Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariel Kohn.
Ariel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Art has been a big part of my life in one way or another since I was a kid growing up in upstate New York. Most of my earliest and most vivid memories from childhood involve creativity; everything from building furniture and accessories for my Barbie dolls to writing overly dramatic little poems about life. My sisters still call me out to this day for ruining a couple of their elementary school art projects that I just couldn’t help but pick at because I had to get a feel for the materials used.
I started experimenting with paper collage about four years ago while living in the always artistically inspired Lower East Side of Manhattan. For almost a decade living in the city and Brooklyn, I nannied, taught English as a Second Language and tried my hand at marketing in the e-commerce world. I learned and gained a lot from each job I worked but art was always missing. I never really expected collage to be such a big part of my life but I quickly found it increasingly difficult to pull myself away from projects. I was lucky enough to meet a talented artist from Connecticut who became my sort of informal mentor and who really opened my eyes to the potential of collage. I started selling my work in an online gallery (which has since shut down), taking commissions for album covers and the like, and trying to hang my stuff up in little exhibits or cafes.
Two years ago, I made the move to LA with my husband, and have since found an amazingly vibrant art community that is collaborative and full of life. It has led me to find ways to work part-time in order to keep art alive and well in my life. I’m really happy and grateful to be doing what I do and am above all hoping to just keep growing as an artist.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think that chasing a dream seems like it should be the easiest, most natural thing in the world but that in practice it never is. There’s a lot of self-doubt that inherently comes with being an artist and even more so when it comes to trying to figure out if a life of creativity is a sustainable one. I’ve found that staying true to myself can be hard at a time when social media bombards me with hundreds of posts a day by other artists who are doing what I do and often, I feel, doing it better.
Trying to put a price tag on my art, promoting myself and navigating social media are all challenges as well, as none of these things comes naturally to me. I really just want to make the art, maybe put some of it out there into the world and hopefully it touches a handful of people. If I’ve done that, I feel content with the time I’ve spent being creative.
On a deeper level, trying to keep up with the creativity and business while being eight months pregnant has been difficult, but that challenge has also been a blessing in disguise. While the seemingly endless possibility that comes with collage art can often feel like a little too much to handle these days, the limitations have led me to experiment with other artistic outlets like embroidery, which feels a lot more manageable and also seems like a total “mom thing” to do.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Ariel Leah Art – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
My main artistic medium is hand-cut collage, recently with a bit of embroidery tossed in. People tend to kind of look at you sideways when you tell them you’re a collage artist unless they’re already pretty familiar with the style. Basically, I wander around this huge city collecting both vintage and newer books and magazines, tear/cut them up, and then combine found images with other pieces of paper and materials to create a completely new piece of art. I often spend hours searching for one specific image I have in mind for a collage or sometimes sit around flipping through books for days on end collecting images that I find powerful or striking and stashing them away in categorized folders for future works of art.
Some people might consider this to be just plain stubbornness, but I guess I’m proud of the fact that I find ways of making analog art in this digital age. With the endless opportunity that exists to create things more quickly, efficiently and precisely, I choose to take my time creating pieces that are unique but that could so easily be lost forever. If I accidentally cut into an image or spill my drink, all that hard work goes to waste. I can only work as quickly as my hands can cut, can only glue and place images as perfectly as human coordination will allow and can only work with the materials I have in my collection. I love that I routinely find tiny images stuck to my clothes and can appreciate even the most annoying moments like searching for one little scrap of paper I’ve accidentally tossed in a waste bin full of hundreds of scraps. I think I’m in love with the imperfections.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’m really enjoying looking for ways to merge my first love, collage art, with my new love of embroidery, and hoping to continue experimenting with embroidering on different types of clothing. I’m first and foremost focused on and excited about what will hopefully prove to be my biggest, most impressive achievement- raising a kid.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.arielleah.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariel.leah.art/
- Other: https://society6.com/arielleah
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Check out the VoyageLA Podcast:
Episode 1 with Content Partner Lisa Taitelman, Founder of Hiking & Wellness company Find Your Trail.
