Hello and welcome to KIMP Art & Design. I am glad you found me.
My name is Kimber Lee and I have been an artist my entire life, since I was 8 years old. It all began with a little Kodak film/box camera. My Mom realized that I had a passion for photography and fed that passion in me. You remember the cameras I am talking about? The little yellow and black boxes that had film in them, a point and shoot? My Mom dropped those little pieces of my life each week at the little Kodamat kiosk in parking lots back in the day. I know, I know, I am dating myself, but you know at this age you begin to just embrace the years with grace and happiness. They all become water under your bridge, wisdom, lessons, ways of looking at life and finding a way to transport them from your mind onto film, photos, art, paintings. Expressions of emotions, memories, so much.
Over the years I have come back to art, on and off, a "security blanket" of sorts, as I need ed it for healing or just some piece of me that felt familiar, coming home, back to me. Art provided me distraction, something all mine nobody could take away, solace and peace. My photography has always been "who" I am for years and years. I am a "Photographer". Until, recently I had a traumatic life event that required deep emotional healing. Through my journey toward peace and healing, and some solid advice from my therapist, I discovered art therapy and painting. I have always used photography as my artistic outlet, as I cannot draw to save my life lol
I picked up a camera because I wanted to create. I cannot draw a stick figure quite honestly, I knew this and still had this urging, deep passion in me to create images. Film! I could create and compose a photo the way my "minds eye" saw it. Through many years in junior high and high school I took every class I could that put a camera in my hands. Journalism, art, drafting, yearbook committees, graphic arts, school newspapers, you name it. The passion I discovered comes from my Mom. She took up photography later in life and she was realllly good at it. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree it seems.
Move forward, the digital age, floppy disc digital cameras, editing in Photoshop and Lightroom, buying my first Nilon HD digital camera and the addiction was set in motion. Now, here we are years later, and thousands of photos, so many hours spent editing and wrangling PS and LR to do "what" I want it to do. That in itself is a HUGE learning curve. Entering photo competitions for validation. So much behind me and yet here we are. Creating. Therapy through a lens and a paint brush.
I hope you enjoy my art. It is my heart, soul, passion and therapist, an old familiar friend. Always there when I turn to it and focus on it, wondering how I ever strayed away. It's funny how life takes over and we lose that focus for a minute and then remember "why" we are just not feeling aligned with our inner self. So here we are. Cheers! Life is short. I have lost people I cherished along the way, I paint my grief and sorrow into each painting, along with my joy and happiness. I paint happy to "feel" happy again when I am grieving the most and don't know how to make myself feel again. My art is emotions, it is color to evoke emotions in others, it is color theory and just plain "accidents" that happen in art.
Have a fantastic day and let me know your thoughts, I love feedback and just knowing you stopped by. Maybe just grab a cup of coffee and sit and look at the colors and my hope is it makes you smile and feel good. That is the end game. Feeling good.
Hugs and much Love,
Kimber
xoxo