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

Alright, Lexis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I’ve been balancing the freelance artist/business owner/stay at home mom gig for the last 6+ years. And I am still envious of the stay at home moms who are exclusively raising their children. I am envious of the working moms who get to leave all day long and go do their work.

As a stay at home mom who is also trying to run an art business, I feel like I am straddling two worlds. I have friends who are home with their kids exclusively and I have friends who work full time. Both have their hardships and rewards. But I have very few friends who are home every day with their kids AND working at being a professional artist.

I’ve been chasing someone else’s definition of success, but I’ve never defined what success looks like for me.

My business felt like less than a success in 2019 and 2020 (I literally lost money), which was a HUGE blow to my ego and confidence. Cue me crying over being a failure. It made me question what I was doing, if being a stay at home mom was so hard and I couldn’t run a profitable creative business.

My kids are 3 and 6 and I already have regrets about how these years have felt. I wish I could have felt like being home with my kids was enough without the added stress of feeling like I needed to be making money with the time that I put into my art work. ⁣

Just this year, yes 2022, I’m finding some peace at being present with my kids and being okay that work can just be making art rather than looking at the money assigned to it. The programming for equating hours worked to money made runs deep.⁣ And our society has a hard time giving financial value to creative effort.

I feel like I am just figuring it out and the light at the end of “The Season of Littles” tunnel isn’t too far away. Making art is an important part of who I am and it also builds my skills as an artist. Not only is creativity a major part of my identity, it maintains my well-being. I wouldn’t know life any other way.

If I can just maintain what I’ve got so I can grow when both my kids are in school full time, than that’s a success. ⁣

Lexis, 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’ve created my entire life: making art at home, collecting paper for collages, and taking every art class I could in high school. When it came time to choose my college degree, I wanted to pursue something art related. But my mom told me I couldn’t be an artist. She thought I needed a degree that would lead to a career. After several major changes, I graduated with a B.A in Graphic Design. Yes, this is an art degree.

In the confines of my college bedroom, I satisfied my own creative hand urges with art journals filled with text, clippings and smears of paint. I fell in love with graphic design and left the “real art” to “artists.” While working my day job, Lexisworks was born in 2008 as an outlet for personal creativity. I attended craft fairs selling reproductions of my layered collages and gained confidence in my work. After being laid off from two graphic design jobs, I knew the universe was trying to tell me something: I was meant to be an artist! In 2012, I bravely declared myself an artist for the first time and started pursuing my art career.

I am now a freelance creator specializing in watercolor painting and workshop teaching, illustration and design. The skills I learned in college and my experience as a graphic designer have pushed my art career to where it is today. I ended up being a successful artist despite of and because of my mom’s wishes.

Since graduating college in 2007, teaching has been a goal of mine. I have worked with collage, acrylic paint, mixed media and most recently watercolor. 2020 marked the beginning of my teaching career as I found watercolor to be the medium that I can share the creative process and the vast knowledge I have about color and composition. I deeply believe that we are all creative and I want to share an approachable, fun way to be creative without pressure or stress for it to be a certain way.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

We need to change our view on creativity in our daily lives and remember that creativity is defined by more than just the visual arts. We are in a line of makers and artists that goes back 200,000 years. So I know deep in my soul that creating with my hands is essential to my happiness and well-being. This is a birthright from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who relied on their hands to survive.

When students introduce themselves in my watercolor classes, it is common for them to share that they have not painted since kindergarten. For many people, art and creativity gets edged out for “more important” pursuits as we grow up. Somewhere along the schooling career, people label themselves as ‘not creative’ and give up making time for creativity. I am disappointed that as a society, we have reserved creativity for only a select few. It has gotten labeled as not important, unless we are good enough, for us to devote our limited time.

Let’s take a closer look at what creativity means to each of us and give it the value it deserves in our lives. Adding creativity into our daily practices can give us a big and notable impact on our well-being, including feeling more peace and joy in our daily lives.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was pregnant with my second child when I opened an old box of watercolor tubes for the first time. I was desperate to keep creating. But it felt impossible to get down to my basement studio where my canvase, acrylic paint and collection of collage material lived. So I learned to paint with watercolor at my kitchen counter while my first born napped. I found a way to work my passion into my current lifestyle instead of dropping it. I pivoted from large, acrylic, mixed-media paintings to portable watercolor.

Watercolor became the perfect medium when I didn’t feel like there was enough time or space to create. Looking back, I needed a simpler medium because of the chaos around me. With a newborn and preschooler sharing my space, there were toys, clothes and general clutter everywhere. Watercolor gave me the freedom to squeeze in creativity and walk away without a moment’s notice.

Within 2 years of this switch, I was teaching watercolor virtually to eager learners. It turned out that watercolor was the medium for me to share my knowledge of color, composition and harmony. It has offered a simplified process to demonstrate my 20 years of art experience and achieve my goal of teaching.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lexisworksart.com
• Instagram: https://www.lexisworksart.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lexisworks
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexiskrieg/

Image Credits
David Mjolsness