We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marie Kemp a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Marie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone was ever done for me was to see me and allow me to be seen. I pour myself into everything I make. We all do , but the world is big and busy. I often wonder how any art, let alone mine, can get traction in the chaos. Growing up I just wanted to make things. It was about communicating what I saw and felt and hoped for in this world. But honestly I didn’t know how I could make a living at it. Who really cared. So I spent most of my life working day in and out at other things. I worked on assembly lines, I worked in shipping and receiving , in fast food. Finally I fell into a state job and worked in health care for 30 years. I did love that job, The people I worked with and cared for were family to me. Then I retired. Its like falling off a cliff. I decided to do the thing I started out trying to do years ago. Make things. So I worked really hard. I went back to college and poured my heart into my creations….again, but still not understanding where anything I made could belong besides my basement…

Drum roll please…then came Julia Skop. She was running The Gallery at Duende in Silo City. I attended her openings and she took the time to talk with me. I got up the courage to tell her I was having my “senior” show at Buffalo State College and she took the time to come to my opening. SHE TOOK THE TIME TO SEE ME, My Work. Every little strange bit of my mixed media ramblings. She looked and she understood it, She spoke the same language of art. Then amazingly miraculously she wanted to have me bring all that stuff to The Gallery at Duende. She gave me the opportunity to be seen by others and let my work talk to the world, or at least a little crumbling corner of it. And people did look. And I saw that Art could communicate, could connect people, Art could be a force for good. Proceeds from that show were donated to the Buffalo Niagara Water Keepers and the WNY Land Conservancy.
So Julia looking really is the nicest thing that has ever done for me. Thanks Julia.

Marie, 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?

I am not a business, brand or organization. I am just a person who loves the world and my little spot on it. I look at how we treat the land, the animals , the water and the people around us. I really can’t stop looking at what we throw away. I see a lot of beauty and I see a lot of potential. I just want to pay attention and hope to get others to stop and pay attention.. Not just to the doom and gloom, but to the beauty as well. I don’t know if there ultimately are any solutions for our many environmental and social crises, but looking the other way will never help. If I provide any service at all, I hope it may be the ability to make a moment for people to stop and look what’s around them, Take the time to think and feel, then act with more awareness and caring.

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

In my view the best thing the average everyday working class making ends meet , raising a family folks can do for the world is …Take the time to look and take the time to respond. talk to the artists, to each other and to your kids. Let art be about communicating, connecting and building understanding. Don’t keep it locked away in museums. Finally, Please Please don’t just dismiss art because of the “elite” art world and the “scribbling” and the “duct tape bananas”. Make art , make seeing, apart of your everyday world.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Well I think the mission of my work is obvious from my previous answers. As is the importance of what my creative work brings to my life. It is about seeing this world and each other . If you would like a book, gosh I have got piles and piles of them. I really want to understand what others see and have to say. So I will just pick one that sticks out as a signpost for my art /life journey, “RADICAL JOY FOR HARD TIMES Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places” by Trebbe Johnson. I also must recommend my current favorite show at the Burchfield Penney art Gallery Charles Burchfield and Mike Glier “The Grammar of Animacy”. Take the time to go see it please. Art can help us .

Image Credits

Marie Kemp