We were lucky to catch up with Kristi Darner recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kristi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
As a kid, I always wanted to follow my passion and find a creative career, but I didn’t officially start my creative career until November of 2019. Part of me wishes I would have done it sooner but I don’t think I was mentally or financially stable enough to start the creative career I wanted. I was always creative as a kid and learned how to paint in high school. My high school art teacher, Ms. Zonyk sparked my love for painting and made growing up in a small town a bit more tolerable. Before I graduated high school in 1998, I met with my high school guidance counselor to discuss my career choice. I told her I wanted to study art in college. She must not have been too keen on my decision because she told me “You will never make any money from art”. Despite her lack of encouragement, I went on to attend Western Michigan University to study art. I loved my art classes and took several drawing, sculpture and the good old general education classes. After my first year at Western, I realized that the culture was very similar to high school and decided to apply to Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
At this point in my life, my self confidence was at a big fat zero but I got in! So my socially awkward weird self went off to art school. It was a life changing experience being around so many creative people and I loved my classes, the encouragement and the knowledge I got from my professors. Especially my illustration professor, Jon McDonald. Despite loving all my classes, I was still struggling with my mental health and finding connections with people. Once I turned 21, I started self medicating with alcohol. Not knowing this at the time but I was trying to alleviate my anxiety and depression. After graduating from Kendall with a degree in Illustration, I packed up my little GMC Sonoma and with the help of some friends, moved to Thornton, Colorado to further my education with an animation degree. Unfortunately I never finished this field of study after finding out I really did not enjoy it, at all. So to support myself I started working in the restaurant industry.
From 2003 to 2008, I worked in restaurant after restaurant and lived the restaurant lifestyle. My coworkers and I would work our shifts and close down the bar almost every night. Quickly approaching my 30s, I told myself that I could no longer keep up my irresponsible lifestyle and decided to go back to school again to try a different career path. So I applied to Metropolitan State College of Denver to study a career in Criminal Justice. I discovered a new passion when I learned about the high population of people with mental health and substance abuse issues in the prison system. I graduated in 2017 and immediately started working at Independence House Fillmore, a Residential Dual Diagnosis Treatment facility in Denver. I learned so much about mental health from training, the staff and even the clients to the point I had finally had a better understanding of my mental health and that I wasn’t alone. Halfway through my career as a case manager, I was diagnosed with Severe Depressive Disorder with Anxiety and was on the right path to managing my mental health.
After five years of working at the Fillmore facility the owners decided to close it down and after a serious talk with my husband, we decided that we were in a great spot financially for me to start my own creative career from home. In November of 2019, I officially started my creative career as the owner/artist of Darner Fine Art and Illustration. Did I know what I was doing? No way but that wasn’t going to hold me back. Now was my chance to make my passion my career. It started out slow. I had several commissions and started attending random art walks and craft shows and I learned a lot about networking with other artists. I started advertising my business and found people who really love my work. Since the start of my creative career I have yet to run out of commissioned pieces and have several art walks and events scheduled. This one woman show is still a work in progress but I am loving it.
Kristi, 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?
Since starting Darner FIne Art and Illustration in 2019, I have learned so much about where to sell my art and new art I can create. I have always been a painter and the majority of my original pieces are acrylic. The majority of my originals often have contrasting images that are based on what I have learned in the mental health field or about my own personal mental health. I think this is my way of being able to be open about mental health in an attempt to help people better understand more about it. Hopefully it helps someone who is struggling with their own mental health. In some of my current pieces, I have used umbrellas to portray depression. The umbrella represents someone who is trying to protect themselves, shelter themselves from others because they feel different and unable to connect. In the process of protecting themselves, the umbrella is making it almost impossible to make a connection or to reach out for help. This sad and dark aspect in my paintings is often contrasted by the bright and colorful side that is intended to represent hope. This was a common struggle I had when I was trying to figure out my own depression, wanting to ask for help but not being able to or wanting to make that connection with someone who could ultimately help.
On a less serious note, I started doing pet portraits in 2016 before I even thought about a full time art career. I have always loved dogs and after moving to Colorado I discovered how much people here love their pets and love the idea of a hand painted portrait. With a little bit of advertising and some help from my veterinarian sister Kelly, I have a consistent demand for pet portraits. Also in demand are the wood burned plaques that I taught myself to make after a request from my coworker Gesenia. Gesenia asked me to create a wood address plaque for her home and this quickly became a popular commission and another of my passions; hand carved and burned signs for homes and businesses. I also dabbled in wire wrap jewelry but found that making jewelry was a little too tedious of a craft for myself. I am actually really happy that I ventured out and tried something new, even though I was terrible at it at first, because it led to some great mixed medium pieces. I started painting trees with wire spirals and creating wire wrapped trees on wood.
After being asked by Gesenia to create her wood address plaque, I have had quite a few random requests for creative ideas and designs. I have created logos, landscape designs, wedding and anniversary gifts. I am always up for a challenge even if I have no idea what I am doing and enjoy being able to learn new skills. I think being open to new challenges and experimenting with different mediums and mixed mediums sets me apart from other painters. It also opens up new opportunities and allows me to come up with more unique ideas. Just being able to be open to new ideas and helping people create their own artistic ideas is very fulfilling. Yet this is not the most fulfilling part of my career.
The biggest obstacle I had with my art career was my self confidence and I think some other creative people feel the same. It’s difficult for me to not get stuck in my head or to not get frustrated when something doesn’t seem to be coming out like I think it should. In art school I had this idea in my head that all my work had to be perfect and the smallest imperfection to me would ruin the whole piece. I always thought my work wasn’t good enough, no one would buy this crap and “you will never make money from art”. I truly thought this for years. This ultimately held me back from even trying to pursue my dream of becoming a full time artist. After a long journey of trying to figure out who I was, what was going on with my mental health and building up my confidence. Oh, and the support from my amazing husband and friends. I did it! I went for it. Yes, it wasn’t until I was almost 40 but I did it. I overcame the anxiety of putting myself, my mind and my feelings out there for other people to see, other people I would have originally pushed away with my “umbrella”. Am I proud of my work? Of course! Even more proud of myself for not giving up, not letting life take away my passion.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
First and foremost, I don’t think most non-creatives understand the time and emotion an artist puts into their work. My wood plaques are hand carved with a dremel and burned with a basic wood burning tool which makes them time consuming and also unique. My paintings to me are not just paintings. They are stories and ideas that took my life experience to imagine and after all that, hours and hours of my time to create that vision on canvas. There are several ways I could make my work less time consuming and by making it less time consuming, it takes away from the uniqueness, the originality and the whole process of making art that I enjoy creating. I think what I am trying to say here is if you stop to look at someone’s “work” and you find the price is a little steep or you see it just as a picture. It is definitely not. Most paintings are life stories, a way to tell a story, to portray an emotion or an experience that the artist has been willing and open enough to share with their audience. I would also like to encourage non-creative people to ask about the thought behind their pieces, if the artist is willing to share. Sometimes it is easier for an artist to paint how they feel than to talk about the feeling they are painting about, but I feel it would help non-creative people understand that a painting is more than just a picture to hang on the wall.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of my career is exposing creative, artistic passions to other aspiring artists. I try to encourage anyone at any age to experiment with something they have always wanted to try. Even if they are not very good at painting there is still a therapeutic aspect to it or even just the pride of being able to say that you finally did something you always wanted to try. Although I do like encouraging all ages I find encouraging young aspiring creatives to be more fulfilling. To be able to see the light in their eyes when you talk about your work, encouraging them to follow their passions and seeing them realize that their dreams are a possibility. There is nothing worse than someone crushing your dreams, telling you not to strive for something just because they can’t see past the borders of the small town they live in and realize there is a whole world of opportunity out there. So go for it! It may not be easy, yet you will never realize how fulfilling it is to live your passion if you don’t get out there and try.
Contact Info:
- Website: darnerfineartandillustrationllc.com
- Instagram: @darnerart
- Facebook: @darnerart