Artist and gallerist Kendra Kett grew up in a colorful home. The child of hardworking agricultural workers from England, Kett was surrounded by “brightly colored painted and wallpapered walls” and “colorful linens, dishes, and rugs.” Of her mother’s style, Kett says: “My mother was pretty different as far as that. We’d visit friends and everything would be beige. And my mom had yellow walls, orange walls, green walls, black walls, and fabric and color everywhere. I have no idea where she got that, maybe working on farms and being in nature.” Though they weren’t artists themselves, Kett’s parents were supportive of their creative daughter, who began drawing as soon as she could hold a pencil in her hand.

In addition to her parents, Kett was inspired to explore art by visits from her sister-in-law: “My sister-in-law who was into the arts took me to the Art Institute every year when she visited us with my brother. That’s when my art appreciation started to develop. We always went down on the train and she bought me art books from the gift store. So as a result, starting very young I had a beautiful art book library in my home. I’ve kept up the tradition of going to museums whenever I travel. So that’s sort of my art education, through visiting and experiencing and being really open to it all.”

Even with her early embrace of art appreciation, Kett was pushed to “get ahead” by studying medicine or law in college. Though she tried to take the pre-med track, Kett found this path was not for her, and chose instead to study psychology and education. Earning her bachelor’s in psychology and a master’s in education, Kett built a 30-year career overseeing childcare centers affiliated with major employers. Working her way up to division vice president, Kett led a team of regional managers across the Midwest. 

Between managing her career and caring for her family, Kett’s life did not include much space for artistic pursuits. It wasn’t until her separation from her husband that Kett’s artistic world began to open up once more: “My son’s father is an artist. But it wasn’t until after our divorce that he started focusing on his art. We had a very good co-parenting relationship and we’re still very good friends so I became his art manager. I really started understanding the local gallery scene, volunteering at a local gallery, and helping him put his art forward. He and I did that for about ten years. During that time, I learned a lot about galleries and gallery management, and I could see that I could easily apply all of my business skills to running a gallery.”

Combining her business expertise with the knowledge of the local gallery scene she gained during her time as an art manager, Kett opened the Blue Moon Gallery in Grayslake, IL. As a gallerist, Kett has supported the work of over 100 artists over the last four and a half years: “We made it through the pandemic, we’ve sold a lot of art, and we’re having fun. It’s really a great experience.” After retiring from her business career and immersing herself in the art world, Kett found her way back to her own artistic practice: “I would go on vacation from my crazy hectic business life, and for a week I would lay by the pool at some resort and sketch and draw on my notepad. Then I would just set it aside until the next time I went on vacation. Well, I saved all of those notepads. Then I retired and surrounded myself with artists I said, ‘What am I going to do with all my free time?’ So I got these sketch pads out and started working with what I had there and now I have a whole website full of art.” 

Kett describes both her work and artistic practice as intuitive. She began to draw by holding a pencil in each hand, closing her eyes, and letting marks spill onto the page without any planning or agenda. Her resulting works are brightly-hued organic shapes, drawn in a style both fluid and playful. Though her works may appear primordial, Kett wants to ensure that viewers understand that they are not like anything you could see under a microscope. Rather, Kett’s works represent her spiritual interpretation of what happens when our cells interact with our emotions. “I wanted to explore the concept of cell by cell, particle by particle, that we are evolving and growing, healing and recovering,” says Kett. 

Through her work, Kett hopes to help people find a way to embrace the conflicting emotions we all experience: “I think our culture at large wants you to be happy all the time and not really deeply feel your negative emotions. Everyone wants to say, ‘It’s going to be okay, it’s alright, just think positive.’ There’s always this pressure not to feel all of your human emotions. I think you can be happy and sad at the same time. I think you can be feeling really ambitious but also lethargic at the same time. We deal with conflicting emotions all the time. It’s totally normal, it’s a normal thing and you don’t have to fix it.”

Kendra Kett’s work will be for sale at TAC through November. Click here to learn more about her and her work on her website. Visit thebluemoongallery.com to learn more about the Blue Moon Gallery, located at 18620 Belvidere Road in Grayslake, Illinois.

Are you a current TAC member interested in being featured as a future member highlight? To apply, please fill out the Member Highlight Application, found here, and email it to staylor@theartcenterhp.org or bring it to TAC’s front office. 

Not yet a member, but want to participate? Sign up for a TAC Membership here!

9/11 is a day of reflection, of remembrance, of contemplation. The questions of “What if?” and “How did this happen?” infiltrate media stories, blogs, and posts. This year, the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 falls shortly after the yearlong 75th anniversary of the partition in India, delineating the boundaries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India.

The Art Center Highland Park is currently exhibiting the latest iteration of Pritika Chowdhry’s Unbearable Memories, Unspeakable Histories, Part 2: Partition Anti-Memorial Project. Over the past 15 years, she has created ten different anti-memorials with the tenth one previewing at TAC during this pivotal time.

While installing the exhibit, Pritika and curator, Caren Helene Rudman added an installation commenting on 9/11, adding to the complexity of the intersection between these massive geopolitical events in history.

TAC is proud to continue to produce thought-provoking exhibits that build on the power of art to communicate, share ideas, and hear from voices often left out of the dialogue.  This video highlights the dialogue between artist Pritika Chowdhry and author Dr. Jacque Micieli as they discuss 9/11 & Partition of India.

The work of Pauline Kochanski is not easily pigeonholed. Her artistic career spans both decades and mediums, producing photographs, ink drawings, watercolor paintings, and hand-crafted ceramics. In her early twenties, Kochanski was introduced to photography and eventually earned a degree from Colombia College, then still at its original location on Ohio and Lakeshore Drive. Kochanski worked in the photo and printing industries, but all the while she was drawing. When non-degree courses were offered at the Art Institute and Truman College, Kochanski took part. “I’ve always liked having my hand to draw,” Kochanski says, “That’s why I liked the darkroom almost more than any other part of photography—because my hand was in the work.”

Now retired, Kochanski is able to make time every day for artwork: “I believe that I need to do something every day that’s about writing or visual art. Even if I’m reading about it or going to look at art, I’m participating every day in something that is creative or creates ideas. Because that is one of my main ways of identifying myself. There are so many things that I do. I meditate every day and I do yoga every day. It’s important for me to feel as if I am being myself every day.” 

For Kochanski, being herself means being a little bit of everything at once. She is not simply a photographer or ceramicist, an artist or mindfulness meditation teacher or grandmother. She is all of these things at once. “We are not all one thing at one time,” Kochanski says, “ we have many, many identities. Sometimes when people say, ‘How would you describe yourself?’ I find that a really to be a really difficult thing to answer. At that moment I am whatever I am doing at that moment.” 

Like her identity, Kochanski’s work is similarly multilayered. As Kochanski says, “In my drawings, I layer color over color. So there’s a color often underneath a black background—there’s a little gold, or a little blue, or a little red that comes out because there is always something beyond the outside. There are many layers to everything that we do, everything that we are. So even in my ceramics, the insides are smoother than the outsides, because there is a difference between who we are inside and how we present ourselves. How people perceive us is often different than how we think we are perceived. It’s not a dichotomy that we live with, it’s just that we are many things.” 

As part of our Member Highlight program, Kochanski’s ceramic works are now featured in the TAC Gift Shop. Skillfully crafted but organic in their formations, these vases, bowls, and stones feature natural hews with flecks of gold leaf. According to Kochanski, these bright additions to her work have a touching origin story: “The gold leaf is really important to me. I was doing some ceramics and a piece broke and I got really upset about it. We tried fixing it and it came out of the first firing and the piece broke off again and I just decided to work with it. I had all this gold leaf in the house that had belonged to my husband, he was deceased by that time. So I decided to gold leaf all the broken edges. So it became part of my work. It fits into the end of a poem by Leonard Cohen, where he talks about how ‘there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’ To me it really talks about life, it’s kind of a thing that I carry with me. Because there are cracks, we are perfect in our imperfections. We are each individual. No one is like me, no one is like you. We are perfect as we are. But there are cracks that let the light come into us and let the light come out of us. Those are the kinds of things I try to carry.” 

Pauline Kochanski’s work will be for sale at TAC through September. Also, be on the lookout for Kochanski’s upcoming solo exhibition, which will be presented by the North Shore Art League at the Winnetka Community House next summer. Click here to visit Kochanski’s website. 

Are you a current TAC member interested in being featured as a future member highlight? To apply, please fill out the Member Highlight Application, found here, and email it to staylor@theartcenterhp.org or bring it to The Art Center office.

Not yet a member, but want to participate? Sign up for a TAC Membership here!

Geraldine L. Mailender TAC Member Highlight Interview

After spending her formative years in Pittsburgh, PA, artist Geraldine L. Mailender attended The Ohio State University and earned an advanced degree in Occupational Therapy. Mailender then opened a successful occupational therapy health and wellness practice in Cincinnati, OH, where she raised her two children. After making her way to Florida, she was presented with the trip of a lifetime: a tour of the National Parks. From Grand Teton to Yellowstone to Mount Rushmore, Mailender absorbed the vibrant colors of America’s most pristine landscapes: lavender-grey mountains, deep blue waters, and the red-dotted fields of Indian paintbrush. “I saw such beauty, the colors are amazing,” says Mailender. “The wildflowers reminded me that I’ve been doing embroidery since I was seven years old.”

Her background in embroidery translates seamlessly into the work inspired by her travels. Combining Japanese embroidery techniques with watercolor paintings on silk, Mailender began to create her unique works of art. The silk Mailender embroiders upon is 34 momme—momme is the unit of measurement for silk’s density, the higher the count, the more threads—a dense, luxurious canvas for her watercolors. She buys the silk in large bolts sourced from France and Italy, then precisely cuts and finishes them into 18-by-18 squares: “I stretch the silk onto the Japanese wooden frame, there is no taping, no pasting, it’s all done with needles, no knotting. There is a step and a process to everything. So I do the painting, I do the embroidering, then I take it off and mount it over museum-grade poster board.” 

Though the Japanese Embroidery Center is located in Atlanta, GA, Mailender was able to take part in weekend retreats given by an instructor from the Center living in Florida. After learning the basics of Japanese embroidery techniques, Mailender began experimenting in her own practice, inspired by her trip through the National Parks: “I began experimenting with the light, which was so important. On those trips, you get your money’s worth, they have you up at the crack of dawn. So I really got to see when the sun first comes up over Grand Teton it really is red, then turns to gold, so I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ll get a chance to use gold floss.’” 

Mailender’s careful attention to light is reflected in the three pieces featured in The Art Center’s gift shop. Delicate threads of gold cast over pink and blue mountain silhouettes recall morning light brimming over the horizon in Mental (Healing, Learning). While bronze light dominates the frame in The Great Eclipse, a piece celebrating the beauty of the August 21st, 2017 total solar eclipse. These pieces and more can be found in The Art Center’s gift shop from now until July 1, 2023, as a part of our Member Highlight Program.

Want to learn more about Geraldine L. Mailender? Click here to visit her website.

Are you a current TAC member interested in being featured as a future member highlight? To apply, please fill out the Member Highlight Application, found here, and email it to staylor@theartcenterhp.org or bring it to The Art Center office.

Not yet a member, but want to participate? Sign up for a TAC Membership here!