Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Kelly Bader of Boulder

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Kelly Bader. Check out our conversation below.

Good morning Kelly, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
Since I’m semi-retired I get to honor myself every morning by waking up when I want, take as much time as I want sitting on my back deck, which is my sanctuary, sipping my coffee, watching Art podcasts or reading the news. Lately I prefer to watch and read positive messages and videos. Usually before 9:00am I am out the door with my two dogs and we hike the Foothills in Boulder or walk our neighborhood trails. My mornings are my time to figure out how my day will proceed and what I’d like to accomplish. I am extremely blessed and it does not go unnoticed. If I’m working on my next painting, then you’ll probably find me in my art studio before I’ve even have my first cup of coffee! Art, to me, is extremely addicting! In a very good way. I also have discovered yoga. Several times a week I take a class; it makes me slow down and honor myself. I love the yoga community!

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I come from very humble beginnings. Growing up we did not have much, what we lacked in money, my parents certainly made up with love! My childhood was full of adventures, which I mainly did on my own! It taught me how to be independent and to think for myself at an early age. I’ve always been artistic in some fashion; whether it’s interior decorating, creating DIY projects (I still have a vintage chandelier I’ve been working on for 4 years!), or painting. Painting came into my life 7 years ago like a rushing river and it still flows to this day. I come from a family of artists so it has always been a part of me in some way. My desire and passion for painting didn’t come till later in life, which I feel is exactly when it was suppose to. I never had formal training, so at first I was just flailing out there and putting paint on canvas and having a blast! Except I had no direction, I was all over the place, painting landscapes, animals, people, travel, pictures I’d taken on my adventures. After a while it was time to hone my skills so I actually knew what I was doing! I enrolled in local art classes and I enrolled in an online art school. I learned so much and it was so exciting! My stepson developed a web-site kellybaderart.com, then I was able to start applying to exhibitions and joined Open Studios in Boulder. Open Studios Boulder is like family to me; you get a lot of support and feedback from this non-profit organization, not to mention opportunities to exhibit your art to the public.

I would call myself a modernism, contemporary, abstract painter. It pretty much depends on my mood and what I’m feeling at the moment. I paint with acrylics and use bold, bright colors in almost all my paintings I create. I like to use bigger brushes so I can stay away from detail. When I start getting into detail, then I get frustrated! I have been drawn to color all my life! Color makes me extremely happy!

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was such a free spirit! Growing up in Ohio in the country surrounded by forests, apple orchards, rivers, old barns, which were very magical to me! I explored my grandparents barn almost everyday in my early childhood. They lived next door and I saw them every single day! I would follow my grandfather around in awe of him with a child’s wonder of how could there be such an amazing human being on this earth with all these wild tales (some I’m sure were not true!), but none the less I was entertained! I am a middle child and only girl in our family so I explored everyday by myself. I mostly hung out on this little island on the river behind our trailer (yes! I grew up in a double wide trailer!) and created these fantastic forts and would pretend that’s where I lived. We had tree houses, we had horses, a pig named Arnold, a goat named Nanny, gerbil, birds, cats, dogs, rabbits, and unfortunately snakes! My older brother loved snakes! Ugh. My grandmother even took in an injured raccoon, which sadly lived in a cage behind her trailer and she loved him! I am a country girl at heart and it molded me into the woman I am today.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Wow! This is a great question. I’m not normally a person that “would give up”. I don’t do that, I just find a different way. Last year my beloved mother got extremely ill and was diagnosed with on-set Dementia. I visited her a year ago January and she seemed to perk up. This was great news to all of us! She moved into an assisted living facility very close to my younger brother and was able to see him and my sister Inlaw several days a week. Again, great news! Then her health started to decline at a rapid pace. I visited her again in September and by December of last year she passed. My brother and I were able to be right beside her, laying in bed, brushing her hair, reminiscing, kissing her, crying all over her till she took her last breath. It was the most horrific, most beautiful moment of my life to witness her last moments on this earth. And it threw me for a loop! I grieved, at least I thought I was grieving the “ right way”. This woman gave me life, she gave me art, she gave me so much more than I can write down in this article. And then it happened; I no longer looked in my art studio, I no longer had the desire to pick up a paint brush, I no longer had the passion inside of me to create anything! It made me sad and then it made me angry and I started thinking art wasn’t my path after all. I started thinking of other things to do with my time. I started yoga. This my friends, was my savior for that moment. It’s exactly what I needed to ground myself, to look inside myself. It brought me clarity, it made me go inside myself and try to forgive my mother for leaving me with this grief. I was trying to hurry up the grieving process. You cannot do this. For me, I needed to wallow in it, I needed to honor this grief, to honor myself and what was happening to me. After 3 months I tried to force myself to paint and get back at it. It just frustrated me so I gave up again for several months. You cannot rush grief. Then after about 6 months, a shift happened. I started going back into my studio, I started listening to my younger brother who kept saying to me, just paint something! I started listening to art podcasts, to art coaches and I had a mind shift. My mama would want me to paint and to bring joy into the world with my creations……so that is what I’m doing! As my brother once said, grief never leaves you, it walks beside you. What you do with it is up to you. As artists, we are the curator of beauty and I love sharing that beauty with the world. I was listening to a podcast and one question stood out to me: “what makes you feel happy? What gives you good feelings?” Pour that into your art, it will come thru and people will feel it. Your art is going to be more authentic, more connecting if you make it based on how you’re feeling. If you connect more to yourself, the art will be more powerful and it will be like you.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
Ooh this is a heated topic, but what comes to mind, to me, is Woman’s Rights. Yes I’m diving into that political arena here but it’s very near and dear to my heart and who I am! Women hold the power and the sole power to their bodies, their minds, their worth. Even writing about this topic in this article, makes my body temperature heat up! For so many years, the world has told us we’re inferior and finally it shifted and unfortunately, once again, Woman’s Rights are going backwards. How can this be?! No man, no God, no person has the right to tell me what to do with this body my mother created. I will honor her and myself always and will always fight for Woman’s Rights. I strongly believe that this will come full circle and once again Women will be in control of themselves. We need to use our voices, even our artistic abilities; maybe that’s why I love to paint women, I always have. I paint us in a positive, strong way and share with the world the beauty of who we are and can be! As the saying goes “I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR”.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I have a tendency to compare myself to others in the art world. To second doubt myself and my creativity. Sometimes I feel like an imposter; pretending to be this magnificent painter that everyone is clamoring to get to know! I am slowly working on this and sometimes that feeling goes away and sometimes it rears its ugly head. That is probably the most important thing I would like to stop doing immediately and completely. Some days I can just start throwing paint, and my paint brush has a mind of its own and I’m in the flow and it’s just working…..other days, not so much! I am getting there, I just have to believe in myself and stop self doubting! Comparison is the killer to your creativity. It has no use for me now or in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Kellybaderart.com
• Instagram: @kellybaderart
• Facebook: Kellybaderart
• Other: https://Openstudios.org

Image Credits
N/A. Image credits are mine.