Meet Kristin Yezza

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristin Yezza.

Kristin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My journey started as a confluence of a couple of things. I had just become a mom and we had just moved into a new home that we were in the process of renovating/decorating. As I started to get my feet under me as a parent and for the first time in my adult life without an identity tied to working out in the world, I started experimenting with art as a way to fill in the gaps- as it relates to my identity, something to do to keep me busy, and for pieces I was seeking for our home that I couldn’t seem to find. This new creative outlet provided for all of these things. I turned our 3rd-floor space into a little studio and started making things that I couldn’t find elsewhere or for the right price – a unique floor lamp/table for a seating area in our newly renovated kitchen, an oversized art piece for our dining room, a scalloped pedestal for our living room. And I just kept going, sharing things on social media and building a small community that has provided me with so many new and amazing relationships and opportunities that I couldn’t have imagined. And while so much has happened already, I still feel like I am just beginning. We have since turned our basement into a much larger studio and I have more ideas that need to be realized now than when I started. I feel like creativity is a strange thing in that it multiplies itself- once you get going it’s impossible to stop.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There is no such thing as a smooth road, but I’m also in a position where the stress is low and I have complete control. Even if things aren’t going my way I just take it in stride because I’m the only person I need to answer to. I feel a pull to figure it out, to keep going. It’s been a lesson of letting go of this ‘need for speed’ mentality that existed in my previous working life. Everything will come in its own time and what a relief it is to just accept that.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I work in several mediums including ceramics, plaster, paper clay, two-dimensional collage work, plaster, and most recently resin. I’m most interested in experimenting, trying to figure out what materials work for what applications and stretching materials to their max or trying to use them in a novel way. I also use them together often in a way that is maybe surprising or unconventional. Every time I work in a new material, I realize somehow it relates to one I’ve been using and I learn something new or think of it in a new way. It’s almost like a physical stream of consciousness- I bounce around between many projects and mediums simultaneously and they all inform the others.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I read Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramovic, probably around 2017 and it was a game changer for me. It was a complete shift in understanding life – I think being able to see someone else’s life that looks unbelievably different than yours is the first step in understanding life can be whatever you want to make it. It’s about being open to the wonder and the possibilities of what is out there and understanding that there is a way that you can be 100% fully yourself and that that is what the world needs.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oonshoppette.com
• Instagram: @oon_shoppette

Image Credits
Headshot by Emily Hopkins Metzger