the weight of the world.

- I think "Limbo Sweet Limbo" has made that mark.

Congratulations.

- Thanks.

(lively music) - Thank you so much for watching.

There's also more to explore with "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" on YouTube, Instagram, and wgvu.org.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Support for "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.