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

Hi Kelly A., thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I would say the main things that have helped me earn a living as a creative are flexibility and having a couple of baskets to put your eggs in. I started out by getting my BFA in Painting, Figure, and Drawing at Florida State University in 2018. By staying in the state of Florida and keeping my grades up, I was able to get a full ride through the Bright Futures Scholarship. While I was there, I balanced schoolwork during the day with delivering pizza at night, and luckily made enough to sustain myself til I graduated.

After graduating, I knew I wanted to go to grad school with the intention of being a college professor. I applied to schools across the country, making sure to only apply to schools that offered tuition waivers AND scholarships so I would know that wherever I went was affordable. I ended up getting accepted to Ohio University in 2019 and worked as a shop monitor, teaching assistant, and eventually an instructor of record and an education assistant at the Kennedy Museum of Art. I coupled the stipend from these with studio assistant jobs to make sure I could keep my head afloat. These assistant jobs included fabricating sets used in Bjork’s Cornucopia Tour in San Fransisco, and building frames and surfaces for artist John Sabraw.

Along with a few summer teaching gigs, I was able to save up enough money to self-fund my thesis exhibit: a 700+ square foot installation, which included a fully interactive performance with puppeteers and live actors. After grad school, I accepted every opportunity I could, including building giant animatronic Halloween props at The Scarefactory, teaching college prep courses at Ohio university and Special Studies at Chautauqua Visual Arts, and finally landed as a fabricator at OtherworldOhio and an adjunct position at Columbus College of Arts and Design.

Kelly A., 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 have begun to simply call myself a multidisciplinary artist, because my wide net of mediums is probably the most significant aspects of my artistic practices. I started out as a painter, learning in my grandmother’s kitchen every summer, but once I delved more into art as a whole in college, I realized that, for me, not every idea can be best communicated in one medium. I began exploring mixing painting with performance and installation, and it wasn’t always well-received! I think persisting through negative feedback and rejecting traditional ideals of art-making ended up really bolstering my “brand” as an artist. Really trusting your voice as an artist is one of the most important things to remember in creating authentic expressions that resonate with your audience.

I think one thing that some may view as a negative in the commercial world, but is a huge positive in my artistic practice is the ability to slow down when finding solutions. Sometimes trial and error is the most significant part of creating something that works, both functionally and conceptually. Moving into the 3D world was actually what taught me this. Objects that need to function and hold up to audience interaction can’t be designed well without putting serious thought into process and engineering.

I think what I’m most proud of is the amount of mediums I feel I’ve been able to master, most specifically using the security of grad school to do so. Just a couple are embroidery, needle felting, rug tufting, weaving, and soft sculpture.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One of the most rewarding things really started surfacing when I began teaching art. I had been a teacher in many respects before I started teaching art, but I remember the first art class I taught was printmaking for middle schoolers back in 2017. I was fresh out of a series of advanced printing classes and my skills were pretty sharp (probably much sharper than they are now!). Coming into a class where almost none of them had used the materials before, a lot of the instruction was troubleshooting. I was surprised to discover how rewarding it was to be able to share skills with students, to help them accomplish something they had never done before. A lot of the students would mention an idea and then brush it off as something impossible, but working together and communicating a lot of those ideas became possible! I had one really ambitious student who wanted to create a print of a full landscape with different colors and gradients, so we worked together using the jigsaw printing technique. He ended up with a five color print that was really beautiful!

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I think the library is an obvious but imperative tool for an artist like me who is heavily based in research, as well as an instructor. I started getting really into the use of the library during my time at FSU. They had an incredible collection of comics and medieval art that was so inspiring to be able to witness in person. There is such a difference in seeing an image on a tiny screen and seeing it printed in high quality in an art book, or in person! I think University libraries are truly such a privilege to have access to. I was worried about my research suffering after finishing grad school, but joining CCAD as an adjunct instructor I actually have more access than ever! My fist time there, I went to check out ten books for one lecture thinking I would have to put a few back. I nearly fainted when the librarian told me my limit was 50! Librarians are my heroes!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kellyAhanning.com
• Instagram: @kelly_a_hanning_art
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100034751936036
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-a-hanning-15623897

Image Credits
Harley Wince – image 3CC62FE2-7876-420F-88AA-3762F9FF453F Mike Miller (Model) – image 8C30A200-5183-4E89-BEA6-BFEE527D6DD0