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

Kyle, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

When I started my first teaching job, I learned an extremely important lesson from my principal Chuck Puga. We were in a staff meeting about classroom environment and how to connect better with students. He started this meeting by saying that ” Students might not remember everything that you teach them but they will remember how you made them feel.” He said this to remind us that students are human and we need to remember that in our instruction.

What he said really stuck with me as an elective teacher because not all of the students that were in my class wanted to be there however I wanted them to leave my class feeling with a positive perception of art.

Kyle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Kyle Andrew Roberts and I am an artist. I am originally from Connecticut where I spent the first half of my life. At 19 years old I moved to Denver, Colorado to attend the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. There I studied to become an Art Educator with an emphasis in painting. The reason that I wanted to get into teaching was to expose and inspire as many new artists as I could.

I started my first teaching job at 21 as a high school Jewelry/Sculpture/Photo teacher. Although these media were not my strongest areas of expertise, I had to learn how to adapt. While teaching I had a mission to continue my painting practice not only for myself but for my students to see an active artist in the studio. I wanted to share with them my successes, failures, inspirations and wonderings.

Eventually I found myself in a drawing and painting position where I was able to control the program from start to finish. This was an extremely happy time of my life. Some of my students went on to win national Scholastic gold medals and have their work shown in New York City. I continued painting however my primary efforts were in supporting my students.

It was at this time where I had a life changing event and I resigned from my position in order to support my wife going to Law school. We moved from Colorado to New Haven,CT where she attended Yale Law School. I now found myself in charge of the household and our three children (1,3,5 years old). Now that I was away from the classroom I focused on my own art.

I started to create my own work during this time and tried to paint as much as I could. My studio at the time consisted on my bathroom as it was the only place that my children would not venture. I found myself with the freedom now to focus on painting whatever I wanted. I started with portraits and landscapes but I soon felt uninspired. That is when one day I had my epiphany.

I was walking by cutting board in my kitchen and I noticed the beautiful still life that had unfolded in the form of my children lunch. I decided from that point on the capture the beauty of day to day life as a stay at home parent. I felt that there were many things to celebrate, lament and bask in as a parent and I wanted to paint them as they were. I then started to capture as many images as I could to support this work. My paintings are meant to depict a universal shared parenting/childhood experience. I want the viewers memory to be sparked and to have a conversation with others about what they experienced.

We eventually moved back to Denver, Colorado where my wife now practices and I am still taking care of the household. I paint when I can and show in local galleries on the front range of Colorado.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish that I was made aware of open call for artist websites earlier in my career. I really did not understand the way in which to approach galleries and how to make connection with other artists. I have found lots of success with callforentry.com. This type of information was not readily available for me as art education student.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My mission with my art is to create paintings that bring together people from all walks of life. I want my work to have the viewer think about the world we live in and memories that we may share together. Also I want my work to highlight beauty that surrounds us that sometimes may go over looked.

My educational mission is to bring as many students into a creative practice as I can. My lessons that I taught would ask students to draw inspiration from their own lives as much as possible. I found that this practice had students excited about creating and would encourage them to explore more. Furthermore I would encourage students to explore different types of media in their education. So many students would get frustrated if they were not good at drawing and then say “I can’t make art.” To which I would then advise them to not give up on being an artist however to try and sculpt or try digital art or music.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @kroberts0844