We recently connected with Kal Anderson and have shared our conversation below.

Kal, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

As a kid, I was always surrounded by art supplies- and books, and math worksheets, and dance, and music, and the zoo. I was enriched, all around. But as I grew into my late teens and early 20s I thought that I somehow should be settling down to do something more serious. And in my very sophomoric way, I majored in mathematics in college and got a lucrative job in MedTech, and proceeded to be miserable. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely loved abstract mathematics, just everything about a desk job at a major corporation gave me the heeby-jeebies (the heeby-jeebies is poetic but actually what it was giving me was daily panic attacks and a mounting anxiety disorder). Throughout college and after, my mom continued to ask ‘but are you happy?’ and ‘have you been making?’. She had seen as a kid that I needed to be making art and that something did not balance properly for me if I hadn’t.
As a kid, she took me to meet local artists, and to local community plays, and generally made sure I knew that there were artists out there making and that there were options and paths between hobby and world-famous.
It took me fits and starts to get out of my corporate career and into arts full time, but I continually held up my mom’s support and the artist she had made sure I had met. The local art festivals we had gone to and artists I had seen return year after year with their work. As I edged out onto the landing of my own career, she asked about my process and how things were going with motherly concern but never with disdain or fear that I was doomed to fail or doing something that wasn’t inherently meaningful. Mercifully, I never had to undue the too-common inner-critic that speaks in your parent’s own voice (I still had other inner-critics to wrestle with)
My mom at a young age started hanging my work, and when I got embarrassed at that awkward to realize your own existence age of 10ish and was like ‘oh but you can’t actually really like this…. like for real’ my mom very deliberately kept the art up and kept adding new pieces of mine to her walls, and continues to to this day. [She has had to cycle things out for lack of wall space at this point, but her commitment and support in unflinching].
Only as I hit my 30s did I start to believe her, that she genuinely liked my work and not just that I was her kid and she was obligated.
My mom still gets on the phone and asks me if I am making things, if I am painting and how it is going.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been painting professionally for more than half my life at this point. I started as an artist assistant as a teen, then as a paint and sip instructor and selling some originals on the side in my 20s. Between these was the aforementioned college time and panic attack inducing desk jobs.

I want folks to know about my unwavering commitment to joy, mindfulness and mental health within creative expression. I love to work with folks on creative unblocking and am committed to helping anxious artists with their creative process to be kinder to themselves. This is the work that I am most proud of. I have been able to create communities of artists who feel safe expanding and exploring. Including, curating an all queer figure art show and a multi week workshop for ‘burnt out gifted and talented kids’ to befriend their creative demons.

On a technical level, I am a master of color and vibrant pigments across media. I have been working to expand the techniques and methods for applying paint and I work in a mixed-media fashion at this point in my career. I work primarily on abstracts and landscapes that give that rib-expansion feeling of a full breath.

Here is my artist bio: Kal Anderson plays along the continuum of impressionism to abstract, showcasing his mastery of color and texture across techniques and mediums. After training in watercolor and oil, he took the techniques specific to those mediums and applies them in a mixed media context—particularly color mixing, glazed layers, and playing with transparency. Through economy of line and movement, the techniques and carefully chosen colors can shine in their simplicity.

The later works of J. M. W. Turner and Monet have influenced Kal, particularly in the use of light, color, and composition. He is influenced by Georgia O’keefe, in her use of nature to such precision as to tend abstract. Laura Aguilar’s Nature Self Portrait series has informed Kal’s work, in connecting the self to the landscape. Additionally, Kal is influenced by Félix González-Torres in his use of quiet simplicity to discuss deeply personal and complex topics.

He is dedicated to supporting his local queer community here in Boston. He started Queer/Trans Figure Drawing in 2016 and ran that until he closed the doors for community safety with the advent of COVID. Kal curated an art show ‘The Figure is Queer’ at the gallery and studio space, Dorchester Art Project in 2018, which was well written up in WBUR. He has donated a portion of proceeds to BAGLY: The Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, and donates art to auctions supporting queer youth.

Painting is a grounding and connective practice. Much like a meditation practice, he takes the ability to notice and appreciate small details back with him in his daily life. He uses this duality of richness in simplicity and quiet moments to inform his approach to painting.

Kal Anderson started his art career at the age of fourteen as an artist’s assistant painting backgrounds and washing brushes with Timree Gold. He continued by studying Art History and Studio Art at Oberlin College, graduating with a BA. He was Artist-in-Residence at the Chateau d’Orquevaux in October 2019 and was awarded the Denis Diderot AIR grant to attend. Most recently he released the minimalist abstract collection Because it Makes Me Happy is Reason Enough at Said and Done Tattoo in Boston.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to completely unlearn how I look at work vs play or worklife balance. My art comes from my life, and to have new ideas, I need new input and a lot of rest. I am continually unbuilding and rebuilding how I look at the importance of rest and joy. After I launched my own career as an artist, I thought to myself ‘it’s time to get serious- sit down and work every day’, and it’s just not possible. And if I sit down and get to work, before I doodle and warm up, it’s like trying to exercise while cold. These days, I journal or draw before getting down to creative work, and allow myself a lot of space to relax and enjoy small moments of everyday life (doing dishes, sitting with family, running errands on foot).
It has been hard to unlearn this protestant work ethic, of if I’m enjoying it, it’s not work, and that it’s important to do work that I don’t enjoy. I still do things I don’t want to do, but I no longer consider things I don’t want to do of value simply because I do not enjoy them.

Every few years, I get lost in the seriousnessness of Doing Work and I lose my creative flow. I have to then pull back, recalibrate and antidote with lots of restorative walks, museum visits, and good books.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I am continually looking to see how other creatives manage their creative side versus business side in running their art business. The thing that I continually go back to is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. She has a knack for explaining wayfinding and getting both to a feeling of joy and then to a motivation and a clarity to work.

Around the time I knew I wanted to paint full time and also thought it was a pipe dream, I worked through it end to end. I came out the other side with a budget and a starting place and some answers to questions like ‘why do I want this’ and ‘what about this do I like’. Her balance of discipline and intention with joy and rest is core to how I work; make a todo list, and also make sure I take a walk. I am more likely to forget the walk than the to-do list, which ultimately lands me in that place of block and frustration.

Contact Info:

• Website: kalanderson.com
• Instagram: @kalandersonart
• Facebook: facebook.com/kalandersonart