Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Schamberger.
Kelly, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
The earliest steps in my artistic journey were outfitted with a natural love for art, family influence, and utter boredom. My mom is an artist, and my youngest memories of making art were painting with her watercolors and sewing rice-filled sock puppets. By elementary school, it was clear I had a propensity toward drawing and creating; my mom said I would draw after my bath every night, and my childhood best friend still reminds me that she knew art was going to be a thing in my life. For me, drawing and doodling came from a place of time, energy, and focus management; I had to be drawing in order to sit through long church services or to synthesize information I heard in class. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with ADHD and an auditory processing delay as an adult that it truly made sense why I had to be creating visual notations for the things I was hearing in order for them to click in my brain. By high school, I struggled with depression and drug abuse, and art became a source of mental and emotional expression and self-soothing.
In place of my senior year of high school, I entered college early for a fresh start and ultimately majored in studio art. I knew I wanted a college degree, but didn’t have a clear career path, and art was the only thing I really enjoyed doing at the time. At the age of 19, I graduated magna cum laude with honors, receiving my bachelor’s degree in art and professional writing from the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. I then began working at a police department in records and background checks, and didn’t make any art for three years. I eventually left the department to return to graduate school for non-profit art administration, and would later return to additional schooling for illustration and graphic design. I worked in digital marketing and graphic design, and became a freelance designer and stay-at-home mom after my daughter was born. One of my larger clients was an arts center—one night, the Executive Director and I met for beers to plan out the season’s design needs and at one point, he asked me what my personal dreams were. I remember telling him there was a part of me deep down inside that wanted to be an artist, but that my college advisor had told me I’d never be a fine artist, and “everyone” said you couldn’t financially survive as an artist. Somewhere along the line, I had softly and quietly accepted that reality without weaving the possibility into my hopes and goals. He offered me the opportunity to begin painting live during concerts at the arts center, hidden away up in the balcony, and we had an exhibition of my work from all of the concerts at the end of the season. This dug the artistic passion up from the depths of wherever I had tucked it away, and ultimately led to my decision to pursue a classical atelier-based training in traditional drawing and oil painting methods.
I moved my family to Duluth, Minnesota in 2016 to begin a four-year apprenticeship program with Jeffrey T. Larson and Brock Larson at the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art. That was the true beginning of my fine art career, which has grown quickly and exponentially since, leading to work in solo, group, juried, invitational, museum, and international exhibits, grants, awards, commissions, press, teaching, mentoring, publishing an art book, and now some mind-blowing future opportunities that I’m not yet able to talk about. Along the way, I also discovered just how intricately the desire to create has been woven throughout every part of my heart, soul, and life. In some ways, I feel like “being an artist” has repeatedly chosen me, through opportunity and circumstance, even when I was not choosing that path consciously for myself.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
This path has been a winding and unpredictable road, with me feeling lost in the woods more times than I can count. The very first obstacle was getting to a place where I felt I could call myself an artist. In my work with other creatives now, I always have them start by introducing themselves as, “I’m ____, and I am an artist,” because it’s amazing how big of a roadblock that can be, how people refuse to give themselves permission to create because they can’t give themselves permission to accept that it’s part of who they are.
After that, the struggle was believing that this was a passion, skill, and dream that was financially reasonable to pursue. One of the reasons I chose to train with Jeff Larson, other than his unmatched skill, was that he had successfully supported a wife and three children as a full-time studio artist. It was important to me to comprehend the mindset and outlook of someone who had done that, instead of being trained by someone who would tell me it wasn’t possible. However, over the past few years, I’ve learned that the concept of “reasonable” can be replaced with “absolute trust, faith, and gratitude,” and that although finances are important, they are no longer a factor in my mind when it comes to making art… it is an urge and drive and fire and passion that will unrestrictedly spill out of me regardless of transitory factors like money, time, and circumstance.
After that, the largest struggle I encountered, and continue to encounter, was healthy life balance. There are a lot of really great things in life, people and interests that I care deeply about, but I quickly realized that some things would need to be whittled out in order to carve time and space for this pursuit. It was easiest to identify the bad: during my apprenticeship, I could see the toll that drinking and drug use was costing me and my family, which led me into sobriety and recovery. This community and lifestyle have become a substantial part of my existence, and I’m deeply proud and artistically influenced by the fact that I am nearly five years sober. What is a greater struggle to prioritize is all the good: my faith, family, daughter, friends, sobriety, health, career, and love for art are constantly wrestling for time, attention, and balance. I’ve had to learn to say “no,” accept my personal limitations, get over perfectionism and second-guessing, and trust that art is always going to be there for me.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an oil painter working in the styles of classical realism and impressionism. I draw, but often it is a means in the preparatory stages of a painting, and not an end in itself. I paint in the genres of still life, portraiture, figurative, landscape, and plein air landscape. Of these, I am most known for my still life and plein air paintings, and I love them for entirely separate reasons. With still-life paintings, there is a quiet and prayer-like rhythm to returning to the same subject repeatedly over an extended period of time. I enjoy pushing realism to subtle and nuanced detail, seeking out the dance of color across the form of an object, painting the “air” around the display, and trying to carefully represent what I’m seeing as accurately and truthfully as possible. In contrast, when I am out in the wilderness creating a plein air landscape painting in a single 2-4 hour period, the experience is much more about being present, capturing the light and emotion and aura of the day and scene. There is a riveting “aliveness” in plein air painting that feels like I personally cease to exist while my soul extends outward into the expanse before me.
One of the components of my art that I’ve become most proud of is my ability to remain true to myself in it. Comparison is the thief of authenticity, and I believe it is a developed skill as an artist to be able to look at the work of others, appreciate it for what it is and learn from it, while not seeing it as competition to one’s own work. The beauty and story in my heart is something the world needs, unfiltered and unadulterated, and it is mine to be honest with. That is also precisely what sets my art and style apart from others, that my work comes from my specific life experiences, influences, training, loves, wounds, preferences, geographic location, and circumstance— what is represented is wholly “Kelly.”
What were you like growing up?
I have always been a naturally curious person with a love of learning and a thirst for expanding knowledge. I was, and am, an extroverted introvert; I dearly love people and relationships, but also have a deep need for solitary quiet time and space. As a child, I was extremely committed to martial arts, which shaped my development and instilled the values and principles of self-discipline, respect, passion, a constant improvement over a lifetime, a commitment to physical fitness, and a desire to give back to others. I was a national champion and second in the world for karate, and was understandably extremely competitive. As an adult, I’ve had to learn to compete with myself, pushing to be better for my own growth, and not to be “better than” others. There is humility and peace that comes from this; interestingly, I see this in a lot of “masters,” the better one becomes at something through a lifetime of pursuit and pushing through challenges, the further their ego dissolves.
I also have always been an extremely emotionally-driven person. The dark side of this is repeated mental health struggles and substance abuse throughout my life; the beauty of it is a depth of feeling, connection, and passion that I believe is one of my greatest strengths as a human.
Other childhood and early adulthood interests and influences included: the outdoors, lakes and water, swimming, natural and holistic health, plant medicine, math, music, Japanese culture and design, Egyptian art history, writing, beauty, and love.
Pricing:
- Price range of paintings: $400-$10,000
- Prints available starting at $85
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kellyschamberger.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelly.schamberger.art
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelly.the.artist/
Image Credits
Michelle Bennett/Wolfskull Creative
Mitch Rossow Photography
