Kristen Spickard: The States Project: Arkansas

Kristen Spickard: The States Project: Arkansas by Donna PinckleyFebruary 23, 2018

©Kristen Spickard, Rules

On Day four, it’s my great pleasure to introduce my former student, Kristen Spickard. After undergraduate school, Kristen went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts degree from The Ohio State University. She has taught on the West Coast but now is back at her alma mater, University of Central Arkansas using both her photography and graphic design skills.

For me, Kristen’s project Making + Sharing is inspirational and brave. She is making art every day for one year which sometimes is hard for the most dedicated artists, but then putting the work on Instagram. Not only is she prolific but open to comments about her work. (Hopefully, constructive.) She inspires me to work harder!

Kristen Spickard is a photographic artist from Little Rock, Arkansas. She received a BFA from the University of Central Arkansas and an MFA from The Ohio State University. She currently lives and works in Conway, Arkansas, and serves as a graphic designer and photographer for the Division of Outreach & Community Engagement at the University of Central Arkansas

2.Petit Jean State Park last Thanksgiving_

©Kristen Spickard, Petit Jean State Park last Thanksgiving

Making + Sharing

Making + Sharing is a near-daily image-making project that is shared and cataloged on Instagram. (instagram.com/kristenspickard) The frequency and format of Making + Sharing provides an opportunity to explore and define my creative process and to push deeper into my favorite subjects. Making + Sharing fits into my ongoing portfolio of work, which has explored topics of our relationship with the natural world as well as ideas about making things by hand. Through these two lenses, I experience and contemplate the world around me and my place in it.

Working at my day job as a graphic designer for the past several years began to inform my fine art practice. At first, I was resistant to this change, but just as my work as a photographer-artist has informed my graphic design practice from day one, it only makes sense that my design process now also comes full circle to inform my fine art practice as well. I am now enthusiastically accepting that I enjoy making work on a computer, something I’ve often avoided in favor of analog processes (which I am also enthusiastic about).

3. You fill a bucket drop by drop. Channeling my inner tortoise, always

©Kristen Spickard, You fill a bucket drop by drop. Channeling my inner tortoise, always

The first 79 posts of the project focus on documenting my weekly time spent outdoors, often while commuting to and from work. Photographs are combined with scans of leaves and other found objects, providing a certain abstract narrative to the viewer of my experiences outdoors, focusing on specific things I noticed or appreciated, which at some times felt like odd choices, like a specific rock, leaf, or cloud.

Since post 80, I have focused on documenting my sewing process. Sewing has been an important activity for me throughout my life and I am currently working toward sewing more of my own wardrobe. I use photographic images to document the act of sewing, making work featuring scraps of fabric and thread, and highlighting sewing notions and bits and pieces from my collection of sewing tools.