We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kyle Krauskopf. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kyle below.
Alright, Kyle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on? Wow… well, there have certainly been a few. Perhaps it was my first year-long project in which I made a unique, small, wooden animal every day for an entire year. It could also be my most recently completed project – The Meantime Chronicles- where I wrote an original short story and created a correlating illustration every week for the year of 2022. These were all then compiled into a book- my first book- which I self-published. Maybe it was traveling down to San Francisco from Seattle to help re-open The Chinese Historical Society of America with a Bruce Lee retrospective exhibition. This being a result of winning a Lee-centric art competition. All taking place after a journey with his daughter Shannon Lee’s book. A tool greatly responsible for pulling me out of pandemic depression. Or possibly it was using the entire breadth of my life’s culminated skills and connections to help with the opening of Nuwave Gallery in Ellensburg, Washington, a mere six months ago. The point I’m trying to make is by indomitable resilience, pure luck, or divine providence I seem to routinely find myself in situations where I am meant to be or where I can be of great help- and that has been the most meaningful to me. To be of service, to have purpose, to help.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Kyle Krauskopf. I am an artist, a designer, a woodworker, an author, a philanthropist, and, and, and… these things just accumulate over years. On a basal level all artists have to wear so many more hats than people would think. You’re your own publicist, designer, shipping department, event planner, personal assistant, copyrighter, the list is endless. It can be frustrating learning all these new skill-sets, usually out of necessity, but afterward you’re more versatile, able to do more and take on more! I like to joke that the doctor handed me a crayon when I was born. I’ve been a creator my whole life… for better or worse. As you can imagine with all of these accumulated skills the things I have to offer clients range widely. I’m a deft realistic painter. I can craft an array of things out of wood. I’m a professionally trained art installer. I can paint your favorite animal (in this case an octopus), digitize the painting, use that file to create a 4-foot vinyl decal, and then apply it to your adventure van. I use this example of a project I’ve done because in conceptualizing it, the person who commissioned it, could come up with no other person they knew who could take on such a feat. And a feat it was. A challenge. Challenges are where I excel. “Yeah, we can figure that out,” is my go-to mantra and battle cry. I have undertaken a plethora of project and ideas, helped to build multiple art spaces in cities a younger me wouldn’t have imagined possible. Yet none of those things seemed to “work out” long term. This can be maddening. But what it has done is pushed me to try new things. Pushed me to take different approaches. And while I think many of my projects still haven’t had their day in the sun, I’m glad they haven’t. Had they, I wouldn’t have gone on to be a part of all the things I’ve gotten to. So what am I most proud of? My resilience. My refusal to throw in the towel. I am absurdly grateful for a mind that constantly is in a creative mode, always concocting new possibilities and seeing a path to continue forward.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I think the biggest thing non-creatives have difficulty with is an innate compulsion to create. From a very young age I have enjoyed making art. Making anything really… For me, this journey has been so much about the work, so much about bringing ideas into reality. That almost all else has been secondary. Money, success, maybe things that should have come first. Or maybe not. The decision to continue in the face of rejection and worse, no response, has built me into an absolute unit of perseverance and trust. Trust in myself. Trust that all of this is not for nothing. Trust that my creator has imbued me with purpose, power, ideas, and the ability to achieve it all.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Well I’m actually in a bit of a pivot at the moment. I’ve had years where I made a thousand pieces of art. Yes, a thousand. I can paint photo-realistically, I’ve got a heck of an eye for color, and I’ve devised my own method for mathematically laying out a piece so that it looks asymmetrical but in actuality its divided and bisected and plotted every 15 degrees of a 360 degree circle so that each element is placed EXACTLY where I intend it to be. Even with all that, what people are actually asking for are wooden endeavors. So I am currently launching a new brand and focus! I’m building a woodworking studio specializing in interior design wall treatments and the creation of custom canvases and frames for my fellow artists.
Contact Info:
- Website: kylekrauskopf.com
- Instagram: @kylekrauskopf