Today we’d like to introduce you to Kellette Elliott.

Hi Kellette, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.

I grew up in Morristown, New Jersey where I always had a passion for art. I went to college at Old Dominion University where I earned my BFA in Drawing and Design with intention to have a career in graphic design. I did work in the industry for a few years working on products for Disney, Lord of the Rings, Mattel, Abercrombie and Fitch and the NFL. It was all great experience, but my true passion was teaching others. I returned to school to earn my Masters in Education and have been teaching for 18 years.

At about year 8, my students were asking me to teach them collage and that was the one media I was not comfortable with! I love minimalism, strong composition and that was not collage to me. But when your students say they want to learn something–you oblige! I studied collage in books, museums and galleries and the internet. I taught my kids the basics and it was a great experience.

I later moved to Portland, Oregon where again, my students had a huge influence on me. I challenged them to make art everyday to really build their skills and voice in art. I said I would do the same. Everyday for the whole school year. I experimented with drawing, painting, printmaking…but then on day 146, I had a vision for a minimal collage with strong negative space. I hadn’t seen that before but it seemed to be a great marriage of my design sense, but also tapping into this desire to use collage.

From then on, for 3 years straight I made a collage everyday. I was addicted! I loved it. People started asking me if I made prints, so I started an Etsy shop and started selling prints. Then I started participating in open calls I would see on Instagram. I was having success there as well. I found the more active I was on Instagram, the more opportunities came my way like commissions for album covers, book covers, illustrating for podcasts, etc. I truly was a dream come true. Due to a spinal condition, I am not able to teach in the classroom this year, but fortunately my art career has been so strong, I am able to lean on commissions, teaching workshops, and museum shows to keep me busy!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

I would say, in general, it has been a pretty smooth road! I think consistency is key. Making art regularly made me appear in people’s Instagram feeds often and reminded them that I am available for opportunities. I think one of my biggest struggles is a commission I was hired to do for a celebrity’s wedding invites. We came up with a whole plan with vision boards and inspiration, I worked tirelessly on the different contents of her wedding invites and she was never happy. I would do exactly what she requested, but nothing was good enough. I had never experienced this before and she became quite rude. I think planning a wedding can be quite overwhelming if you choose to make it that way, and I think she was just never going to be happy. That really threw me off because I had never had a client dissatisfied, but it happens. We ended up going our separate ways, without any compensation for the hours of work I put in, and I have learned I never want to work with weddings again. It’s just too personal for the client and too much pressure.

I learned from this experience that if you have multiple stages of a project, to have them sign off at each stage. She had verbally approved first stages then was happy at final stages, I wish I had in writing that she approved every stage.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I am a collage artist. For my daily practice, I do analog collage where I cut out images from old magazines, books, ephemera and create a new art piece from those individual images. Because of my graphic design experience, I can also build collages digitally when needed. Often when I am hired for a commission like a magazine illustration or album cover, I ask the client if they’d prefer analog or digital. The benefit of digital, is that they can make small changes like changing the size or color of something. With analog, there is only so much flexibility and a lot of clients do not like that.

I specialize in creating collages that tell a story. My collages are not like most where they are abstract. Mine are very representational so often for my own work, I will tell stories about my own life like the passing of my mother or my chronic pain. But I can also tell someone else’s story for commission work.

I would say working for Playboy Magazine or recently I completed a full album package for musician Justin Wells. Cover to cover, booklet, CD and record, record sleeve. It was custom collage work as well as lots of design. He was an absolute pleasure to work with, so the whole experience was wonderful. At Playboy, they were doing a story on the #MeToo movement and needed an illustration for the editorial spread. Again, the art director was wonderful to work with and we came up with a really cool design. I had access to the Playboy archives so that made it super fun as well!

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?

Covid-19 really did not impact my practice. I didn’t have as many commissions, but I participated and organized lots of international opportunities to build community and collage. I organized artist trading card exchanges across the world where I connected artists to swap mini-collages with one another. I participated in a mail art exchange where one artist started a piece and the other artist finished it. I also participated in a project called Art for Healthcare Workers, where a large group of us made collages for healthcare workers in our communities to let them know we support them and we appreciate them.

So my work pivoted for a bit during that time, but it was important to me to use my skills and talent to connect with others while we all felt so isolated.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kelletteworks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelletteworks/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellette-elliott-79b07713/