We recently connected with Krystal Hart and have shared our conversation below.

Krystal , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My grandmother was the matriarch of the family. She was from rural North Carolina. Claudia was her name. Among many great and honorable things, she was also a quiltist. She would invite her grandchildren into her 10 by 10 quilting house located behind the main house and allow us to “help her” in whatever she was doing. During one of our humid southern summers, my two sisters and I each made a lap quilt, with her help of course, from her discarded sewing scraps.

It was not until many years later did, I realized that the makeshift quilting house was actually grandma’s very own studio. And that I, now with my own art studio, had picked up her legacy of working with the hands to create meaning, value, community, and dignity by abstracting with various materials. Metaphorically, the scraps of our interconnected lives.

I have been gathering audio narratives about resilience from women in and around my life. The audio narratives are transcribed into abstract paintings as I perpetually listen to them while painting.

I collaborated with a composer to create electronic musical soundscapes to accompany edited audio.

This project is so meaningful to me because every interview is different. There have been bursts of laughter over memories long forgotten. Alike, streams of tears from a resurfaces story that, in the moment of telling the story, illumination, validation, and healing comes to the speaker.
One cannot replace this way of capturing history and of witnessing as intimate settings allow for hearts to hearts to happen.

Participating narratives will be preserved in an international archive for women through the Global Women’s Narrative Project.

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 am American interdisciplinary artist. My works employs traditional earth elements taken for a 19th century Japanese painting methodology, and contemporary audio and digital technologies to create intimate communal spaces. These spaces hold meaning, value, community, and dignity. I explore the role of narrative and storytelling in human interactions, social traditions, and historical subjectivity.

I have always been interested in the arts in some form. What really made the shift in my work was after I was hit by a semi truck. I had the time by forced slowing down to really thinking about my work in a deeper and dynamic way.

I am proud that I work in natural materials that carry an ethereal presence to them. I love that my work connects peoples, lands and identities. As I source precious and semi precious stones from all over the world and put them on the same surface it helps to connect us and highlight that the world is bigger that our personal reflections of reality. I love combining traditional ways of creating and communicating with emerging technologies.

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

Buy more art, Buy local and be generous. Get to know artists that are not in the cultural headlines. Remember when you buy a movie ticket you have that theater experience once. When you buy art you have that thrilling experience for a lifetime and you are investing into todays culture and you are seeding future generations.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Invest in your craft. When you look for opportunities do not let the no’s get to you. You only need one yes to change the trajectory of your career. Believe in the work that you are doing. Do not be afraid to pivot or adjust your self and your work as you learn and grow.    

Contact Info:

• Website: www.krystalhart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artistkrystalhart