We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kelsey Graywill. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kelsey below.
Kelsey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?
Usually followed by “master of none,” the term “jack of all trades” used to be my least favorite thing to be called, but I have grown to embrace it. It’s true that there are many people who with totally unrelated hobbies and passions, but I was always ardent growing up that it was a misnomer when applied to me. “Jack of all trades, master of none” insinuates aimlessness, ineffectiveness – a superficial knowledge of many things with no mastery. However, in my education and career spanning the arts and sciences, I’ve found that weaving together subjects, ideas, and mediums usually considered disparate and incompatible is where the magic happens. Studying multiple disciplines in tandem, rather than as separate, discrete fields, yields insights and discoveries that may not have emerged otherwise.
I’ve always viewed art and science as two sides of the same coin – where the coin is reality. The liminal space where art and science intersect is, to me, where what it means to be human comes into focus. And that’s been the driving force behind my creative work: to understand how humans live and express themselves, to look at things in unconventional ways, and to make connections that serve my community.
My undergraduate and graduate degrees are in an interdisciplinary topic called Neuroaesthetics, a new field interested in examining how we perceive aesthetics and experience beauty through the lens of neuroscience. It wasn’t until the 60s that neuroscience was considered a standalone discipline – emerged from the cross-pollination of biology and psychology. I don’t think people realize just how many of the boundaries we’ve drawn up to organize our world are artificial. My work as a “jack of all trades” creative and scholar has always been about pushing, rewriting, and breaking those boundaries.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As multidisciplinary visual artist, I have experience in a lot of mediums and I love tackling projects that involve lots of research, technical skill, and meticulous crafting. A few projects that I think represent me best:
– In 2017, I developed a series of coloring books that pioneered a new way of foreign language vocabulary acquisition through visual recall that was funded on Kickstarter.
– Over the years, I’ve also taught many workshops and classes graphic medicine – how we can use comics to elucidate the complexities of healthcare, insurance, and illness.
– In 2019 I did an artist residency at the Rubenstein Arts Center where reimagined my traditional 2D landscape paintings as physical, 3D-printed landscapes through heatmap topography with Blender.
– For my MSc dissertation in 2020, I created a series of artworks depicting painful stimuli to be used to study how artistic rendering impacted viewers’ perception of beauty and ability to empathize with others’ pain. (The findings are in the process of being published!)
Currently, I’m working on a zine series through Patreon which is focused on urban planning and sustainable transit literacy through community exploration by bicycling. I also just successfully launched another product on Kickstarter, which is a physical and digital toolkit for creatives to develop fantasy worlds for fiction writing, RPGs, etc.
The kind of work I do for clients spans a wide gamut: photography and video editing, graphic design and marketing collateral, screenprinting and mural painting, zines and comics, and data visualization. Multimedia projects allow me to explore the human experience with a richness and depth that I could not with only one medium. I love immersing myself in unique projects and much of my creative work reflects a deep-seated curiosity for what makes things meaningful and what it means to be human.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Building a career as an interdisciplinary creative is not easy – making a sustainable livelihood as an artist is already hard enough. It’s been difficult to carve out space for my pursuits, and there is not always institutional support for it. There are countless times that I felt I did not fit the mold, the job description, the grant eligibility, you name it – it’s hard to find belonging when you straddle seemingly antithetical worlds.
When I was in college, I was deeply involved in the leadership of the campus arts community and was heartbroken when I had been excluded from the arts graduation ceremony and celebration for graduating seniors as an interdisciplinary Neuroaesthetics major, on the basis of not being a traditional “art” major. Although I was intimidated and afraid of being dismissed or written off, I brought this to the attention of the arts administrators. They ultimately created an award in my name called the Graywill Arts Leadership & Service Award, endowed by the Duke University Union. Through the award, $1000 is presented annually to 1-2 graduating seniors who have made significant contributions to the arts community – regardless of their major. I’m incredibly grateful to my alma mater for establishing the award and honored to see students with backgrounds in mathematics, history, theater, environmental science, political science, and economics. It is a testament to the value of making room for interdisciplinary innovation and creativity being recognized.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Most creatives I know are visionary people – they see the result before they can articulate it or show its value to others. For a long time, the most satisfying aspect of my creative process was being able to see my visions fully realized, the immediate gratification of executing an idea and literally holding the product in my hands. Lately, I love the delayed gratification of watching a project grow in unexpected ways.
For my current zine series, I’ve been doing a lot of hustling to spread word about it in ways that I was never sure would pay off. For example, I printed hundreds of black and white copies of one of my zines and distributed them in my community, completely at a loss to myself time and labor-wise. Turns out that someone who grabbed one of those zines gave it to their neighbor thinking they would find it useful, that person held on to it, then months later I met them at a coffee shop that sells my zines and made an important connection in the community with someone who really believes in my work.
Every time a connection like this happens, it makes putting myself out there worth it. Getting your work out there is like sowing seeds: You can’t control where the wind takes them once they’ve left your hand, and you can’t hold your breath hoping one will sprout before your eyes. I actively practice putting my work out there – it’s second nature now. If you are diligent about laying the groundwork, I believe your art will eventually find its way to people who will resonate with it. Creativity is a two-fold reward: the joy of creating the work and the satisfaction of connecting with others over it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.klgraywill.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/graywillcreative
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCxjze3zqOcYbNRuVXvtqIPQ
Image Credits
Melanie Park