Episode #10 Amy Kezleigh: Shine Like Your Diamonds

Being a Canadian new media Artist means Kezleigh's creative process is always changing, and forever floating.   Her unique form of expression sits ready to fly from the layers of inspiration she cuts and molds into works of paneled plastic forms flowing like textured depth.

How did her imagination arrive at this creative place? Join me as we uncover her drives, her motivation, and what exactly inspires these forms to emerge? Was it her design experience? Or her education? Life growing up in Muskoka, central Ontario? Or did these experiences weave to influence her practice?

Expressing herself through memories and dreams, organically her work comes together in digital nuances projected through various programs; that finalize with tweaks in her tiny studio. Mapping her panels with a specialized print shop she inks her way to a 3D look that jumps into fluid integrity and nostalgia.

You can enjoy more of Amy Kezleigh artwork on her website:
https://www.kezleigh.com/

Podcast Interview Credits
Sound Effects from Pixby
Audio Links from https://freemusicarchive.org/
Podcast by Carolyn Botelho

Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creatively Thinking Podcast. Join Carolyn Botelho as she uncovers the inspirations behind some incredibly creative minds that are orbiting our local communities. Hi Kesley, or is it Amy Merritt, can I say your first name as well or do I do you identify as Kesley alone? Before we get into your questions I have been eager to know if your name is an invention or a family name from Germany because in German they often spell words with the E before the I. Well hi, thank you for having me. 
 
 I've always been Kesley. I used to make up names for myself pretending that I was someone else. I identify as both Amy and Kesley so you can kind of like interchange that as you want. 
 
 But yeah, I used to pretend that I was someone else all the time when I was younger. At one point I was also Angela and Caitlin. Caitlin came about when I was like 16. 
 
 Yeah, I was like 16 and I had some crazy trauma and she just sort of came from the depths of that and I think I've always been trying to find myself and like I still am. I'm also quite reserved and introverted and Kesley is that someone who can count, who I can count on to do things, like podcasts for instance. I recently just did an artist talk at the Fowler Art Gallery and I was absolutely terrified and I brought on Kesley and she just sort of did that that talk for me and I was told that I spoke pretty pretty well. 
 
 So yeah. Cool. So it's like a another identity for you in a way. 
 
 Yes. Yeah. Another personality. 
 
 Yeah. Cool. Okay. 
 
 So how are you? You are my first artist that I didn't know previously. I saw your work on LinkedIn and your technique and process really impressed me. You are a new media artist from Muskoka, Ontario, an area north of Toronto. 
 
 I like to ask every artist, what made you decide to choose this path as a career? Was it working with your hands, expressing your emotional insights, or something else? I think many artists would like to say that they've been artists their entire life and that's true for me as well. But I also want to say that I did choose this path and I'm actively still choosing it. Being an artist is the hardest career I've ever pursued. 
 
 It's yourself that you're following which makes it super difficult to keep momentum and I think every step I've taken in life has led me here and I welcome every learning opportunity, positive or negative. And as for working with my hands, yes I'm a kinesthetic learner. It's part of my work to try to make my dreams and memories and feelings tangible. 
 
 I'm trying to figure out that deeper meaning to them. I also feel like we're here talking and the whole world is continuing on this path. We're not all going to be here at some point. 
 
 I'm not a very religious person and some people find souls in that, in religion. But if you don't like me then I think art is a really good replacement for that. Art lives past us and I think that makes me feel some sort of comfort. 
 
 In a sense you can think of art as a practice. Yeah because that's what I think of when I do Tai Chi. I think of like it's a meditation which in a way is like religion too. 
 
 Which you can also put religion really with whatever you do in a way in a sense right? Yeah I mean like just the world around you is religion and like all the energies and spiritual emotions it's just it's all religion. And it's funny how you mentioned Tai Chi because I do Tai Chi as well. That's cool. 
 
 Yeah yeah I mean I'm not like I'm just a beginner at Tai Chi. There's really a lot of steps to it so I'm just I'm just learning. But it does give you the sense of peace and calm and it's meditative and it does bring you to that point of religion of feeling that connectiveness.
 
 Mm-hmm exactly yeah. Like they often would say in the classes that I would take that it's a it's a moving meditation and I'd be like oh yeah it is. Because I would always try to just just do the still meditation and that's hard. 
 
 But then I would think oh the moving meditation well it's just as good it's just it's just I'm moving I'm more active and it's just yeah it centers you it brings you to that that stillness that I think everyone is really kind of looking for somewhere right. Yeah yeah and yoga is also that moving meditation. Yeah yeah yeah that's a good one too yeah. 
 
 When you describe your work as expressions through dreams and memories can you expand on this? Are they recollections translated directly or are they skewed by emotional understanding? Or is there another process they are articulated into reality? They are mostly feelings that a memory gives me. Everyone has that memory jolt from smelling your grandmother's perfume or maybe it's finding your baby's first outfit from the hospital. It's that feel those feel-good memories. 
 
 For me it's hearing gravel crunching in the early spring like it takes me right back to the early summer of my childhood home with my dad smelling of like cigarettes and cars. I did one called Shine Like Your Diamonds and that's the title of this episode. That one might be a series actually of feelings while being on mind alterating substances. 
 
 Shine Like Your Diamond feels like walking on city grass full of garbage and seeing one of those blue copper moths. It has this bit of melancholy because nature will always continue on with or without us humans but it's also very freeing like life moves on. You could have the worst day and the sun will still rise. 
 
 The stars are still there behind the clouds and like life tries so hard and it's so inspiring. Yeah it's hard to put into words sometimes when when you're trying to just figure out how your work is really how to describe it exactly because you really need to see it in some ways right? It's not it's not entirely able to be described and felt at the same time right? Yeah and that's that's where I think I struggle a little bit is with trying to take that feeling and those emotions and the memories and try to make them tangible and really present in this physical world. I find it difficult and challenging in a good way. 
 
 Can you share with our audience your experience at the Halliburton School of Art and Design? Do you see it as different than traditional schools? Did the faculty expose you to the die-cutting and printer mounting process as well as working with large panels? Oh wow so that school is amazing first of all. There's such a creative energy there that really amplifies everything that you do. I personally love the sculpture garden. 
 
 A secret actually that I like to tell people is that I've hidden little ceramic trinkets made by me there in the forest. So yeah so if you go there and you find a little trinket it's probably mine. How would you describe how you work with your medium of digital painting? Can it be related to traditional painting on a canvas or is it a completely different creative process that is entirely unique? How did you end up exploring this type of medium in the beginning? Was it a gradual learning curve? My first experiments actually were paint and watercolor ground on found glass panels. 
 
 I was also making patterns with pencil crayons and markers. I made t-shirt t-shirts for friends using my patterns. Like I knew I was I was trying to express something. 
 
 I painted a few canvases but I felt super intimidated by the white space and like this big this canvas that I bought was my limited money and resources. I felt like I was wasting money and I didn't really know how to do anything and everything that I tried wasn't right. It didn't feel right to me. 
 
 I bought an iPad to read magazines and ebooks on and I knew that you could download painting apps. So I did and just as a stress reliever I like I started making paintings and designs and collages. As a design student I had no knowledge about setting up documents to print. 
 
 I searched for eternity for someone to print on glass for me. The closest I could get was someone who prints it up on plastic like a plastic vinyl sheet and then sandwiched those and sandwiched that sheet in between two pieces of glass. So I created a few of those. 
 
 Super expensive really really prototype stuff and I still have them in my closet. You gotta keep where you got from the beginning right? You gotta keep the beginning stuff. Sorry? I said you got to keep the stuff from the beginning right? Oh yes yes yeah I know I'm sure I'm sure there's tons of artists who have tons of art still in their closet somewhere you know? Yeah yeah but as for digital painting it's it's like real painting if you find the right app that you can manipulate colors like you can in real life. 
 
 It's less messy obviously and I can set up anywhere in the world that has a Wi-Fi connection and I love that so much about digital painting because I can just be in Fiji right now and be painting and that is just amazing to me. Yeah yeah to do it anywhere must be a really invigorating feeling. Yeah and like you can do it anywhere I can do it on the bus I can do it here in my studio I can be at a cafe doing it like it's amazing but I do feel like some people have an aversion to digital work with the controversy of AI stealing artists work and NFTs being so lucrative. 
 
 I even had one gentleman at the artist project this year comment on my work and tell me that it's cheating. So that was that was a bit of a blow to to my to my creativity I think but you know art is art is art is all I can say to that. Yeah yeah he doesn't know the process of it. 
 
 Yeah yeah and it takes it takes so long to create the things that I create and it takes months for me to be satisfied with with what I have and you should see just see my iPad it's just full of just art that I don't think is ready or that I want to delete maybe later it's just it's just a lot of work. You're still in the process with a lot of it he probably hasn't seen all the work. Yeah exactly and like my process is completely unique. 
 
 It took me a long time and lots of experiments to create the work that you see today. It's always evolving and like I really like that everything from that first feeling that I get that I want to capture to which paintbrush or color or image alterating software to use to the printing setup to cutting out the image to the special mounting on the back like it's all it's a battle of research and like sourcing materials and people and machines it's a it's a whole process and you know there's there's only two companies in Canada one in Germany and one in France right now that can help me like bring my work to life and it's it's like. So they're not in Canada but they can actually sort of digitally bring it to you from those other countries is that what you're saying? Yes yes so the printing machine that actually like laser UV inks the work onto the back of acrylic glass there's only two companies in Canada that that does it and I found one in Germany that does it and one in France. 
 
 So there's only there's only limited printers that can help me create my work. Okay so there there is one in Canada and then there's those other two as well okay yeah second I thought you said that they were in those other countries but then they were like digitally bringing it to you kind of thing. Yes so that's the great part about digital work as well because I can send my files to those companies in Germany and France if I if I have like a show in in Europe somewhere I don't have to ship my work I just have to you know like send them my files they print my work there and that saves so much with shipping costs. 
 
 But what about the mounting of it would they be able to mount it how you how you how you would do it yourself? Yes yep so so there's been there's been a lot of back and forth and like there's been like a few language barriers there I've really improved my French by the way. That's so good. Yeah so so yeah they can get my work done in a way that I want it to and yes they can put the mounting on the back of it. 
 
 Yeah I guess because now you can do you can do everything by video and explain everything as well that way so they can visually see how you do how you do your work. Yeah it's it's it's really awesome. I love I love the digital world like it's so convenient. 
 
 Yeah yeah there's so much to it. Can you share with our audience your experience at the Halliburton School of Art and Design? Do you see it as different than traditional schools? Did the faculty expose you to the die cutting and printer mounting process as well as working with large panels? Oh wow so that school is amazing. There's such a creative energy there that amplifies everything that you do and personally I love the sculpture garden. 
 
 A secret that I could tell people is that I've hidden little ceramic trinkets there made by me. So if you go there and search for them you'll probably find some still and I think I think the Halliburton School of Art and Design is really different because of its location. It's set in the middle of the work in the middle of the woods and it just gives such freedom to all of its students. 
 
 The course that I took was called integrated design. It's not there anymore unfortunately. It operated for about five years under Barr Gilmore who is an amazing person, amazing teacher, an amazing artist. 
 
 We learned everything there was to learn about design. We went through like computer design, went through glass blowing, ceramics and pottery, fabric, clothing design, like drawing and painting, blacksmithing, like we learned everything. Wow. 
 
 It was it was really amazing. It was an amazing time and I have this dream of teaching digital arts there one day and I think that'd be so fun. Sounds so immersive. 
 
 Yeah and as for exposing me to die-cutting and printer mounting process, no they didn't. I had to find out that process all on my own. I had to sort of source out that and really research that whole process on my own. 
 
 A lot of investigating huh? That you had to do on your own. Wow. Yes. 
 
 Yeah. When you say your work is intuitively in the flow state done usually on the floor, how are you able to not see the floor or sorry not see the flow as being interrupted by being bent to be sitting? When I was in painting and drawing classes I always found the flow function better standing. Honestly I just gravitate towards the ground. 
 
 I'm always sitting on the ground right now. I'm sitting on like a little floor cushion on the ground. I just feel like the ground feels safer and you know my therapist would probably say that it's because of my need for grounding and safety and the floor just feels very sturdy.
 
 You know? It's grounding. There you go right? Yeah. Yeah. 
 
 That is a good way of looking at it. I never thought about it that way. And like as for standing while painting, I've stood while painting as well. 
 
 I think it's better for you. Honestly quite honestly you'll find me kind of hunched over in like a weird position on the floor which is probably not good for my back. I think standing is probably better for you posture wise but yeah I've just always gravitated towards the ground.
 
 It is tiring standing for too long too so those six-hour painting classes it's not good to stand for that long. And we'll be right back. When you think of the words collage or montage were they part of your creative process in your early days when you were developing your technique or was there a different way you came about this style? Was it more of an organic evolution? Can you expand on this for us? So I do do a lot of collage in my work. 
 
 I take a lot of photos of textures and use those. I also find a lot of images on a free image site called Upsale. They've been a part of my work since the beginning and I think I'm trying to find the balance between abstract and form. 
 
 Some of my work is quite abstract and then some of it has some form. I'm not quite sure but maybe maybe I use maybe I use them because I can't think of another way of expressing that texture or form so I need to take a photo of something kind of similar. I'm still I'm still kind of puzzling this part out of my work. 
 
 Now you're figuring it out as you go right? So I found you on Discover Art Pace with several works representing the human body. Was this before you focused your practice as dreams and memories or was this an exploration of subject matter? Were you developing your technique to what it has become today? The human forms are from a series that I was doing kind of unconsciously. My partner Rainer helped me discover that there are actually all me. 
 
 I was diagnosed with clinical depression, panic disorder, PTSD about two years ago and since then I've been trying to get it under control with medication. It's been it's been a hard journey. I've switched medications like eight times now just trying to find the right one. 
 
 That work is all about how it feels to be on medication and all the side effects from feeling emotionally numb to brain zaps to withdrawals, migraines, weight gain, like these insane wild dreams and like out-of-body experiences. So all of those forms develop some sort of feeling or some sort of emotion that I was having while experiencing these side effects on medication. And if anyone who's listening right now is dealing with like all these crazy side effects with medications just know that like medications they do help you just have to find the right one.
 
 Yeah that is so true. You really just work with your doctor, find the right one and like you'll get through it. There's a light at the end of the tunnel I swear.
 
 Yeah I know right? But sometimes the doctors don't even know themselves and that's why you got to be careful. You got to make sure your doctor knows what they're doing and that they're you know they have the experience and everything because I've seen some some horror stories about you know people being put on the wrong things and just how they had to deal with like the side effects and because the side effects can be really really torture for some people. Yeah yeah you have to you definitely have to be your own advocate for sure and write down take notes because you know the doctors see like I don't know how many people a day like 50 people a day they're not gonna really focus on you specifically.
 
 Oh yeah and hundreds really over over like the course of a year probably so yeah you definitely have to take your notes and say you know be at your own advocate and say look this is how it is I think and if you need to change it like say you know that you need to and all this stuff because yeah I've definitely been on a lot of different medications over the years and it's like yeah you gotta you gotta make sure you find the right the right cocktail right? Yeah yeah so what works for you yeah so so you understand what how how that feels then that those those side effects and how they really really can make you tired and make you oh yeah make you so exhausted make you feel like you're so numb and you have no feelings and oh yeah there's so yeah but like when you find that right medication that right dosage like it is magical and I can say that because I've recently just found this medication and it's magical and it's correct for me and it's like the right dose and I feel so happy and it's great. Yeah well see I I was on the right medication but then after like nearly a decade I'm like you know what my body's getting so dependent on this is this good for my organs right so I decided to take it off take myself off of it but not not all at once right I weaned myself off of it over like three years and then within the first week of not having it I was like oh my god I was like I really got to get back on that like your body really senses it even if you wean yourself off you know like like I I told the doctors and I made sure that everybody was aware and everything and and I told them why and everything and they were in support of it and everything but then yeah like I said within within one week of being off of it I was like I was feeling really sort of frantic and I was like yeah I was I wasn't sleeping very well I'm like okay I gotta get back on it yeah crazy how we can we can get so hooked on things and we don't even know it yeah it can it can be pretty pretty horrendous for sure for sure anyway we're we're getting a little off topic but but that's all right it's good to talk about these things too yeah yeah so yes on art place you have a few works that contain real objects flowers butterflies was this also an exploration of technique and subject to get you to become the unique multi-paneled artist who is pushing the boundaries visually you know I thought of this question and I think the real objects in my work around me in this in this world while my head is up in the air sort of in this really abstract state I'm really trying to like pull emotions and pull colors and pull textures of what I feel like that memory is invoking in me I feel like keeps me up in the air a lot and the real objects like flowers or butterflies that are in the real world really grounds the piece and ground me and kind of makes the piece more tangible to most people of this world I think I think that's why I have like real elements in my work yeah it kind of brings it all together right yeah okay being a new media artist how do you find the market are there other artists in this field do you do you feel a sense of competition or are you seeing your work as completely original compared to what other contemporaries are doing I say that I'm a new media artist and I get a lot of hum and like what's that and I thought I actually made up the term like new media artists I thought I made that up but it's actually it's actually a term and like I think I wrote I wrote down it's like the actual definition of new media artists and here it is the term new media art refers to a wide range of contemporary artworks that include new technology such as computer animation virtual reality and online world new media art is in strength instinctively tied to the digital art and contemporary art and may possibly be called a hybrid of the two so I actually feel pretty lonely here in the new media art world um besides you know scammers asking me to buy my work as nfts or bitcoin I haven't found anyone else but there are like billions of people on this earth so I'm sure there's someone out there who's doing something similar to my work and you know if you are listening to this and you are a new media artist uh please follow me on kesley on instagram and we can connect and we can maybe even collaborate because that'd be cool the last artist she got me to put her like contact information in the uh the description of the podcast so then that's even more advertising right okay yeah but then but then also I haven't really been following up with every single podcast and putting them on all the different art facebook pages that I'm in like I'm on a lot of them like the abstract and the realist and the Canada and just like this I don't know there's probably like a hundred different um like painter sites and just artist sites that I'm in and so like I think for the first couple I was putting them into all those uh sharing them with all those facebook sites but now I'm just getting I'm just getting so busy with all the all the ones that I'm doing that I haven't done it but the last artist I did I said I just I sent her the links of all the groups that I thought she'd be interested in so I could do that for you too if you want yeah okay yeah that's good because I mean I'm in a lot of abstract but I don't know if there's any new media there might be some new media ones that I've looked at because I think they're I've got over yeah I mean it is it is like new media so it is very new I think to the to the whole yeah so yeah I haven't too many people really well I think I've got like I've got over a hundred artists that I haven't invited them yet because that would just to the podcast I mean I've got them as a list that I'm like going through all of them but I think there's a few other new media artists on there so um maybe I can connect you guys all together right that would be good yeah great that'd be awesome I saw you are involved with propeller art gallery the works are we there yet also features symbols was this part of your evolution as an artist the figures could also represent religious or national symbols was this your intent or was it exploratory so there is some work that I do that I don't fully understand and this is one of those pieces which is which could be confusing to some people but I find that my work is so intuitive that I'm not even sure what it means and I'll try to explain what it could be about I know I did do a talk about that piece at the propeller art gallery um during its exhibition but what I think it is about now is how the world is in such chaos and how we have our hands in front of our faces on our phones sending like thoughts and prayers to these just devastated countries like the like the wars and just just human just human horrors you know like it's just tragedies everywhere yeah just tragedies everywhere and we just have our hands in front of our faces and it's just we're just on our phones and I just feel like that piece really says really invokes that I suppose um but then it also could be like like mother like daughter because there's two figures in this piece and I guess I guess I should really explain what the piece looks like actually so there's there's two figures there's one in the forefront and one in the background and they have their hands they're both female figures and they have their hands in front of their face just one hand in front of their face and it does look very statuesque it could maybe even represent the Statue of Liberty but yeah so that there's two there's two figures there and it could be about like mother like daughter mother's on phone so daughter's on phone it could be about the universe shaped into a form that we can understand as two as two humanoid shapes but yeah that piece is really up for interpretation like it could invoke a lot of different ideas that's what you're saying yeah for sure for sure well that's good you want that in a way because you don't want everyone to see the same you want everybody to interpret it in their own how they want to see it yeah yeah when working on your digital paintings do you work backwards from an inspiration or does your flow creatively work its magic with musical direction can you describe your creative process in a little more detail yes so I would say it's both I either get a feeling and I work from that it's actually mostly about the feeling it's a feeling or a memory that I have so that's that's where I work from I take I take either textures or colors or scents and try to make them tangible and I first get that feeling and then I go straight to my iPad and I start I start to sort of figure out or feel out the colors of what I'm feeling is it a bright color is it like a happy memory is it sort of melancholy is it more in like the olive green tones the texture is it kind of like a smooth memory or is it sort of a rough rough memory to me and then I start pulling pulling images or taking images like taking photos of my phone I'll go for a walk really trying to like suss out or feel out this this this memory that I'm trying to make into a piece and then it could take months like it could take it could take a week it could take a day it could take months but it's it's really it's really dependent on that memory's sort of focus I guess or strength and yeah I hope I uh I hope I answered your question but I think so like it sounds like it sounds like you're you're looking for the threads of of what makes up that that memory that you're trying to convey yeah yeah so so it really it really starts with that memory or like that that that feeling I suppose that that's where it starts do you see your creative output as having a specific narrative or does it have a more non-linear way of communicating does your non-traditional technique have a message or is new media the way of the future pure and simple oh so sorry for giving you a tough one at the end hey yeah yeah honestly this this is a this is a tough question because it's it's something that I've been struggling with I've been struggling with like what is my message do I need to have a message as an artist do I need to be out there telling people this or is it just for me as an as an artist that just is it is this message for me to try to figure out why I'm here on the planet earth or why everything is the way it is or do I have a message to tell someone and I'm not I'm not sure if I do have a message or not or if I do I haven't found it yet I haven't I haven't found it deep within myself yet so I'm still trying I'm still trying to find my style I'm still trying to find me as an artist and you know I've only started about like professionally about four years ago so yeah I'm still I'm still trying to find or your message could just be you're an artist and this is your work that's your message like maybe it maybe it maybe it isn't you know a really articulated message that you're communicating maybe it's just your art is the vehicle for the message kind of thing yeah and and do all artists need a message to tell the world I'm not I'm not sure that they do I think that they can just be who they are and just showcase what they do without having to have yeah exactly they don't have to be a message I just thought if you do you know if there was something that I didn't know about that I couldn't see you know yeah I mean I mean there's definitely artists who do have a very very strong strong message and that's amazing that's great and you know more power to them you know what I'm thinking I'm like I wish I had a message well you're fine there's this one artist that I tried to to get an interview with and and she's like you know that's all on my website and I was like well this is okay you know what I'm not gonna push it you know if you don't want to do it you don't want to do it I'm just you get all kinds though I've been I've been reaching out to so many people and like you get so many reactions I can't believe it you know like it's it's so weird yeah yeah but yeah everybody's different and everybody's got you know different priorities and different different messages or non-messages or you know it's all it's all yeah I feel like we're all sort of in in our own on our own path towards what we're trying to say maybe maybe that's why we're trying to figure out our own path and yeah exactly then we'll be right back well thanks so much uh Kesley or Amy or yeah is that is that it yeah all right but yeah that that was that was it for my my questions for you and uh for this for this episode anyway but I think it went pretty well I think we did pretty good yeah yeah I think so too I think but yeah thank you so much Amy for for doing this with me and uh yeah I'll get it off to you as soon as as soon as uh as soon as I can and then we should totally do this again because it's so much fun to talk about art yes it's amazing to talk about art and like yeah thank you so much for having me and definitely talk soon yeah okay great okay all right take care bye bye join me next time as I go down another rabbit hole with another creative professional on their insights their inspirations and their ingenuity