Exhibiting Artist Interview Kristin Harvey Oro Valley AZ August 2023

Speakers: Kristin Harvey, Colorist Painter, kristinharveyart.com

Kristin Harvey: Hi, I'm Kristin Harvey. The theme of my show at Artists & Makers Studios was Desert Magic. It was focused primarily on the color that the desert actually offers that many don't realize until they live in this area and live through a full year of seasons. So my goal was to bring the color and the beauty of the desert into the gallery through my paintings so that viewers could eventually take that into their own homes, as well and entice people to come to the desert and see what all it has to offer.

Kristin Harvey: My favorite part of exhibiting at Artists & Makers Studios was actually the sense of community and the support behind it. My experience was my first in this area when I moved to Southern Arizona and it was my first solo show in the area, and I was a bit nervous and the community of artists that were in the studios and had shown in the gallery before were very welcoming and very helpful. It was an a awesome experience as well. When people came to visit the show, they had more artists work to see and to enjoy and more artists to meet and discuss their work. So it was really that the sense of community around it. I had a reception at my exhibit and had a great turnout, and the artists in the studios showed up and supported me and it was really a good time, and the exposure was wonderful. It's something I definitely want to do again.

Kristin Harvey: I think I'll always be a colorist first, but lately, my work has evolved more into expressionism. I don't really start with a firm plan in mind. I'm surrounded by desert elements here in Southern Arizona daily in my life, so they are bound to come out in my work. But today, when I start a new painting, I paint very loosely, very intuitively turning my canvas in a 360 degree so that I get paint flowing in different directions, and strokes moving in different directions. Eventually, as I continue painting, something catches my eye and starts to evolve. And then I will take that and convert that to my wishes or what the vision I see in my head, once I start to see the seed of it planted in the intuitive work, and then I bring that out and develop it more. In this case, it was an organ pipe cactus blooming with a hummingbird and desert canyons in the background. Hummingbirds are very popular here in Southern Arizona, so they often appear in my work.