We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Kelly a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Learning to paint is mostly a process of self awareness. Because of that, it is less about acquiring skills through training and more about unlocking a personal language through life experiences and time with materials. Yes, I have a formal art education, but my most important artistic growth has always evolved from the simple cycle of deep social engagement outside of the studio, reflection, and time with materials. This triangle wheel grinds forward, but each part is essential. I am fortunate in that these three corners are complimentary in my life. Through teaching and a complicated family life I am pulled out of the studio, dissolved into multifaceted social concerns. This is important, gets me out of my head, challenges me, keeps me honest. As an art educator, I get to test theory directly through community engagement, see if ideas hold water. I have to build in time for reflection. Long walks, listening to music, reading and such. When I am in the studio, I try to be honest and porous with materials. I try to ask myself what processes speak to my lived experiences, what surfaces and applications feel authentic, but how to channel something that will reach beyond me. Anyway, growing skills in this cycle means saying no to a lot of external distraction and being present to self, both of which are hard to do.

Kevin, 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?

I think it is useful for every artist to have an elevator speech, that condensed introduction you can pull out when you meet someone new, even if it feels somewhat limiting. So, here it goes: my name is Kevin Kelly, I am primarily a painter, living in middle America. My work is made with complicated layers that reflect the complicated environments we find ourselves living through. I avoid describing my practice as abstract painting because I think it is a distraction from the interactions happening in the work. Past that short introduction, I often talk about patterns within my practice. My paintings are mostly tied to the landscapes and objects I grew up around as a working class kid in the Midwest. I grew up around a few family members who had creative impulses, but we were overwhelmingly a people who lacked the resources, time, and education to access cultural activities. There was a restless energy kind of baked in to this dysfunctional lot. Anyway, like a lot of young artists, I discovered in school that I had one superpower- I could draw better than my peers. In hindsight I can see that it was more than a technical skill, it was tied to story telling, a sense of humor, even poetry. I could disappear into a classroom as a very middle-of-the-road student, until a book report or class poster required some artistic effort. So, it became my identity, which became a practice. I discovered along the way that I was in love with both the process of making art and the classroom environment that fostered this growth. I became a first generation college graduate, started teaching, and earned my MFA in painting. This all happened in my community here in Wichita Kansas. I have become a big believer in the idea that for some artists it is important to evolve in and nurture the community that created you. My studio practice is still about this loop, though the paintings are more universal in their scope. The paintings are tied to narratives about political and social programming, nostalgia, and loss. That can sound pretty depressing…but the interactions within the paintings are vibrant, playful, even goofy. Making a painting always feels like channeling energy, and I think the sources I pull from have a lot of life, even in contradiction.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In general, I have a strong interest in our relationship with programming- the social algorithms that influence our actions and life choices. I am a middle child who was raised with seven siblings. There were working class influences (ideas about thrift and utility), German-Catholic guilt, and conservative political ideas all wired into my upbringing. This is characterized by a restrained dialect and rather strong opinions about how you should be spending your time. Art school and art practice had a way of contradicting much of this programming, emphasizing open dialog, ambition, and self awareness. So, in short, I had to teach myself how to be selfish. It is a lesson I still try to teach young artists. Be selfish with your time. Be selfish in your plans. Be selfish in your space. If you don’t nail down the regular habit of selfishness, you can’t really progress toward bigger and better habits. In a way, being selfish is your first declaration as an artist.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I had to give up painting once, for a stretch of about two years. Family life had gotten very compressed while my wife and I were caring for our children and her parents. Her father and mother were both suffering with dementia. In a crisis situation, you look around for cues about what is really important, what needs to be preserved, and what is sustainable. I remember telling myself that I needed my entire art practice to fold up so that it could fit into one bag. A bag was portable and could be kept safe as I bounced between spaces and obligations. I carried a sketchbook and various art materials and began my new daily practice. As I moved through a life that swung back and forth from chaotic to mundane, I took reference photos on my phone. Then, as time allowed, I drew for one hour a day, every day. It became a mission, to keep one thread tied to artistic practice even as life unraveled around me. I posted images on social media everyday, mostly as a way of staying accountable. My in-laws passed away a month apart from each other after a long, surreal illness. Shortly after their death, I put my studio-in-a-bag away, and began painting (larger scale) again. I still pull from these small sketches while painting. They have become an important library of information.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @kevinpkellyart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.kelly.9843?mibextid=ZbWKwL