We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bethany Krull a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Bethany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’ve had an intense drive to create since childhood. My parents let me run wild, never doubted my talent and trusted me to steer my own ship and so I just followed the spark of interest in art that started off with drawing and soon switched to ceramics and sculpture when i took a class in high school at seventeen. I honestly feel incredibly lucky to have found my focus so early in life because at forty-two years old I already have many years of tunnel-visioned artistic pursuit under my belt with hopes of many more. I got my first validation that It was possible for me to make a living from my art in the first few years of college when I was making pots and selling them fairly successfully at local art festivals. My interest in ceramics began shifting to exploring ideas in sculpture and from there, I headed off to Graduate School and Received my MFA before bouncing around the country taking on artist residencies and community teaching gigs. All the while I was exhibiting and selling my work in galleries all over the country and internationally. I settled back in my hometown of Buffalo, NY in 2011 and have created a lovely little artist’s existence here.
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 sculptor based in Buffalo, New York working in clay (primarily porcelain) for over twenty years. My practice is expansive and has led me to explore many other materials that often make their way into the work which is rooted in my love of nature and my fears and desires around the ways in which our species impacts the environment and other creatures. I love to teach in both community and academic settings and maintain an active studio alongside a boisterous family of two young boys that I’m raising with my talented artist husband. Jesse Walp
How did you build your audience on social media?
When it comes to social media my advice would be to use it, but not take it too seriously. I primarily use instagram and have been lucky enough to grow a decent sized following sometimes, I think, by pure luck. (the algorithm that influences how far your work reaches is notoriously impossible to figure out) I do think every artist should have a social media presence because it can be a really powerful tool for exposure and connecting with collectors and art enthusiasts from all over the world who otherwise might not have had opportunity to see the work but the most important factor in it all should be the dedication to pushing the work forward. I tend to post a few times a week sharing finished pieces, images of installations and exhibitions as well as process videos while I’m working but I also try very intentionally to not let feedback from my audience (or lack thereof) influence the direction in which my work evolves.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I am a “check it off the list” kind of person so some of the most rewarding moments of my creative practice are when a piece is finally finished. Every single time I start on something new it begins with a spark of excitement and anticipation and inevitably moves through a darker period of tension and self-doubt where it seems as if failure is imminent so pushing through all that interior turmoil to get to the other side and feel like you’ve created something beautiful or, at least, thought provoking feels really good.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bethanykrull.com
- Instagram:bethanykrull
Image Credits
Bethany Krull (myself) no need to credit me if not necessary