Kim Vanderheiden

I’m interested in the role an artist can play in reflecting one’s time and place. My pieces draw from my surroundings or experiences as a mother of three, owner of a letterpress printing business, and a woman raised in Wisconsin, living in California in the 21st Century.

As with many mothers juggling careers, my life is complicated and busy. There are conflicting drives, impossible priorities, and deafening demands. There is a need to be “on,” and ready to respond at all times, even in sleep. This intensity is reflected in my work through the energetic colors, competing media, and crowded compositions.

My artwork marries text and image, which grows out of my professional experience in letterpress design and printing. My choice of text is flavored with the news, media, literature, sayings, and humor of my time, as well as the tales and lessons that precede me, and the words and beliefs of those close to me. It is the barrage of sound that accompanies my time and place in the “information age.”

My time and place is one of stress and hurry, love and hope, destruction and redemption, democracy and fighting, decay and vision, birth, death, faith, and over 8 billion people all doing something every minute. I love to think about the energy of those 8 billion people and the microscopic role I have in this intricate, writhing, thriving web.