(gentle music) - All right, Here we are at the establishment of Alexa.

I'm gonna call you Alexa K 'cause that's what it says on your door.

- [Alexa] Yes.

- Congratulations on your establishment.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

How do you describe your work?

- It's mixed media.

I make my own paints using my grandmother's crushed jewelry.

So I took her jewelry and I put it in a stone crusher and I crush it up.

And that's what creates the texture and the sparkle in the pieces.

And then I also make my own paper and I adorn the paper with crushed material, Micah, flower petals and different additives to create texture.

- Bring me back to the young Alexa K, the eight-year-old.

Did you like art?

- Yes, I did.

In fact, I had a journal when I was around that age and I wrote in there, "I want to be an artist."

And then I just never stopped.

I was one of those kids who, you know, I think all kids are into art to some extent and I never stopped.

- Did you study art?

- Yes, I did.

I received my BFA and MFA from the school of the Art Institute of Chicago.

- And what did you study specifically?

Did you have to choose?

- So their program is kind of open, studio art.

And then I concentrated on print media, which is a contemporary form of printmaking where you use traditional techniques along with contemporary techniques.

And then the whole time I painted as well, so it was kind of painting with printmaking.

- You mentioned your grandma.

- Yes.

- Tell us more.

- So I was very close to my grandmother and I inherited her collection of costume jewelry.

And that's what inspired the paints, is I was doing a 100-day project, which is this piece in the back.

And I got bored after the first week and I was looking at her jewelry and I was looking at the insects that I painted, and I saw similarities.

Insects are iridescent, they're gold, they're shiny, they're sparkly, and so are the beads.

So I thought, "Why don't I put my grandmother's legacy into the paint?"

And I started crushing it up and putting it in there.

So you do not want to crush materials just willy-nilly.

I use a stone crusher and it crushes the materials and then it goes into the air.

And you do not want to breathe that in because you can breathe in heavy metals and those never leave your body.

So when I crush my materials, I use a respirator and I use air ventilation.

- So what we see, the lady with the sparkles, a lot of your grandma's jewelry.

- Yes.

This is Gaia, Mother Nature, and I made her for a project called the Photosynthesis Project.

It's a group of artists in the Kalamazoo area.

There's, I think about 12 artists involved.

And we met for several years every month.

And we would bring writings and different inspiration, and we would sit in a room and talk about photosynthesis.

And then we created artwork inspired by those conversations.

So this piece, Gaia is my final for that project.

And this piece took me three years to complete - The process of your paper making, let's start here.

- Okay, so paper is made by using the pulp, which can be bark from a tree, it can be cotton.

I prefer to use cotton because I like the white in my pieces.

So I take white and I do a blending process that takes a few days to soak and blend the cotton.

And then I'll use a fraction of recycled material in there as well.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Shelley] Dimension and texture, expand.

- Okay, I am very interested in creating a three-dimensional piece because with the advent of technology and looking at things on the computer, like art had to become more that for me.

So I wanted it to be an experience.

I want my pieces to look different up close and from far away and from, you know, across the room you see a pop of sparkle.

And so when I started crushing up the jewelry, I decided to keep some of that texture so it would catch the light and you would get that spark.

Come closer, and then realize what is this really made out of?

And see the jewelry and the crushed gems and glass in it.

- Let's move on to other pieces, including there's a piece that well, is the bat?

- Yes, the bat.

So first of all, everyone has a story about a bat in their life.

And so it's a fun piece to take to art fairs because everyone comes through the door with their story of a bat.

And my story was, I grew up in a house with a fireplace, and every year, once a year, a bat would come through the chimney and it was the only thing my dad was scared of.

So I was the one who had to take care of the bat.

(laughs) So it's definitely a memory piece, yeah.

- And the piece itself, how did you construct it?

- I have made several bats over the years, and I have pieces that I always need in my studio at all time.

A Luna Moth, the female form, and a bat is one of these pieces.

And so I make it, I make them on handmade paper.

And then there's 24-karat gold and the embedded jewelry for the texture and handmade watercolors.

- [Shelley] Nice.

(bright music) - Butterflies, obviously, the idea of metamorphosis and that transition is an appealing subject for an artist, especially when dealing with subjects like Mother Nature.

And then I've always been interested in the small format, and there's a name for that, ACEO.

And it's a standard size that an artist can do and use it as like a trading card or like a mini affordable art.

So I was making these and I wanted to do a 100-day project and I thought, "Ooh, that would be a challenge to do a different insect every day for the 100 days."

And so that's how that.

It started maybe with butterflies and bees and then it grew into every stick insects and leaf insects and everything you can think of.

- How much is nature involved in your work?

- Highly.

It's something I think about constantly with my work.

I live on 10 acres of woods back here.

That was a Christmas tree farm that was neglected, and so it's all overgrown Christmas trees.

And there's coyotes that live back there, turkeys, deer.

So every day I get inspiration just from my backyard.

- Which leaves me to talk about your coyote.

- Yes.

- Talk about that.

That was inspired by, when we moved into this house, we had scary coyotes howling back there.

And it was scary at first because they're very loud.

And so I was inspired to do that piece and then also walking back there and finding their dens.

And I found a coyote skull next to one of their dens, which I thought was interesting because the coyote had been chewing on it.

So I thought like, kind of like a full circle.

(laughs) - What do you say to parents that see art in their eight-year-old?

- Nurture it, you know, just encourage it.

And it doesn't have to be anything formal, just provide art materials for your kid.

And it's good in so many aspects of your life, not just to become an artist, but there's science in art, there's math and art, you know, there's different things that you can drive from making art.

- So with your family, are there budding artists and how does the family make art happen?

- Absolutely.

They are all involved in the studio.

They all have a lot of fun.

My son really likes to make books and he's into the paper making.

And my daughter, I set up non-toxic glitter paint stations and she makes paint.

- How supportive is Kalamazoo of artists?

- Kalamazoo is so supportive of artists.

There's an amazing art community here.

A lot of artists like the Photosynthesis Group and groups of artists who really wanna get together and have conversations about art.

It is a very fun community to live in for that.

- Will you ever run out of your grandmother's jewelry?

- I get that question a lot and it is a concern of mine and that's why I use other materials as well and I kinda keep her jewelry for the very special, the big pieces and the pieces that I plan to hold onto for like formal exhibitions.

(bright music)