We recently connected with Stella Koslowski and have shared our conversation below.
Stella, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I have kept my creativity alive by continuing to search for new materials to experiment with. Even though I am most experienced with painting, I really enjoy other crafts such as sewing, and have tried to find ways to incorporate it into my painting work to keep things fresh. This way, I never feel like I am running out of ideas. Even if a day in the studio means trying a new material and failing, I always find it useful to my practice. The same goes for my more illustration focused work. Trying new and unusual color palettes or styles helps keep storytelling fun!
When I started school at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, I thought I was going to have to focus on one thing and make it my passion. I quickly realized that I worked best when I got to change things up. This was anything from materials to concepts. For my Fine Art major, I could never land on one issue/concept to be the voice of my work, but liked exploring many themes. It was hard sometimes to communicate that to my instructors, who probably thought that I was being flaky in the beginning. After my first couple years though, I found a way to stick with a general theme, and make it different via material exploration.
Partway through my studies I felt that I wanted to do more with storytelling, and decided to also major in Illustration. But I was determined to make it correlate with my fine art work, not to be separated. This was challenging, since I was being pulled between the industry-focused art world, and the more gallery-focused art world. I eventually found a visual language that I not only loved, but could also alter as I liked to make it more interesting for myself as a creator. I brought this into my senior thesis, which combined oil paint, embroidery, and illustrative styles. The concepts I explored were based on my own experiences with sleeping and dreaming, and how to include an audience into those stories. I also wrote and illustrated a children’s book called The Dream Factory for my thesis which explored dreams from the perspective of a pug named Stephen. After school, I launched a Kickstarter for my book, and reached my goal! Having even a small amount of people show interest in your work has really helped motivate me to continue as well.
Recently, I have again found myself entering a new mode that I believe will continue to help my creative flow. I am attending graduate school in the Fall of 2024 to get a Master’s in Art History. With this, I hope to also be able to work in museum or gallery settings. Although this is much different than studio art, I have such a love for learning about other artists and think it will continue to inspire and motivate me!
I think the most important thing to remember when trying to keep your creativity alive is to not try and force it to do what you think everyone expects or wants to see. Of course I hope people like the work I make, but it’s more important to find a process that is enjoyable and exciting, otherwise your ideas will dry up. And if you let your ideas take you to unexpected places, then you might find a career path that you never even thought of!
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Right now I am just coming off of my undergraduate education, so I am still trying to navigate the art world. But the last few months I have been interning at the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Fiber Arts in Cedarburg, WI. This has given me a lot of experience handling artwork and learning the process of running gallery shows. Part of my internship allowed me to curate my own mini exhibition as well, which has been amazing!
I also have been interning at Hawthorn Contemporary, a gallery in downtown Milwaukee. I have had even more experience with gallery shows there, and co-curated another show in Hawthorn’s Gray Area space with my fellow interns, where we also got to show our own artwork. It was a great way to learn how to coordinate a contemporary show, communicate with other artists, and learn more about how to meet deadlines for my own art. I hope to take these experiences with me to Sotheby’s Institute, and down the road to other museum/gallery related jobs!
Even though these internships are a slight pivot from my art-making, I still feel like it has done a lot to motivate me to keep updating my website, launching my Kickstarter, and continuing to create work and new ideas. Right now I am working to fulfill my Kickstarter and send out the rewards to my backers! I have also been reaching out to potential agents for illustration representation. I hope to take my quirky style to more children’s book projects or graphic novels!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Art school can be a bit scary, because you are putting your work on display, meeting hundreds of other creatives, and being pushed out of your comfort zone. It’s easy to feel like you have zero direction, but I think trying to have a can-do attitude as much as possible helped me the most when I started out. Always working hard to improve, and asking for more advise from your teachers, even if you think you don’t need it. It will pay off.
Trying just as hard in the liberal studies classes such as writing and art history were also very impactful to me. Even though these may not be what you want to do, they can help guide you through your creative output so much! That’s how I realized I liked storytelling and how I developed an interest in museum work. Even if you aren’t going to art school, I think writing skills are immensely important for any profession, because it helps you gain more confidence in interviews and when writing letters.
Lastly, having a good work ethic and hitting deadlines will be helpful with everything, especially art. People will trust you so much more if you can follow through on your work!
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I think it is important to give time to what you are most good at, or what you feel are your strengths. Improving on that thing will be great for your self confidence, as well as help impress others. But I think it is useful to try new things and try to round out your skills. This will help you not get bored or feel too much pressure with that one thing. This is why I like to experiment with different materials, rather than just focusing on painting. If all I did was realistic paintings, I think I would start to hate it after a while, and would be looking for ways to shake things up.
Having a more well rounded set of skills will also impress people who hire you for your strengths originally, but then are pleasantly surprised when they find that you have other skills.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stellarosekoslowski.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stella.koslowski.art/?next=%2F
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stella.koslowski.79
- Other: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/stella-k-art.bsky.social
Image Credits
Stella Koslowski
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