Artist Interview: Kaci King-Hoppman

Artist Interview: Kaci King-Hoppman

What are your ear­li­est mem­o­ries relat­ed to art?
Doo­dling. I doo­dle. It start­ed as notes while on the phone…then I trail off with a few squil­ly swirly lines. I doo­dle when I watch peo­ple cook. I doo­dle when I have hard con­ver­sa­tions, when hav­ing fun con­ver­sa­tions, when prob­lem solv­ing, when I don’t want to cry, if I’m on the phone with you…good chance I’m doo­dling. I’ve been known to doo­dle on paper, sty­ro­foam, gro­cery bags, mag­a­zine, bibles, books…a lit­tle of every­thing. Been doing it since I was a kid.

How and when did you start becom­ing an artist your­self?
I began paint­ing in 2007 when I looked at my hus­band and said “I think I want to try to start paint­ing” At the time we had no space in our first home, an ear­ly 1910s, small, two sto­ry cot­tage. So my hus­band sur­prised me one night after work with a space he had cre­at­ed for me to start.

What was the evo­lu­tion like toward find­ing your cur­rent voice and visu­al vocab­u­lary?
Before 2015 I con­sid­ered myself more of an ama­teur or hob­by artist, After 2017 my per­spec­tive changed when life events hap­pened and I began to focus on my art as a way to heal men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly and, well, to deal with life in general.

What is your process like?
It’s pret­ty dif­fer­ent every time.

Is there any­thing from your artist state­ment that you wish to expound on, that you nor­mal­ly don’t have the chance to dis­cuss?
Once I’m done with a piece it’s pret­ty much out of my head so when I’m asked “what is it?” Or “what were you feel­ing” it real­ly is hard to answer because it’s usu­al­ly gone. But what I love about my work is the abstract and hear­ing what oth­ers see or feel.

What do you try to con­trol in your sur­faces, and what do you leave to chance?
I leave it to chance.

Where do you see your work going from here?
Being near and help­ing care for my Moth­er in Law has inspired me to start a paint­ing series I call ‘Tuesday’s with Ellen.’ On Tuesday’s (or what ever day allows) we try to spend the day with her; she loves to sit on her porch in the sun, chat, and insists I paint while we do this. My goal for this is to cre­ate a book with notes from those days that coin­cide with the painting.