We recently connected with Kathleen Benyak and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kathleen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
I’ve had several artistic ventures since retiring from my career in commercial interior design and architecture that have included artisan jewelry design, fabrication and sales, painting, website building, creating an on-line gallery and plans for a retail art gallery and boutique scheduled to open in about 18 months.
Focusing on producing art in various forms has been a logical extension of what I did for a living. Though I eventually transitioned out of the artisan jewelry business, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of finding an instructor, learning the skills required to make my designs a reality and marketing my wares to galleries and other retail businesses. Jewelry design and fabrication is a fascinating occupation and one that takes lots of learning and skill to do well. I had some training and learned a lot from doing. What I couldn’t do skillfully on my own, I would contract to highly skilled life-long jewelers to complete for me. I was fortunate to sell my jewelry in a few galleries in Santa Fe, NM.
Painting and other two dimensional art, I’ve been producing for over 3 decades. What started as a hobby, has progressed into a more serious delving into creating original art to exhibit and sell. Having control over the sales process is important to me and has led me to create my own gallery, Heartworks, located in SE Arizona. The concept for the gallery was born during the Covid lockdown when we were all isolated and needing something inspiring to work on. With my fellow artist friends all in the same situation, I decided to create this gallery as a commission-free business where all proceeds would go to the roster of artists. Inclusion into the gallery depended on all of the artists giving back to the community in some way, either by volunteering or other non-profit activities. The physical space would be shared with my husband’s architectural office (so no additional rent expense) and featured a 50 foot long gallery wall just waiting to be filled with art. So I collected the paintings of my talented friends in both Arizona and New Mexico and got to work creating a website. I knew how I wanted my website to look and function, but had never built one before. Not being able to afford the services of a website designer, I looked to the WIX platform and taught myself how to build it from scratch without a template. It was a very satisfying process which led me to building an additional website for my own artwork. Having moved in late 2023, Heartworks exists now as an online gallery only. Plans to create a gallery and arts object boutique in a retail space are in the works and present a big growth opportunity for me.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I graduated college with a Bachelor of Architecture degree and pursued a career in Interiors Architecture and Design which lasted for about 25 years in PA and NJ. When my husband and I relocated from New Jersey to Arizona in 2006, I officially retired from that profession and started looking for enjoyable and creative outlets that would involve learning new skills. My love of jewelry design led me to learn artisan jewelry making as mentioned earlier and I also started working for friends who own a vineyard and wine tasting room. That experience honed my public interface skills and also allowed me to showcase my artwork in their historic retail space. In addition, I started volunteering for several entities, including the Bisbee Animal Shelter thrift shop, the Tucson VA Hospital and Tucson Wildlife Rescue. Later on I would join (and still serve) as a volunteer for Tucson Audubon and a volunteer and board member for The Forgotten Children non-profit which has raised funds and opened a boarding school in Senegal for orphaned and other young children in dire need. All of this work has been very satisfying and helped me expand my horizons on what I can do to give back to the community.
As an artist, I work in several two-dimensional mediums including acrylic, watercolor, pastel, collage, gold leaf and other mixed media. I love being able to experiment and create in ways that are always evolving stylistically. I seek to produce work that is original and not compromised by the worries of whether it will sell or not. My artist’s website www.kathleenbenyakart.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I’m pursuing my next chapter in life with plans to open a brick and mortar art gallery and art objects boutique in a successful curated ‘live/dine/shop’ development in Tucson, AZ. This objective will provide me with several opportunities including; owning a gallery that represents not only my work but the work of my talented artist friends who currently do not have gallery representation and running a gallery/shop based on a different business model than most art galleries. One that is built on developing community and creating a space that people will enjoy visiting. One that showcases not just art on the walls but interesting resale and art objects offering a wide variety of price and a space that encourages folks to come by and see what’s new. One that offers space that is fun and welcoming, not intimidating. And finally the chance to return to a retail environment where I can discuss, share and promote art and enjoy that connection to the public.
This is my vision and in order to achieve it I’ve had to present my concept, business plan and other supporting credentials to the developer of this curated retail environment for the chance to rent space. Saving money to cover a multi-year lease, assembling art and artists, website creation, legal business tasks and documentation and more are all part of the requirements to get started. I’m thrilled at the prospect of it and look forward to the challenge of pulling it all together and enjoying running the shop once it opens. Projected availability of retail space is 2025. Please stay tuned.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I’ve always been a visual person, either seeing the world around me as colors, shapes, composition and light or organizing the world around me in an aesthetically pleasing way via my career in commercial interior design. It has come naturally to me to want to paint and/or produce art. For the most part I engage in abstract painting whether interpreting some tangible image from the visual world or the dialog that occurs when simply putting paint to paper and seeing what transpires. Painting in whatever medium provides an outlet for something I have within. I create when I feel motivated and am in a happy place. I hope my work reflects my inner joy and connects with the viewer.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kathleenbenyakart.com & www.heartworks-gallery.com
- Facebook: I share my art privately with my friends and publicly with my Kathleen Benyak Artist Studio & Heartworks Gallery AZ
Image Credits
Kathleen Benyak