We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kristen Ulla Grunewald a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kristen Ulla thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

Life is full of challenges both personally and professionally and it is up to us as humans to struggle through them and to grow from them. Most personal growth comes from pain and it is never comfortable – but it is necessary. Every painful life event offers us an opportunity to be transformed. Art is a reflection of life and so these painful events can offer us artists an opportunity to push our art to another level.

This past March I lost my man who had been my partner and my best friend for almost 20 years. Even though he had health issues I was not ready for him to leave me. He passed away and I was thrown into a whirlwind of grief. As an artist I feel that I am hypersensitive to life’s dramatic events and the pain that I experienced cut deep into my heart and shook my soul. I was devastated. I could not function. My brain was not working. I have heard about cancer patients having “chemo brain” and I feel there is also a condition that happens to a person who is going through the grieving process. I call this loss of mental function “grief brain.” I could not think clearly because the pain was so overwhelming. I had a choice to either give up or push forward. I chose to push forward and use the pain that I was experiencing and inject it into my art. I made a conscious decision to paint through my heartbreak. I attacked my canvases with all that I had, and the paint became my expression for my grief and suddenly, without me realizing it, my work shifted. I was painting with pure emotion and what resulted on the canvas was incredibly beautiful. The grief was forcing my work to evolve into something deeper and more meaningful, I was evolving into a painter who paints with freedom and emotion. I became inspired; however, life was not done clobbering me.

I rely on my eyes for my art profession. Three months after losing my partner I experienced a detached retina and went blind in my left eye. I was told that I would not regain vision in that eye. Once again, I was challenged, and I had to make a mental decision that I would not accept that diagnosis, that I would not give up and I would step up and fight through this next challenge. I am an artist, and my eyes are my life. I was in a battle to save my life.

Six months of battling through the medical procedures and therapies and two eye surgeries later I now have approximately 60% of my vision back in my left eye. I went from being blind in my eye, of being told I would never see again with that eye, to being able to see shapes and colors. I am so grateful and thankful that I can at least see that much, and that I still have good vision in my right eye. I thank God every day that I have vision and that I am still able do the thing that I love to do which is to create art. These challenges I went through made me ever so grateful for what I do have in my life.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I was born into a family of artists and so it was a natural path for me to choose art as a profession. My grandfather was a plein air painter in Europe who painted the snow-covered Alps in Switzerland, and my father was also a talented landscape oil painter. I feel as if I grew up holding a drawing pencil and a paint brush in my hand and of course I was encouraged by my parents to keep creating.

I have come full circle with my art. As a child I was attracted to faces, especially eyes. I would sit and doodle faces. Through the years I have painted almost everything from landscapes to abstract pieces to people and animals. I realize that for me as an artist I am attracted to and enjoy painting anything that has a heartbeat. I am back to painting faces and eyes and all things that have a pulse. I feel so lucky to be able to make a living off of the thing that I love to do which is to paint and draw and create.

Art is a personal expression of our lives here on earth. Art brings an energy into the environment it exists in and so it should be chosen because a person feels something when they look at it. If a person wants joy in their lives, they should choose a piece of art that makes them feel joyous. I love the fact that I can create oil paintings that bring happiness to people, or inspiration, or other positive human emotions into their homes or businesses. It is important to live and work in spaces that add to the positive health of our mental state. Art does this.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The ultimate goal for me in my creative journey is to push boundaries and to get people to see things with a different perspective. It can be as simple as making a person stop and look at a thing that they had not noticed before and to have them really see it in its authenticity. It can be painting something small, such as a butterfly, and enlarge it onto a 30″ x 40″ canvas, so that a person can truly see the intricacies and beauty of this tiny creature.

I also have the desire to simply bring beauty and happiness into people’s lives. Long ago I was given advice by a very talented artist, and he told me to “paint your hates While that may have worked for this highly respected artist, I would like to change that advice to “paint your passions.” Whatever I paint I want it to be something that I feel strongly about. I also prefer to view life from more positive emotions than hate. My work is colorful and can contain movement that I have been told makes the viewer feel good. A goal of wanting to make people feel good is an honorable one for sure.

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

This past year has forced me to prove that I have incredible strength and resilience. One doesn’t know what he or she is made of until one is tested, and this past year has definitely been a challenge and I believe that I have proven to myself that I am strong and determined. I survived the grief from the passing of my best friend and partner, and I fought to get my eyesight back. There were other struggles I experienced from the domino effect of these painful events, and I survived. I made a conscious decision to not cower and run away but to face it all, to allow myself to feel the pain, and I survived it all with more determination than ever.

The lesson I learned; Never give in, never give up, never compromise when it comes to your passion. Be authentic. Paint your passions. Paint what your heart tells you to and do not paint what others think you should paint or because you think a certain type of art will sell.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kristengrunewald.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristenulla/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristenulla

Image Credits
Myself