We were lucky to catch up with Kenzie Miller recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kenzie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

I donate 10% of all sales that are made from my artwork to various wildlife conservation groups. I’ve always loved nature and wildlife ever since I was little; I very rarely watched cartoons, it was always either Animal Planet, National Geographic, or Planet Earth. I had just about every field guide you could imagine, even the bird field guide that had the sounds of their calls in it. So since I’ve always held that part of me close, I wanted to find a way to help out in the ways I’m able.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I was little, my mom would show me how to draw little things since I was always doodling. As I grew older I got better and better with plenty of practice, and I loved that I was able to get lost in creating my own worlds. Throughout school I learned about the history of some of the artists that I loved, and enjoyed learning what that artist was going through at the time that compelled them to create the piece that they did. Art soon became my escape from different events in my life, and with each piece I drew I was able to be okay for a while.
When my mom and I moved out to Utah, it took me a while to heal enough to get back into painting. With each of my thoughts, I decided to paint them and write down what I was thinking. That collection of mine is titled “Travels of the Creation”, since it surreal in how I painted it and offers solitude and peace while also feeling otherworldly, but the meaning behind it is much deeper. Each of those paintings helped me heal, and I offer prints of them hoping that it will help others get through their hard times.
Lately I’ve been focusing a lot more on my love of wildlife, and have been donating 10% of sales to conservation groups. I do offer commissions involving nature, wildlife, and space. There are also prints, stickers, magnets, and originals available in my shop!
My main goals as an artist is advocating for wildlife, and bringing back that sense of wonder and adventure that was within all of us as kids.
Right now the piece that I am most proud of is a horse portrait of a Warlander named Titan.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

So far my best source of new clientele has been at artist markets, and word of mouth. I think it helps meeting people in person so they can see your face and get to know you rather than a website/social media. It’s more personable I think.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I first started out, I just posted my art without a pattern to it, so it looked all jumbled and random. I wasn’t gaining many followers with that except for people I knew. Then there was this video I watched on ‘how to grow your following’ and one of the main things I took away from that was to make it aesthetic and predictable since people like knowing what they might see. So I deleted all my posts and started over since there was a theme that came to mind on how I wanted to organize it. From there I started hashtaging more as well, and my following really picked up.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goghwithart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goghwithart?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Image Credits
Photo of me – my mom