Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christi Ziebarth. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Christi, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s go back in time to when you were an intern or apprentice – what’s an interesting story you can share from that stage of your career?

It is never more true than for an artist–that we are put on this earth not only to perfect and sell our craft, but to share the flow of what we do and how we do it with others. We are also here to inspire and to teach and to give back.

In this spirit, though my day-job is a teacher of Art at the high school level, I brought what I do best on a journey from my studio into the classroom. I rounded up 21 old guitars by community donatoni and taught an Advanced Art class how to do what I do. My students were never more motivated than when viewing me not only as a teacher, but a Creative Coach and an Artist as well.

My students were never more motivated than when “artifying” the surface of a real guitar.

My students were never more motivated than when they knew their creations had an end goal of exhibition at a local Mexican Restaurant in our public community.

My students were never more motivated than when given the title of “apprentices”.

The instruments my hands art-surface are broken-made-beautiful. Like a car that has been totaled, these former musical pieces cost more to fix than to replace. I gather them like hidden treasures from garage sales, thrift stores, pawn shops and newspaper adds and random donations. I have literally opened the front door of my house to find mystery instruments sitting on my front step, shipped through the mail from an unknown donor. Many have stories attached.

Through damage, humidity, neglect or casualty, tonal resonance has been lost. Each has lost their original song. (Many of us have similar analogies in our own lives). Through art, I give each a new visual song as wall-hung or sculptural art.

Over the last 15 years, I have developed a signature mosaic technique using recycled vinyl materials from our local boating industry (I live in a beautiful midwest Indiana Lakes community). Gleaning from ceramics studies, this technique involves painting color-blended concentric circles on a potters wheel, meticulously cutting into right-sized tesserae and arranging them in tight juxtaposition across the surface of a broken-made-beautiful instrument.

This, I taught in detail to each student apprentice. Together, we created 21 monochromatic colorful guitars. A field trip bus-ride was arranged to hand-deliver and hand-hang these instruments on the brick walls of Hacienda Restaurant in Warsaw, Indiana just in time for the Cinco de Mayo May celebrations. They hang there to this day as a community collaboration bringing beauty and a great story to our community.

Christi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Many artists create on canvas. Instruments are my chosen canvas. 3-dimenional. Curved. Wooden. Beautiful in form. Here, music and art hold hands and sing along together.

We all wear many hats, titles and identities. This is never more true than as artists. Many and most of us must cling to a day-job in order to support our passions. For me, life has granted an uphill mountain-climb providing both a sustainable art studio career and teaching Art at the high school level.

Balancing the two has not always been easy, while I wish for a reader’s takeaway to include a Truth that there are seasons of life for all things, while ‘doing’ art in some way through all seasons must claim priority for the creative soul.

Teaching and raising my family of 4 children was a balanced focus through 2013. I then stepped out of teaching to pursue full-time studio work as a dedicated continuation of large-scale (12-30-foot works) for new construction buildings and non-for-profit donor walls. My studio produced the same signature vinyl-mosaic stylization I use on instruments, but on a large, large-scale for public works.

Despite my best intentions, God had ordained the timing as within months, my husband had a heart attack, we experienced both a wedding and a funeral…and the onset of covid. I was needed to focus on my family for the next few years.

This is when the focus of broken-made-beautiful instruments took first place in my studio. I personally connected with the analogy of brokenness while creating smaller works to sell and ship was simply easier.

My first instrument surfacing took off with a bang as a commission with the American Pianist’s Association of Indianapolis. It’s funny to say that my connection to art-surfacing guitars, mandolins, violins and cellos (stringed instruments) started by surfacing a grand piano, but this his how it played out (pun intended!). The piano was commissioned to raise awareness for the non-for-profit while in public outdoor display at Monument Circle in the center of downtown.

This grand piano, of course, is what I call a “centurion” work = over 100 hours. Through the hours of creating, many things go through the mind of an artist. This time, surfacing a grand piano…only music went through my mind. Creating became a symphony of music in my mind and music in my studio while each mosaic tesserae placed by my hand felt like a musical note in a grand composition. The creation of this piano lead to many conversations with music-and-art minded people and, here, I found my place.

After this commission, guitars and mandolins, beautifully curved in shape and form, filled my studio with art-musical collaboration. At first they were simply smaller and more practical than surfacing pianos! But, I soon became obsessed.

Finding these treasures and savoring the stories from which they came has also become a treasure. Like the violin passed down through 4 generations from a man who lost two fingers in a farming accident and never played again. Or, the old woman who met me in a parking lot to sell me her son’s first guitar she bought him by saving coins in a coffee can during the depression. My studio has collected many such stories and they are dear to me!

Back to the timeline…after four years of dedicated studio time (not teaching) and tending to family life-season changes, there was an opening for an Art Teacher at the high school where my sons attend. This presented opportunity to be at the center of their lives, so I applied and accepted the position.

In my mind, however, I knew my commitment to studio work had to remain steadfast. Each year since, in addition to continuing creation in my studio, I have brought a 4-week unit of instrument surfacing to my Advanced classes. During this time, I do not refer to them as ‘students’, but as apprentices. (This leads to the apprentice story).

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

It may not surprise you to know that as as teacher, my favorite book of all time outside the Bible is a children’s book, “The One and Only Ivan” by Katherine Applegate. This book has circled the globe as a movie and book series in recent, but I will have you know I was a fan long before it was famous.

This book is about an artistic gorilla trapped in a circus-style domain who dreams of freedom while inspiring his friends around him and keeping his own dreams alive. I read this book aloud to my students while they work at least once a Semester. The takeaway is how this creative gorilla used art to communicate when no other form of communication would do. In turn, inspiration ignited, lives were changed and dreams came true because he dared to dip his fingers in paint again and again and again after getting an IDEA. This book speaks of innovation and acting on ideas despite the challenges or impossibilities or obstacles or fences between you and the idea happening.

It also speaks of giving what you HAVE not what you wish you had.

This book has inspired a philosophy of following through on ideas no matter how big or unachievable they may seem. Take one step at a time towards this idea and each step will provide the light needed for the next step and the next. We as artists don’t always have to have it all figured out at the onset before we take a risk for impact.

I have one signature stylization I work in: acrylic vinyl mosaic. I do this mosaic across large-scale works for public and non-for-profit lobbies…AND, a long time ago, I began using my scraps for these big works to surface atop instruments. This is where it all began.

How does an artist get started landing big jobs for big places? At the time, I was teaching and I knew my time and resources were limited, yet, I had a dream to do big pieces. Like Ivan, I tried to focus on what I did have (students and educational grants) instead of what I didn’t have (time).

I wrote an educational grant for students to be involved in giving-back to community by creating a large work of art for the public lobby of a new construction office for a local non-for-profit. The grant was accepted, the non-for-profit was elated and the students were deeply impacted by their participation. My dream came true. This lead to more commissions which lead to the piano commission with the American Piannist’s Association of Indianapolis which lead to my surfacing guitars and mandolins.

Thank you, Ivan!

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

At this stage in the journey, my large-scale works of art have been the recipient of 9 grants that made ideas become reality.

Years ago, when I first began creating art (for the market), it felt like an uphill climb. I was too autonomous and clung to the belief that if I just worked longer, tried harder and stretched my influence further and wider that eventually my “dreams would come true.”

In reality, things didn’t start happening for me until I began relying on and pursuing connections and collaborations with community. Each grant I wrote and each non-for-profit entity I worked with for large-scale public works or instruments i donated to fund-raising auctions lead to another and another sale or connection or commission by word of mouth.

I wish I had known that there are moneys out there available just looking for a passionate match. BUT, grants and grant boards want to not just know what you want to do, they want to know that you have had skin in the game in the past. They want to know that you have sacrificed as well (giving). The first few large-scale pieces I did, I wrote grants for materials, but did not expect or ask for an artist’s stipend in the spirit of giving-back. I was clear about this intention and outcome in my writing.

What this provided for me was valuable experience and a record of success and character (and successful record of using monetary grant-funded moneys appropriately). Once I had a few successful jobs on my record, the paying jobs began to rise forward because I had “been there and done that”.

For a beginning artist with big dreams, it can be a big jump to those big dreams. We need to get there in small and innovative steps sometimes which can lead to big things later. This I have found to be true.

Even my first big commissions for instruments came in a spirit of collaborative community giving. I have never had more hits on my website than when I paired with an Events company to surface an instrument for a well-known musician coming to town hosting for a non-for-profit. I offered to surface 3 ukuleles that the musician played during the concert. The instruments were then auctioned at the close of the concert raising over 5,000.00 for the cause.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.spinmosaic.com
• Facebook: Christi Lee Ziebarth