(bright exciting music) - I grew up on a farm outside of Cottonwood, Minnesota.

It was like a dairy and farming soybeans and corn.

I had two older sisters, so I'm the baby of the family.

My interest in art like started as soon as I can remember.

(bright exciting music continues) I've always been really interested in people.

So that's what I do a lot of.

My work that I'm paid for, the stuff that people commission me for is usually really realistic portraits.

I work like directly from photos.

So it's gonna look almost exactly like that photo in an illustrated kind of story book looking, comic book looking form.

So that's what I do for commissions.

For my own art, I still do portraits, but I kind of gotten bored with the traditional stuff.

So I try to add in like mixes of a background of flowers or octopuses or something completely random and just putting it together.

But it's still a portrait.

(gentle uplifting music) But I do comics and they're about my life.

They're very short and I have a system now that I just always do a four panel comic so it can fit in a square box and you can see all of them in one page.

(gentle uplifting music continues) And I started kind of doing those cartoons because I desperately wanted to do like a graphic novel 'cause I love comics, but I'm not really a writer.

So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do these about my life now.

(laughs) (mellow music) That was kind of an interesting turning point in my life.

Like I started doing them when I was living alone, had been single for a really long time.

I was feeling really disconnected from people.

All of my friends had gotten married, some were having kids, my sisters were married and having kids.

So I felt like kind of left behind and just kind of a little depressed, probably.

And was just looking for more connections.

So I started doing these comics and I was doing 'em almost every day.

(mellow music continues) So I'd share them on social media and then people really liked them and like people related to them.

And then even my mom was like, "Oh, I'm so glad you're doing these comics 'cause now I know what's going on in your life."

You know, like I'm not that outgoing of a person.

So like I don't talk about myself that often.

I don't talk that much.

So these comic books were an interesting way to share my art and share my experiences.

And a lot of people even were like, I can't believe how personal you get and how much you're sharing and that's really brave.

And I was like, I don't know, I think I was kind of desperate for connection.

So I didn't feel like it was brave.

It was just, it didn't, you know, the connection was worth more than people knowing about my life.

(laughing) So that was an important thing for me to kind of get my art out there and also get my art on like a regular schedule that I was doing it a lot.

(gentle uplifting music) Art helps with connection and even with the comic books, you start finding out that like I started making comics 'cause I was kind of lonely and depressed and wanted that connection.

And then suddenly you realize, oh, so are other people.

I'm not the only one that's like this even though I felt like I was.

(gentle uplifting music continues) I think it was in 2021 that I got a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board and it was to work on a few different things.

It was to like work on developing a website that I could share my comics on other than just social media.

But a big portion of it was a portrait series that I was really interested in doing.

And the portrait series was to kind of talk about the moment in history that was Covid.

So the portrait series was 35 portraits of people in their face masks.

And then I was really fascinated by people's face masks, like what they chose to be on their masks and things like that.

So that's why I kind of chose to do the portrait series.

It was a moment in history that was interesting and unique and I liked face masks.

I liked seeing what people chose to have.

(gentle uplifting music continues) So my sister Jessica owns a miniature petting zoo (laughing) and then I helped her with it all the time.

You know, especially, I think she created it kind of when I was in college.

But I would help her throughout the summers, setting up the petting zoo and walking the ponies and all of that.

And then eventually she was like, "Hey, you're an artist.

Should we add something more to our festivities that we can bring, you know, do you wanna do face painting?"

I was like, "Okay, I'll give that a try."

(gentle music) So we started offering face painting with the pony rides and the miniature petting zoo.

Face painting is something that I have been doing for probably almost 15 years.

So at this point, I have all of my designs memorized and if I get sick of a design, I take it outta the book and I don't have to do it anymore 'cause it's my own business.

(laughing) I can do that sort of stuff.

(gentle music continues) These are Blick, they're dual tipped.

So one's got like a chisel fat end and one's got a brush tip end.

I usually like the brush tip end 'cause you can be a little more artsy with it.

The other one's blocky, but they're alcohol-based pens.

And what that means is that they blend a lot better than like water-based ones.

So I can kind of easily blend two colors together, especially when I'm working on vellum like this 'cause it's kind of a slidey material.

It's like, it's not porous.

So mixing kind of works.

It's almost like painting with markers a little bit.

And I really love them, (laughing) but I mix.

So like I might use water-based markers on here at the same time I'm using alcohol-based markers.

So sometimes when there's even a bigger block of white, I'll use whiteout on it.

This is what artists mean when they're multimedia.

They're not just using (laughs) pens and markers, they're using office supplies.

So now if I turn that back around, his eye's white and I can use some of my gray markers to add shadow.

(uplifting music) As the older I get, you know, it does, I get recognized more.

Like when I was younger I felt like I had to try so hard to be out there as an artist and you know, I would go to some small art sale fairs and not feel like I was making an impact or selling very much things.

And it just always felt so hard.

But the longer you're in it, the more opportunities you have.

You know, the longer you're there.

Galleries start actually inviting you to exhibit instead of turning in applications and sort of begging galleries to know who you are, you know?

So the longer you stay with it, the more you get.

And now I get a lot of more commissions than I used to get.

I wouldn't say I have more commissions than I can handle, but I have a lot more than I ever expected I would have.

So art has paid off more than I thought it would and has been a bigger part of my life I think, than I thought it would've been.

(uplifting music continues) - [Narrator] "Postcards" is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Wyndham, Minnesota, on the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's arts calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota, on the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 KRAM, online at 967kram.com.

(bright soft rhythmic music)