Today we’d like to introduce you to Kimberly of KIMYKASK.
Hi Kimberly, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up outdoors in the woods. I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t hopping rocks up and down the rivers of the Appalachians. I had built countless illegal tiny homes “forts” by the age of 14. Due to snow and ice, I did take breaks in the winters and spent multitudes of snow days alone inside creating. I started exhibiting my snow day drawings and paintings in local galleries around 2nd grade. Those winters were also when the ski slopes opened and became the local hangout. As soon as I was able to drive, I’d hit the slopes whenever I could. Because of this, I can’t say I put out as much artwork as I should have during that era, but I did somehow slide in with a Gold Key from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. I even went to college in those mountains at Appalachian State University. Having always felt art to be a large facet of who I am, deciding on a major in college was not difficult. Technology was just beginning to touch the arts, and my father knew that it was the future. He had been bringing me stacks of PRINT magazine for half a decade.
As an administrator at the school, my father saw how books and magazines were created from concept to production. He would tour me around the departments where the school newspaper, yearbook, and promotional materials were made. He also had me with him during art installations and exhibits on campus. At my core, I’m a studio artist, but I was gently molded to use technology and print to make a living. Basically, my father didn’t want me to be a starving artist. I graduated with a Minor in Art and a Major in Graphic Arts Imaging Technology. Photoshop and Illustrator had just come out, but I still learned to do everything by hand in the Art Department. I still have all of the ruling pens, french curves, and many other archaic design tools of the past. I took Photoshop classes that were in black and white in the Technology Department. There was not yet color (CMYK or RGB) in Photoshop. It was like a crash course for an illustrator during my internship on the NC coast, where I used vector lines to draw outlines around logos and art for the embroidery process. Looking at all the character art and designs that came across my desk brought me to the realization that there had to be a job as the creator of such things. I applied for a job at Viacom’s Paramount Parks, which oddly had a Design and Entertainment division in Charlotte, NC.
Working at Paramount Parks strangely exposed me to all of the most popular cartoon, movie and TV characters of all major studios… and that’s how I ended up in LA working for those studios for a score of years. I was creating consumer products for TV and Theatrical licensed properties. This was another low-art output era. What I created and helped to create isn’t mine. During that time, I thought I would continue that kind of work until I retired and then I would spend more time being the artist I felt I was born to be. The thing is, people in my family don’t live long. They die off quickly, so around 2015 I began to ponder what kind of day job I could get that wouldn’t make me literally sign away rights to my creative brain. Since then, with a lot of help from family, friends, and creative corralers, I’ve been invited to show my jewelry, watercolors, mixed media, and assemblage art at events and galleries. I think my time at The Hive Gallery DTLA is notable, being that I was a Resident Artist there from 2017-2020. I still show pieces there occasionally. Most recently, I showed some of my work in Long Beach at the EXPO Arts Center.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think that years of feeling creatively squashed and controlled by my day job has left me with imposter syndrome. Having devoted much of my creative energy to someone else’s visions for so long, it has taken me a handful of years to come back home to my inner world and what that looks like. I silently refer to this as the land of KIMYKASK. During the pandemic, I adventured and built on that terrain, which was healing and edifying. Sometimes, all it takes to pull me out of the spell of being a baby and feeling like a victim pretending to be someone else is looking at that tiny Gold Key I won when I was 17. I stepped back in time and put myself on rewind and try to continue to grow as an artist from that point and remember that a group of 50 people decided that I was original and talented enough to strongly encourage me to continue down a path as an artist.
Like a lot of us, I have also struggled with finding my value in who I work for or how much I produce. It is sometimes difficult to stay committed, but I think it is helpful that there are so many artists in Los Angeles striving to create in some way, shape or form. Whether through writing, film, acting, music, comedy, dance, or performance… you’ll find a good creative company in this city. It’s possible to surround yourself with a supportive artist community. You can then also all rally together around things like the challenges of dealing with what comes after you put your art out there for the world. Things like robots and humans online and in person stealing artwork and plagiarizing for profit. I lost count of how many cease and desist letters I have sent out regarding a Hungry Uterus character I created. She has not ever been on TV but was printed on a t-shirt worn by someone who was on TV. That is her claim to fame.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a Mixed Media & Assemblage Artist, I often combine knowledge of digital art with studio art. Some paintings and drawings in the physical are done in layers of resin in the same way that we layer art in computer applications. Friends give me used canvases that I reuse and found objects often make their way into my art. People give me old costume jewelry I upcycle into what I call Nuisance Necklaces. My sister is actually my buyer for most of my Nuisance Necklace stash because she loves thrifting and visiting antique stores and seeing what I do with her selections. I see my art subject matter as comical and creepy. Always adding light to any darkness, accepting duality. Where there is negative space, there is a chance to be positive. Especially in my watercolors. I mask off areas of nothing surrounded by explosions of color, sometimes drawing in the shapes. I like to exaggerate on what I see after a random laying down of lines. During the pandemic, I played with resin so much that I ended up sculpting a realistic Pepper Fried Egg Necklace. I’ve now sent out hundreds of these eggs all over the world. I’ve expanded that to a Deep V Pizza Necklace and a Black & White Cookie. Lately, I have had fun using AI to create digital concepts and then use that to create a traditional painting out in the physical that draws from my favorite parts of what was generated. This land is always evolving.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
In my earlier formative years, all my older brothers and sisters worked at our local theme park The Land of Oz, which was set in the woods of the Appalachian Mountains, and the spooky factor was there. It was abandoned and decaying but is now back in seasonal operation. One sister was Dorothy, who led you around the winding yellow-brick road. Another served up cotton candy. My brother was a Lion you would visit in a dark cave. Frequent trips up the mountain in a gondola (shaped like a hot-air balloon) undoubtedly had more than a major impact on my art and imagination. It proved to me that life is art, but you have to go out there and create it. It was also probably the start of what made me a total weirdo.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.KIMYKASK.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimykask
