We were lucky to catch up with Tara Kesner recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tara, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I left the full time corporate world when I was pregnant with my second daughter, to be a full time mom. By the time my third daughter was getting ready to start preschool, I started to worry about how to fulfill myself, and my life without children at home during the day. Looking for what I thought would be a new hobby, I revisited art, which I had enjoyed quite a bit in my youth. I thought I would start an Instagram page for my artistic journey, and by the time I had created about 5 works, I was already being asked to sell the pieces. 2 days later, I had created a website and received a business license and sales tax certificate. My husband encouraged me to take it seriously; and I was signed by a gallery approximately two months later. I had my first individual gallery show shortly thereafter, which nearly sold out.

Now here I am, several years into my third career (executive, mom and now artist), having sold hundreds of paintings, and living a life I could never have imagined. In addition to my art, I own and operate a wholesale Italian sausage business. It may sound like a mixed bag of jobs, but they all combine to keep me happy, feel like I’m needed, and motivated for personal development.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a forty something mother of three daughters, with a wonderful husband who is an entrepreneur, executive, and business owner himself. My primary business is fine art painting. I work with acrylics and mixed media, creating large and small scale abstract works on canvas. I frequently work with individuals and designers to commission custom works to suit specific scales, color schemes and preferences. I am a young, energetic painter, able to work with the client to develop pieces that best suit their space. I believe my work stands out from the crowd, in movement, color and style. I’m inspired primarily by color, energy, music and dance. My works are characterized by the ideas of mood and the senses. I am so proud of my achievement in a short time, but plan to continuously develop my craft. I learn something from each work I create, and each client I work with.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’m inspired primarily by life. I see things in nature or urban environments that require a photo or video. I use these things from which to draw color, composition, and movement inspiration. When covid came upon us, I found myself withdrawing from outside of my home quite a bit. I struggled with energy levels. I struggled with happiness. I put my husband and children first, and had a hard time figuring out how to break through my creative block. I asked myself, “How do I find inspiration when I’m not really even leaving my home? How do I find time to focus when my children have needs with their schooling, socialization, exercise and entertainment?” I didn’t have answers to these questions, and I had a very hard time pushing forward. Just these past couple months, I’ve found myself pushing forward. As I found some of my energy returning to me, and getting outdoors more, I began seeing those little moments and visuals that I needed to pull me back towards creating. Developing discipline as a creative is of the utmost importance for success. It is very easy to let life, failures, criticism, negative self talk … fear … take over and keep you from being inspired. However, one thing I have learned, is that even the negativity can inspire work. It might be moodier, it might be darker, it might be sadder, but those emotions have a great deal of beauty as well. When I try to see beauty and light in all things, it brings my work depth and a stronger range of emotion. Realizing that I needed both light and darkness in my work was one of the most important things I’ve learned thus far in my career.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

As a former member of the corporate world, specializing in information technology, I full understand NFTs from a conceptual point of view. I can understand the allure of owning digital intellectual property. However, I find the medium devoid of soul. In our home, the children are allowed to run their fingers gently and respectfully across the art collection. Art of all genres and by artists of all types, sits on every surface, in every visual plane, at every level in our home. The children have spectacular commissions by world class artists in each one of their bedrooms. Paint deserves texture. It deserves to see the light travel across it. It deserves to bring color to a home. Three dimensional art fills space and moves my spirit. NFTs do none of those things, unless you spend your whole life in the digital space. My view is that the purpose of art is to enrich, and create shared experience, with people in the physical world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tarakesner.com
• Instagram: @tarakesnerart

Image Credits
Paul Versluis