The Art of What Inspires “Me”…
Kim Kreis graduated with a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education and taught the most delightful fourth graders in a blue collar, farming community outside Dothan, Alabama for 10 years. Following her marriage in 1986, she moved to Birmingham where she began a new career as a stay at home mom and a fine stationery entrepreneur for 25+ years. Once she and her business partner passed on their company, Sweet Pea Designs, the next step became obvious…to be an artist with a purpose…
Artists are often asked “what inspires you?” Kim Kreis did not have a word that described what motivated her creativity as a young child. Later, once she discovered the dictionary, (one of her all time favorite books) and found the word “whimsy” she had a label for what would inspire her for many years to come.
If you ask Kim Kreis what would be one of her top 5 words in the English language, “whimsy” would be mentioned with a quick laugh. To Kim, whimsy is generally colorful, though not in every instance. Whimsy includes clouds changing from one creature to another, tangled pink ribbons, lady bugs and humming birds, Oregon monkey tail trees, strawberry shortcake made with the strawberries she and her grandmother picked as a young girl, hairbands with “diamonds”, snow flurries, rainbows, a ring around the moon and and laying on blankets watching shooting stars on a summer night with no city lights.. Whimsy is also seeing what the wind does to a pile of leaves, a double rainbow, finding the best broken shells on the beach, and hooting back at the hoot owl that lives in the trees on her property as loud as she can…and he answers.
Whimsy is a warm memory that is so tantalizing you can’t quite grab it. Whimsy is innocent and it touches your heart. Whimsy is almost always happy but it can make you yearn for something that you tentatively believe is beyond your reach…yet you try anyway like the proverbial gold ring on the merry go round. It is like the magic you see in The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings because it is clean and safe…whimsy is joyful, happy and you sigh contentedly.
In her work, whimsy shows up with color and subject matter. With a bold color palette complimented by just the right amount of neutrals, Kim’s pieces speak to a home where the client is happy to pass by her art and smile each time she passes it. Some of her most whimsical works, for example, would be her “Climb Up Sunshine Mountain” series. These are an imaginary layered mountain landscape in which every layer is filled with favorite items like butterflies, birds, fruit, flowers, feathers and ribbons. Each painting is different but each one evokes flights of fancy. The sun is represented in most of these paintings because even on a dark day, she knows that the sun is above the clouds.
Once in the studio, Kim has multiple canvas going simultaneously. Surrounded by colorful jars that she has filled with paint from luscious Golden tubes, the whimsy has begun. Being a prolific artist, her gallery shelves are full of flower ladies that appear to be keeping her company. Along with her favorite Spotify music list or watching King Arthur riding out with banners unfurled…well the magic happens and inspiration follows.
Kim would be the first to tell you that inspiration for a creative is often found because the artist must look for it. In her community of gentle horse trails and lakes she is able to take long walks with Poppy…feeling the breeze or warm sunshine, seeing the patches of blue sky through autumn leaves, or smelling the fragrance of eleagnus wafting haphazardly through the woods are only a few elements that can and do lend themselves to her blank canvas.
Painting with happy colors, using abstract strokes are two of the most important ingredients in producing whimsical original art…and the last is story telling. To Kim, she finds it important that you know a little of what she was thinking, feeling and even believing as she paints.These stories could be sharing a character biography for encouragement of her latest flower lady. Describing the individual whimsies of her sunshine mountain series is really just aimed at “looking for the happy moments” of everyday life and that the simple joys make for powerful memories for you, for your family. Painting her abstracts is taking lovely colors representing “a few of your favorite things” or objects in nature…the colors that trigger good thoughts.
Some have said of their commission purchases that they weren’t completely sure why Kim’s art spoke to them…it just did…and isn’t that the way it is? So many little things make us happy, peaceful, content and we arrange items on shelves and tables to just see them, touch them. For Kim, all the above is like grasping the best parts of your life and putting it on a canvas…the best parts never had to be grand, they only needed to touch your heart.
