Hello, I'm Kryssa, the artist behind KmjKennedy Art! This is my first blog post...ever. This is just a small snippet of an introduction, how my brain flows and what some of the content my blog will hold. It will probably be a lot of info dumping and thought flows. I process through verbalization and I am starting to understand and feel safe to extend that into the written form. So here is a journey of why I am here, speaking to you about art and how this website began to form.
When I was younger and if you asked me what I wanted to be, it would range from dolphin trainer (back when WEM had dolphins and I would plan on how to break them out), marine biologist (thank you, Free Willy, also how I gained the idea of breaking the dolphins free from WEM), Veterinarian, or an artist. Turns out, I don't like needles, I don't like getting wet, and my extreme empathy and queasy-ness to real-life blood/injury made it nearly impossible to even think about being a veterinarian.
So now I am finally fulfilling my childhood dream of being an artist.
Throughout my life, art has always been a constant for me. That steady interest I could rely on when it didn't feel like a demand to create. I often struggled to choose what to draw because I wanted to draw everything. I liked to draw many things. So to help with choosing what to draw from my imagination, I often turned to examples that I could physically see and touch.
I would look around the room I was in until I found something that sparked an internal response of excitement. Sometimes it was a stuffed animal, toy, or picture from a book. One day I remember so clearly; I think I got sent to my room for something and I was trying to figure out what to do. So I decided to draw. That day I started drawing my CD album's cover art. Aqua was in my boombox, so I decided to draw the Aquarium album. I think I was 7 at the time, the album came out that year and I LOVED IT. This memory is so strong for me. I was sitting under the window on the floor of our townhouse, the sun was shining on the floor which was a variation of brown and cream linoleum with the square patterns, the stuff they put in throughout all of subsidized housing because it's easy to clean. I also enjoyed switching from sun spot to shade spot to feel the temperature difference. I had Unicorn and Pegasus wallpaper with the matching bedspread and sheet sets. We couldn't paint the walls but we were allowed wallpaper and those stickers.
Anyways, I would sit and listen to music and draw all the time. Practicing by tracing my favourite pictures out of books, CDs, or pausing my animated movies so I could tape my paper onto the glass screen tube tv. I would trace them and then I would practice drawing them until I could draw them perfectly from memory without any tracing. I hardly colored my pictures, and if I did, I did it on high energy days. Often times I would hyper fixate on the drawing and then either run out of steam or be too scared to add colour. I was always worried about ruining my art because I didn't like coloring. I would often just outline my drawings with the colour. I still struggle with this today with my drawings and paintings. I LOVE the drawing stage, the fundamentals of the artwork, but when it comes to adding colour, I get nervous and self conscious. (I'll be making another blog post extending on this and how it shows in my artwork.)
This post started off as an Instagram post to reintroduce myself, and then the flow of thoughts began and I just kept writing. This is why I've added a blog to my website. Soooooooo, to bring us back to the beginning...what I want to be when I grow up. Well, I don't want to be just one thing.
I was a teacher for a while, that's what my degree is in, and I majored in art. I taught art, and nearly every other subject, and I specialized in teaching students who are neurodiverse with complex school trauma. With that specific environment, and being at the school I was teaching at, I burnt out. Badly. I still have no idea how I held on for so long. Looking back now, I can clearly see it. But again, this is another blog topic for another day.
Creating art is what helped pull me out of burnout. I have been processing my emotions and connecting to my body. I have been talking more and vocalizing and writing to process life. It's what's giving me motivation currently and I'm still figuring out how to steadily incorporate it in my daily life. With two young neurodiverse kids, it's a bit tricky to find the time to make art and process without interruptions, but I'm learning and working with the time that I do have.
I look forward to sharing more of my thought processes, memories, feelings and info dumping that helps connects you to me and my art. Thanks for reading and talk to you soon.
KmjK
Love the info dump! And Aqua. Looking forward to reading future posts.