We were lucky to catch up with Kia Tracy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kia, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Art was always my favorite subject, from grade school through college. It was a place that I could have complete creativity even if I was given a specific focus to work on, my teachers still wanted us to be creative. I loved that. In high school, I had always dreamed of becoming an artist and living that low-key lifestyle. Well fast forward a few years, after the birth of my first born, I had PPD and wanted a way to manage it without having to take medicine. Painting was that for me. It calmed my anxiety and helped me escape from the negatives of PPD. It wasn’t until a friend of mine suggested that I try to start selling my art at vendor events that I thought that high school dream could potentially be a reality. In December of 2017, I did my first vendor show and I maybe broke even that night. I still called it successful not because I had several buyers, but because of the community of other artist and their encouragement to continue working on my craft and selling my art.

Kia, 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?

My fiancé and I live in Spartanburg, SC with our two sweet and wild boys, ages 3 and 5. I am a live event painter and bouquet preservationist. I first started working with just painting random pieces to help with my anxiety and PPD. The way my brain works, I need multiple things to keep me busy and I always have several things I am passionate about. Painting has always been one of them. I remember seeing someone post about having a live wedding painter and thought it was the coolest thing. I reached out to a friend that had recently gotten married and asked if I could paint a scene from her favorite photo of her wedding. I instantly fell in love with the outcome! I started offering my services at a low rate so that I felt comfortable painting live and it quickly became the biggest rush. I got to show people my love for something while creating this special piece during their big day. It’s such a special gift to be able to give someone that is getting married or even painting a photo of a couple that was previously married.

I then moved on to making resin coasters and trays. I had a bride reach out to me about preserving her bridal bouquet after seeing a post I did advertising coasters. I was interested in taking my work to the next step and felt that floral preservation was that next step. I researched and practiced on store bought bouquets and searched for a quality resin that I could use. After I preserved a few bridal bouquets and seeing the newlyweds’ reactions are priceless. I love every process of preserving and I’m constantly working on my craft and investing in new molds to provide a wide variety of options for my clients.

What sets me apart from others in my profession is that I’m an all in one artist. Champagne bottle painting has become very popular recently and I offer those along with preservations and live painting. I like to have a variety of options because everyone is looking for something different. I take pride in my work and really strive to deliver quality finished products to my clients. Every piece, as cliche as it sounds, has my literal blood, sweat and tears into them. I want happy clients and their referrals. Word of mouth spreads wider that advertising. Especially in this profession. My mission is to create quality forever keepsakes of all kinds!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I am lucky enough to be able to turn core memories and special moments into forever keepsakes. Seeing the look on the bride and groom’s face after I have just finished creating a live painting from a their big day or a bride receiving her preserved florals is the most rewarding part about what I do. I started doing memorial preservations as well and nothing will humble you more. Honestly, it is all so rewarding to me.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

There are so many ways to support artists and creatives! Social media wise, you can share their posts to your stories and give their posts likes/comments to help with engagement. If you see someone looking for artist suggestions on Facebook and you have a friend that paints murals, you can tag them in that post. You can attend and invite others to their art shows or gigs. I think that there has been a lot more appreciation for helping small businesses and supporting the arts, specifically over the past few years. It’s been incredible to see the growth.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @k.tracy_designs
• Facebook: K. Tracy Designs

Image Credits
Captured By Hannah Photography