Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Krist Wingate. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Krist, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

When I was in middle school I had an art teacher I was always trying to prove myself to. I have always loved art and was so excited to learn more and grow as an artist. We had weekly sketchbook pages where my imagination would take over and I would spend entire weekends on a single assignment. However, this teacher was very critical and I was very sensitive. Her grading of my work tore down my self esteem, and it impacted my love for my art and myself for years to come. I became unwilling to try because I would always find myself feeling inadequate. I stopped drawing, and had basically given up on art.

I decided to take an Intro to Photography class, there my creative soul bloomed and flourished. I fell back in love with art and gained a very new, yet similar, confidence in my work. It wasn’t until I was a senior in high school that I finally stepped foot into a drawing class again. I was scared, intimidated and very embarrassed to feel like I was so far behind other friends I had in the AP 2-D Design drawing class. To my surprise, I was met with so much kindness and genuine advice for how to improve. I had finally found people that believed in me. I had the most amazing drawing teacher, and one day he asked me why I had never taken a drawing class sooner. I told him about my middle school teacher, and he understood right away how this person’s teaching had effected me.

The validation I received from both my drawing and photography teachers are what inspired me to keep going. They both saw so much potential in me that I was only barely starting to understand myself. Because of their support and time as role models in those years, I decided to be an art teacher. I wanted to give back to other students like me, inspire and give a listening ear to their experiences. I was so focused on the teaching aspect, that when I got to college and began my art classes a whole new level of insecurity came out of me. There I was, a 19 year old with only one semester of drawing and 2 years of photography under my belt, feeling so small in comparison to the Fine Arts majors that had taken years of art classes.

I questioned often if my path was the right one, because I never made any art on my own outside of class. I would get so caught up on not knowing how to do something, not knowing the steps to get to the result I was after. I had two more amazing art teachers in college that changed my entire way of thinking about myself and the way I would create. My drawing teacher shared with us often about the impermanence of art, and how the act of staying stuck on the same idea actually holds you back from the freedom of allowing the art to evolve and change. We should be willing to completely destroy a piece or an idea for the sake of moving forward in our creation. The other teacher I had for printmaking. He shared with us the beauty of not knowing what the final image would look like because so much of printmaking is a big experiment.

I would get so caught up on not knowing how to do things and my undiagnosed ADHD deemed the task of learning as too overwhelming. Then COVID lockdown happened. I had just been formally diagnosed and prescribed Adderall. For the first time in my life I had the bandwidth and words of wisdom from my teachers to guide me towards my greatest adventure. One day, on Easter, I remember having a very distinct image pop into my mind. This image turned into my first painting, and sparked months of feverishly watching Bob Ross to learn more about landscape painting to create backgrounds. I was a whole new person, not just an art teacher but an ARTIST.

I learned to do what I do because I was taught how to be willing to mess up. To let go of my perfectionism. The greatest skill I gained was a change in my mindset, because everything changed once I allowed myself to view my ability in art differently. I had to allow myself to not let my past experiences hold me back.

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?

I got into this craft as a child, making comics with my cousin and other friends at school and drawing from magazines I saw. I taught myself to paint, I had built up a photography business, but it wasn’t for many years until I settled with the idea that what I was doing just didn’t have the same fun energy to it anymore. I made a change, and put all of my focus into making creating from the lens of my inner child the priority. I got back into drawing, which turned into character drawing and then creature drawing. I’ve overcome a lot to reach this point and what matters to me now is having fun and being able to inspire others.

I am a teacher, so I am thankful that every day I get the opportunity to teach through my art. Help my students have a foundation in accepting their own process of learning and their mistakes. I want to be the voice that I needed at that age.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think NFTs have inspired art poachers to steal even more work from artists online and try to profit from it. It does open a conversation of the idea of what art is “worth,” which I do find very interesting. Like other forms of currency though, they seem to have faded into the background and settled in irrelevance.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Art is essential in everything that we do. I think it directly correlates to the type of culture we have. In a society where we are more Collectivist, we rely on each other’s talents and ability to contribute in a community. I think where we stand now centers competition at the forefront, and that’s never been what making art is about. Creativity is a connecting and spiritual practice, and artists should be given the time and space to help expand the minds of others with their ideas. To make things that are truly beautiful and life changing. More artists should be able to be sponsored and have their living paid for. When an artist puts all of their energy into their 9-5, what’s left is their creativity running on fumes.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @thenoodle_doodles
• Twitter: @thenoodle_doodles
• Other: TikTok – @thenoodle_doodles

Image Credits

Krist Wingate