Heart of Art: Kelsey Fagan of Elevate Art Studio

February 14, 2024

Happy Valentine’s Day, readers! Here at FTT, we are so proud to carry incredible works of art from a number of talented artists based in Alaska and beyond. As we move towards summer 2024, we are bringing back our popular Heart of Art blog series, spotlighting our incredible artists and vendors. 

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’re starting our first Heart of Art feature in 2024 with artist Kelsey Fagan of Elevate Art Studio. Put in Kelsey’s own words, “Art is how our hearts communicate - both with ourselves and with the world. Art allows us access to understanding, emotions, connection, and empathy that words can't come close to touching.” We think this is such an important sentiment today and beyond. Read on to learn more about Kelsey and her process: 

Could you provide our readers with a little background on yourself and how Elevate Art Studio came to be?

When people learn that my background is in art therapy, there's often an "aha" moment. My BA in psychology and MA in art therapy and counseling in combination with a life lived in beautiful places have provided the foundation for a style that has developed out of inward reflection and outward inspiration. I spent years working as the art therapist in a psychiatric hospital in Hawaii while also contracting with a juvenile sex offenders program and an out-patient eating disorder program. 

Over time, I learned that making my own art alongside my patients was a way to support their processes while showing them that art can be anything they needed it to be.

The ink and watercolor style that you now see in my work today was born during these years of experimenting with various forms of media, imagery and verbal expression, all created bit by bit in parallel with children, adolescents and adults struggling to move through their own countless challenges. 

When I returned to Alaska in 2013, I found myself needing a break from the therapy aspect of my work, but continued to create and had a number of shows at various galleries around Juneau. Over time, and specifically, after a 2018 fundraising project for the nonprofit Salmon Beyond Borders exploded into something much bigger than I expected, it became clear that people were responding to my work and that it was time to get both official and intentional. 2020 brought COVID into our lives and it seemed as though the universe was saying "Hey, if you're really going to do this, now's the time." And so, Elevate Art Studio became my full-time focus and I expanded my reach into galleries and shops across the state of Alaska and into Oregon. I now have work throughout the state in at least 10 different communities.

And while my life's focal point has necessarily shifted with the birth of my daughter, Wilder, in 2021, Elevate remains my sole focus in terms of work and business. 

What an incredible creation story for Elevate Art Studio! Could you touch a little more on what art means to you specifically?

Art is how our hearts communicate - both with ourselves and with the world. Art allows us access to understanding, emotions, connection, and empathy that words can't come close to touching. I include words and phrases in my work, but they come only after the imagery has come forward onto the page. The words allow for a deepening, but without the imagery, they'd lose their power. Because art holds space for everything - the dark, the light, play, heartbreak, sorrow, terror, joy, delight- everything, everything is possible there.

This is why people have such deeply different reactions to the same piece of art. And also why it's often scary to jump into our own art-making experience. We take our own experiences of the world and of life, of ourselves and of each other, and we bring that with us into every piece of art we look at, every piece of art we create. When there's something in a piece that somehow clicks with something that lives within us - a desire, an experience, a feeling, a knowing, it resonates. There's a wisdom and a knowing that's awakened within us that we don't always make space for or invite forward. And perhaps the most incredible thing about it is that it opens portals within ourselves and between ourselves and others, allowing for a deepening and a connection that gives way to something new. A new spark or a reminder of who we are, what matters to us, where we find joy, where we're closed, where there's longing that maybe we had pushed away. Art opens us up and allows us access to our own knowing, and from that place, we interact with ourselves and the world a little (and sometimes a lot) differently.

Where do you find inspiration for your art and your artistic process?

Quick answer- outside and inside. Outside in the magic that is the natural world, full of sharp edges and soft curves, bright colors and every shade of gray, movement and stillness. And inside myself, the thoughts and reflections of my own mind, my hopes and fears, delight and longing, sorrow and resiliency. 

I create from my mind's eye, rarely from photos or actual places because my perfectionist tendencies get in my way and I hear too many voices saying I'm getting it wrong. If I can let go of doing it "right" (as though there's such a thing), I can find flow. Or perhaps flow finds me. And that flow leads to an exploration of both place and of the messages I might find while sitting in the quiet of that place (really while sitting in the quiet of my own self). When you find yourself

somewhere exceptionally beautiful and you're just quiet, held by that place, a part of it, there's always a message there, waiting. Just for you. It is both for you and of you. I visit those places and tune in.

As an artist, have you found that your art has grown or changed at all?

My style has certainly evolved and most obviously, the landscapes have shifted from the tropical vibrancy of Hawaii to the temperate moodiness of Southeast Alaska and the cold, magical edges of Alaska's alpine, but the combination of inspirational imagery and messages of resiliency found in those places and moments remain. 

Early on, when I was starting to work in this way, the phrases were exceptionally long and were more like flowing journal entries, but in third person, almost like excerpts from a novel or a memoir. They were reflections of my life, my thoughts, my awarenesses. They were often quite long, and described the life of a third person "she", perhaps my way of distancing myself a little from my patients in my art process while I worked alongside them, or perhaps a way of distancing myself from my own experience a little in order to gain a slightly different perspective, who knows. 

Once I shifted away from doing therapy, my art also changed. Not only was I in Alaska rather than Hawaii, but I wasn't dedicating the vast majority of my time and energy to supporting others in crisis. I had space in a new way, both literal and figurative, and it seemed that the more space I had, the fewer words I needed. The lines became finer and more precise. The colors became more nuanced. The words and phrases became shorter and I found that rather than offering up

chapters, I wanted to share in-the-present-moment reflections. A landscape was created and the words would follow. Those words were somehow already living within that scene, within that moment, and they just needed to find their way to my pen. 

When people saw my work, they'd often (and still do) miss the words entirely at first, and they'd like the image, but it was when the words became clear that they'd say "yes". It hit them in that knowing spot. Something resonated. And the more precise, always present moment phrases were what took over. (If you notice, every phrase is very intentionally set in the present moment - "Dancing with Gravity", "Breathing in the Last Moment of Me Before Becoming Us", "Holding Space for Exquisite Uncertainty", etc.)

Can you tell us more about your body of work as a whole? 

While I work predominantly in ink and watercolor, my work has landed on everything from hats to beer labels to shuttle buses. What originated as a simple fundraising effort resulted in my creating an ongoing available collection of hand-printed hats produced by Aurora Projekt in Juneau. With imagery both above and below the brims, we use old-school foam front, and snapback truckers as a base for various images adapted from my original art which is then printed onto vinyl and heat pressed, each step done by hand. I've made these as fundraisers, as custom designs for heliski companies, and as simple fun and fresh ways to find some upliftendness in the world of regular old hat-wearing. Additionally, I've hand-painted hundreds of cork front baseball and trucker hats over the past number of years, using acrylic paint to create land- and mountainscapes that are then weatherproofed and worn as unique and wearable art pieces.

I've also worked with multiple Alaskan breweries, creating label art for various beers,

one being an annual fundraiser for a local avalanche safety group. There is also now a University of Alaska Southeast shuttle bus wrapped in my art, uplifting the campus and hopefully the student’s and staff's commuter moments. I strive to keep everything as local as possible, with giclée prints produced by Ice Fog Press, hats produced by Aurora Projekt, and cards printed by AKLitho all here in Juneau. Elevating the community through my own business has proven an important component of my philosophy and provides a pathway to shared abundance.

It’s amazing that your work has been able to be shared across so many touchpoints – is there a piece of art or an art moment of yours that you’re most proud of?

I created my first mural in 2020 at Rainforest Recovery, a substance abuse treatment facility here in Juneau. I had to experiment with how to translate my style and technique to a large wall and via acrylic paint. It took 65 hours and lives across the hall from the nurses' station.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to contribute to creating an environment of support and resiliency for everyone moving through that space, clients and nurses alike, who work so incredibly hard. The phrase embedded in the piece is "Trusting in the Quiet Wisdom of This Moment". 

We love that! Okay, one final question, what advice do you have for other artists, especially those looking to turn their art into a business? 

As an artist who wants to create and maintain a business sharing their work, it's helpful to notice when your work is resonating with people. Get curious about that. It's also helpful to notice when your work is really resonating with YOU. Get curious about that as well. Find the balance between creating whatever it is that needs to come forward and creating work that really vibes with people. 

When creating your business, it's usually because you've discovered that these two things overlap - the art you're making resonates with people and they want to pay you for it. Yahoo! Awesome. That intersection is a sweet spot, but it can shift like a moving goal post and it may have everything or nothing to do with you. It can be hard, sometimes, to be honest with yourself about the intention behind your creation when that train starts rolling down the tracks. I've found myself creating art that I know will sell and I've found myself creating art that just needed to come into the world. They're not always the same pieces. Not everything you create will be celebrated by others. I'm constantly surprised by which pieces sell and which don't. Pieces I've made on a whim that I didn't think much about are still consistently selling. Other pieces that were deeply meaningful to me barely move. Art is so personal not only to the artist but also to the audience- allow yourself to be surprised by your art and by how it is received. Don't try to pin it down. Work. Play. Get curious. Don't judge. Don't attach yourself to a specific response. Keep creating.

We'd like to extend a huge ‘thank-you’ to Kelsey Fagan of Elevate Art Studio for taking the time to share with us for our first Heart of Art feature of 2024! To find out more about Kelsey and her work, you can find her on Instagram at @elevate_art_studio. To shop Kelsey’s work here at FTT, visit our online store or stop by our gallery on the 2nd floor of our home in the Seward Harbor!

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