We were lucky to catch up with Sammy Kovnat (skoves) recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sammy, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I learned how to make murals through the Mural Arts Summer Painting Internship I did in 2017. Which essentially means that I learned how to make murals by getting hands on experience working for muralists in Philadelphia that had been doing it at that point for almost 20 years. I had the opportunity to be thrown into the mix and entrusted with important mural install work my first day. I believe strongly that the best way to learn any new skill is to be given the chance to learn by doing and getting pushed out of your comfort zone right away (think being put onto a swing stage for the first time on day one and having to go up 100+ feet in the air!). That opportunity allowed me to quickly develop my skills and realize whether or not I liked mural work right away. I also think trying to work with people that are more experienced or “better than you” at the thing you are trying to learn helps you to pick up on new skills faster, learning tricks of the trade, how to creative problem solve efficiently in this new medium, and really build community within your growing practice.

Sammy, 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?

My name is Sammy Kovnat (SKOVeS) and I am a Muralist and Mosaic Artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. I have been working on murals for 8 years and have helped on and produced over 30+ murals in Philadelphia (and also internationally). In my personal studio art practice I make and sell mosaics created with broken fine china, exploring ideas of healing through experiences of fracture. I have been creating mosaics within these themes for 10 years and have produced over 80 mosaics in that time, as well as showing them in the Philadelphia airport, galleries in South Philadelphia, as well as selling them internationally.

Mural wise, some of my favorite projects I have gotten to work on were helping other artists create their first large-scale murals, sharing all of the knowledge I have acquired in my years of working, while also empowering them to build the skills to do it too! Murals are what help me stay hopeful and connected to my community, which balances out the more quiet intimacy of studio time.

Within my art practice, my mosaics are my beating heart. I actually title most of them after maternal figures in my life or the lives of the people who are commissioning me, which really makes them feel like my children or family. I have people approach me to create pieces for them often with their grandmother or mother’s plates, which creates a bond of intimacy between us in the action of being entrusted to care for, but also destroy and give new life to, someones family heirlooms. It is a deep honor that really built the foundation of my mosaic practice in my early years of honing and developing my craft.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The mission statement that drives my work is an exploration of the ways in which feeling broken can transform us, as well as the things we can do to transform ourselves through that healing process. Since creating my first mosaic in this style in 2015, I have been on this journey of thinking about these pieces as a vehicle for healing. I realized that when a plate breaks in the home it acts like an alarm. This accidental moment of destruction needs to be remedied and the evidence must be swept up and discarded. Such a response indicates something shameful occurred. We are not taught how to handle plate shards after a plate is no longer whole, we are taught to make the evidence of fracturing disappear. If we think of ourselves as plates, fractured by life experiences, what happens after we are broken? Can we hold the delicate shards created by our trauma with tenderness, can we create healing for ourselves?

I no longer wanted to ignore my own sense of broken, I wanted to reclaim my agency to find healing. In this way I found my mosaic work, and in turn my own path to healing.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I think the beauty of making murals is the way that the things you create can have a full and vibrantly complex life outside of your original idea or intention. You can make art that becomes that backdrop to peoples lives and then they create their own stories, memories, and relationships with it. Murals are magic.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.skovesart.com
• Instagram: @skovesart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Skovesart/

Image Credits

Sammy Kovnat, Studio K Photography, Conrad Benner, Symone Salib, Doug Woods, David Kim.