Today we’d like to introduce you to Kacey Slone.
Kacey, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am from the middle of a cornfield in New Washington, Indiana(population 566) about 40 minutes north of Louisville, Kentucky. I have always felt most comfortable, or at home, on a road between the two. It smells like bourbon barrels when it rains.
Growing up, and to this day I have always been obsessed with the people I am around. I am an observer if nothing else. In middle school, I started taking disposable cameras to school every week and filling them up too quickly. Which turned into taking professional portraits for my friends’ yearbooks and capturing my daily life. I am so thankful for that now. I have a record of personal change and growing up.
I wasn’t convinced this was “art”, until I started studying art. I earned an associates in photography and moved on to Indiana University Southeast to receive two BFAs in Printmaking and Graphic Design. I read about home. I made art about home. Which led me to being here at the University of Texas at Arlington pursuing my MFA. I chose to move away for graduate school to see how it would change my artwork that was solely about the comfort of feeling “at home”.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think that struggles are what makes the survival so sweet. There have been many. I think I am a better person because of it.
Currently, being away from “home” is too hard. Loneliness is one of the harder bumps in the road. I am a creature of comfort. I wish I was sitting in my front yard. I wish everyone I knew was there.
All of this aside, I am thankful to have this experience. I think my advice would be to take the leap. And do it for you.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
My recent work has been exploring how place, location and experience changes my personal identity. I am interested in how individual change can be relatable and available to a larger audience. As an intermedia artist, I have been using various print processes such as intaglio, cyanotype and risograph, and other medias such as sculpture, writing and photography to work through the acclamation of a new “life” while mourning a past existence.
Themes of anxiety, loneliness and obsession have been brought into my work by using writings, the use of the multiple, collecting and assigning objects to emotions. By using familiar objects and memories, I hope to evoke a sense of connection with other humans and to blur the lines between real and remembered, my experience or their own.
I think my work is interesting because I let the media or process tell part of the story or concept. This challenges me to do things I have never tried or work with tools I have never used before.
As an artist, I am proud of myself for not holding back.
We’re interested to hear your thoughts on female leadership – in particular, what do you feel are the biggest barriers or obstacles?
In the art world, the barriers for women are obvious and changing at too slow of a pace. Women artists of color have it even worse.
I have to believe it will change. I have hope because I am lucky to have learned from some VERY talented women artists. I have watched them destroy barriers.
I hope that one day soon, the decision makers of the art world will become the 70% of people who are in MFA programs currently (Women).
Contact Info:
- Website: kaceyslone.com
- Email: kacey.slone@uta.edu
- Instagram: kaceysloneart
Image Credit:
All photos taken by Kacey Slone.
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