We were lucky to catch up with Kristin Harvey recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kristin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents were supportive and encouraging of my artistic abilities from the start. When I was 5, my father built my sister and I each a wall sized chalkboard and gave us every color of chalk there was. I spent hours upon hours at that board, drawing from my imagination and experiences. That chalkboard stayed full of color and expression until I graduated to a drawing table. My parents also made sure to expose me to many different arts education opportunities through the local Arts Center and through private lessons. When it came time for college, it was my sister who brought me a catalog from the Academy of Art in San Francisco after she had visited on a school trip. I applied and was accepted through a work/study program that allowed me to work at the college in exchange for tuition.

I started my artistic entrepreneurial endeavors at a young age when an elementary school teacher introduced our class to a small business project. Each student was encouraged to open their own business and mine was illustration services. The entire class was engaged and our currency was paper money called “Begley Bucks”, (named after our teacher). I sold cartoon illustrations of classmates. At the end of each week Mr. Begley brought in second-hand treasures that students could “purchase” with their earned income. Shortly after that experience, I began a seasonal window painting business. My parents drove me all around town as I decorated business windows for the holidays. As small business owners, my mother and father were always encouraging and a perfect source of inspiration and reference. My father introduced me to SCORE mentoring opportunities and I have always turned to that organization anytime I’m considering a new challenge.

Kristin, 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?

I tell people I’ve been an artist my whole life. For me, drawing, painting and creating have been my reason for existing since I can remember. With family support and encouragement, I grew up believing I was an artist and have followed that path to this day. My artistic journey has been filled with many challenges along the way, and I took corporate design jobs in order to fund my passion for creating. Throughout my digital design career, I continued to stay in touch with traditional mediums and practices and took on many freelance illustration projects. Ten years of working in the video game business led to website design, which eventually led to user experience design. Along the way I began selling my canvas paintings through markets and arts festivals. In 2022 the scales tipped and sales from my artwork allowed me to leave the corporate design world and pursue painting full-time.

Today, I paint for one primary reason: joy. I paint to maintain my own mental health and happiness. The fact that my artwork is most often viewed with a joyful response brings it full circle for me. My goal with my work is to spread that joy as far and as wide as possible. I believe that my business experiences from a young age are helping me to fund that passion. Selling my artwork through multiple channels allows for an income that can be sustained through the ups and downs of the fine art market. I am also finding that the more I share the joy I feel in the process of painting, the more I want others to feel it. I am now directing my focus towards building workshop experiences that allow artists and non-artists to find and express their internal joy on the canvas.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When it comes to social media, my background in digital design comes in handy. I started so many social media pages for companies and brands when it was still new that I had a good idea of what would work. One thing new I did was to research other artists & painters that had a solid following to better understand what audiences may be looking for. I followed them and engaged with them to see what their responses were like. I learned a few things that I believe matter when it comes to creative social media engagement. First is consistency. When someone follows you, they begin to expect to see your posts and responses, and when you deliver in a consistent manner they also begin to understand your creative process. Which leads me to the second most important thing I learned. Your story matters. When I began, and I still fall into this habit when I am busy, I used to simply post an image of a painting with basic information of title, medium and size. I didn’t think I had anything else to share that would be of interest. I remember that my first post with a back story was a real eye opener because of the level of engagement it elicited. I began sharing not only the story of the specific piece I was posting, but any stories about my creative process. I received very specific feedback that told me my story matters to people. If they find my work interesting enough to follow me, they want to know the story behind the work and the artist. It’s a challenge to open up in that way online, but it does make a huge difference.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the most important pieces of my creative process I had to unlearn was only painting when I was “in the mood”. With my history of depression, that was rare at times. Once I realized and began to trust that painting and creating relieves my depression, I was able to begin working even on the rough days. I believe artists that make their living from their artwork first step is to show up. Go to your studio and create on a regular basis. There are many other tasks that require an artist’s attention and all of that has to be done. However, I know I can no longer sit and wait for inspiration to hit me. If I am not inspired, and it’s a painting day, I look for inspiration. I look in nature on walks, I look at online galleries, I look through my sketchbook. I just know that nothing will come out of me magically without my input first. Inevitably, I will come across something that inspires me to go to my easel and get me over that first hump of fear. Painting intuitively really helps that because I’m not planning a painting in my head anymore to “paint later”. I am in the moment once I put my brush into the paint and touch the canvas anywhere.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kristinharveyart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristincre8s/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KristinHarveyArt
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kharvey/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uH9KRZ-DlA&t=205s