Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Art has always been my language. As a young child I was often gifted drawing materials and books on technique for special occasions. I had a wonderful high school art teacher, Mr. Maki. While we did plenty of typical high school art projects, there was one in particular that stood out. I recall him getting up on a table and doing dynamic poses for us to be introduced to gesture drawing. I grew up in a town of 600 people with just 40 students in my graduating class. We may not have had many resources but the art teacher made a point of displaying our work and supporting those that were interested in the visual arts. I would spend both study hall and lunch hour in the art room in an area that was somewhat designated as my studio/workspace…a separate room off the main classroom. It was great to have a place to work and I remember creating my first portrait painting during that time. Even earlier than that, I would draw portraits of my siblings and classmates for fun. Drawing from observation always came easy for me, but I liked just as much being creative and especially being challenged. I recall once a teacher trying to dissuade me from making a complicated stained glass piece. She obviously didn’t know me well! Neither of my parents were artists; my mother was a schoolteacher, and my father worked at an iron mine, but I owe my creativity to both of them. My father had a keen eye for well made things and my mother made sure we took notice of the beauty all around us in nature. Art has always been my guiding light. It led me out of my small town to study abroad in Scotland and to finally pursue my Master’s at the New York Academy of Art (NYAA) Throughout my education I had wonderful mentors and owe much of my success as an artist to them. Art isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you take that leap of faith, the rest will fall into place. These mentors in a way feel like the reward for bravely following my heart. After NYAA I took my first teaching job at Western Colorado University, where I taught classical painting and drawing. This was my first opportunity to pay it forward, and I absolutely loved teaching. If you want to master something, teach it! After almost a decade of teaching I decided it was time to step back from teaching to raise my family and pursue painting professionally. Now after a 10 year hiatus from teaching I have recently begun offering workshops again and find it invigorating to my studio practice. I just finished a painting that I put several hundred hours into and as soon as I put that last brushstroke on I moved the painting off the easel and couldn’t wait to start more projects!. My biggest problem is having too many ideas! But it’s a great problem to have.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Art is paradox, and this constant flux of duality is the very essence of creation. To be an artist is to live in this constant state of flux. There is an ebb and flow to your growth as an artist, there is an ebb and flow to the sale of your work, there is an ebb and flow to what inspires you. But, like any artist, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s like riding a wave; you can either be overcome by it, or learn to ride it, or roll with it. One of the biggest challenges for me is learning to balance art and motherhood. First of all, I’ve learned there is no such thing as balance…sometimes I let the cleaning go to finish a painting, sometimes I need to let a painting go to attend a school concert, take care of a child home from school, and several other ways life as a mother shows up. Again…it’s rolling with the waves, riding the wave…sometimes I feel super human achieving it all and checking all the boxes, and at other times those figurative “boxes” are left largely unchecked. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that this time of my life with children at home is but a phase, and the most wonderful time of my life, and my art will always be there…but they won’t always be young. The experience of motherhood has enriched my life, and in turn, my art. They have become my muses, and my teachers, making me slow down even more, keeping that sense of wonder alive and well within me, at that is a beautiful thing.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a classical realist that specializes in the figure in landscape. I also do a bit of plein air painting, floral painting and I dabble with pastels. I’m most proud of my upbringing, which I’ve been able to pull from continuously as a source of drive, inspiration, and sense of purpose. I grew up in northern Minnesota and the Finnish influence on my upbringing gave me a deep connection to nature. We had limited access to pop culture and spent a great deal of time outdoors. I lived on a dead-end dirt road (there was even a sign that said “Minimum Maintenance: travel your own risk”), so our house was largely isolated in the woods with few neighbors. You could almost touch the trees from the windows, and an idyllic river flowed in front of our house. I had only to step out our front door to experience nature and wildlife. In fact, on my last trip home, I was able to see a pack of wolves while canoeing. In the evening my kids and their cousins listened to the howling wolves as they played with sparklers amongst fireflies. It is truly a special place and I wouldn’t be the artist I am today without this experience, and perhaps this is what sets me apart as an artist. This has been challenging, though, too. The deep sense of wonder that I experienced as a child is something I’ve tried to communicate in my artwork and that can feel somewhat unsettling to many viewers, especially in my paintings of children. The paintings are not particularly nostalgic as there is a much deeper experience happening for the subject, and that is what I’m interested in depicting. I recall experiencing a profound sense of wonder and shock as a young child looking at the stars while in my driveway (the night sky in rural Northern Minnesota is quite unlike anything else). The awareness of my own finiteness and incomprehensibility of the infinite universe fell fast upon me. This realization, a loss of innocence of sorts, coupled with the sensation of “cosmic vertigo”, was almost overwhelming. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the moment that put me on a trajectory toward becoming an artist. It is this sense of wonder mixed with a touch of melancholy or grief that perhaps comes across in my figure paintings. Painting is, for me, a search for understanding, and coming to terms with, creation and it’s necessary ebb and flow. My paintings are also a love letter to the universe, and to God. So often we go about our daily lives without this awareness. And that’s necessary, too; It would be difficult to go about our daily responsibilities ruminating on the meaning of life all of the time. I think that is the purpose of the artist; a beautiful painting can stop someone in their tracks, and in a quiet moment they can access the profound, and linger there if they choose, digesting the work and its message. My paintings may confront the viewer with the finite, but in doing so I hope they are also more able to connect with the infinite, and the light and hope I strive to imbue in my work as well. This paradox is what sets my work apart from straightforward portraiture.

How do you define success?
Right now I’m finding that success is simply feeling joy in the creation of my work. It’s showing up to my studio every day even when it’s difficult. It’s kicking butt in my professional work while also being a great wife and mother and also being okay with when I’m not perfect. I’ve realized more and more that balance is largely unattainable and there’s always something that has to give. For instance, I am currently having a great time creating some online courses for the New York Academy of Art, and I’m prepping for some in-person workshops at the Wethersfield Academy of Arts. That means my large studio paintings have taken a back burner for the moment, but it all informs the work and also forces me to prioritize my time so I can still show up at my easel every day, even if it’s for just an hour or two. I have a tendency to think a lot about the future and I’m getting better at staying focused and in the present. So that’s my success right now.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.caseykrawczyk.com
• Instagram: @caseykrawczyk
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/casey.krawczyk/
• Youtube: @caseykrawczyk
• Other: CARA @caseykrawczyk