Some artists arrive at their voice through a single moment of clarity. Others build it slowly through curiosity, persistence, and a lifelong relationship with making. In this conversation, we sit down with the artist behind Artifact Fine Art to talk about early memories of drawing, the push and pull between sculpture and painting, the courage to take art seriously, and the unexpected paths that led from kitchen table sketches to oil paintings, books, and collectors around the world.
What unfolds is a thoughtful and generous reflection on learning by doing, trusting sensitivity as a skill, and choosing to make art more than a hobby.
Q: When did your creative journey begin?
Oo, that’s a good question. I just remember always loving to draw. Before I could really draw, I remember asking my mom to draw pictures of me, and asking babysitters to draw pictures of me too, because I just found that fascinating. When I was able to start trying and practicing, I remember sitting at the table with my oldest brother. He liked to draw too. We would draw from our imaginations and come up with funny stuff all the time, just laughing together at the table.
I’ve always loved drawing and I’ve always wanted to be able to do it better. I was always thinking, okay, I can do this now, but I would like to be able to do this other thing, so I guess I’ll practice that now.
Q: You studied fine art, sculpture, and drawing. How have those years of education and exploration shaped your skill set today?
In college, I focused mainly on sculpture and ceramics because I really love form. I love three dimensional forms, volumes, and masses, and I hadn’t done much of that in high school. I had mainly focused on drawing, which is flat, so sculpture was this fun new avenue to try.
What I found was that while I was sculpting, it changed the way I was drawing. And when I was drawing, it changed what I was sculpting. The two were building on each other. I started noticing textures I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, and line quality became really important to me while drawing. Then when I was sculpting, I paid more attention to silhouettes and the line quality of the textures I was using.
You can see that in my work now. If you look at my paintings, there is sculpture in them. There is structure to the lace fishes I paint and the cats. There are a lot of high relief textures that, if I had clay, I could sculpt. What I love about painting and drawing is that I can capture those three dimensional forms without worrying about them getting broken or collecting dust.
Q: How long did it take you to develop your current style? Was there a moment when it really clicked?
The style I’ve been building has kind of been a lifelong process. It started when I was learning to draw realistically. Every time I sit down to paint, it’s a push toward what I want to be and being better than I was the last time I stepped up to my easel.
I’m always trying to get the realism right, whether it’s softness or hardness of textures. I’m stepping in and trying to be as observant and sensitive as I can possibly be in that moment.
Conceptually, though, there was more of an “oh, this is it” moment. One of the hardest things as an artist is deciding what your subject matter is. I realized that I really loved children’s book illustrations. People sometimes think of illustration as not being high art, but I wasn’t trying to achieve high art. I was just trying to find what I wanted to do.
I loved realism and I loved illustration, so I thought maybe I could merge the two. That way I could still be sensitive and capture what I find beautiful in the world, but also share ideas that make me laugh and get me excited.
Around that time, my brother wrote a children’s book. I was working full time in a different career, so I decided I would work on illustrations for a couple of hours every night. This was the same brother I used to draw with at the kitchen table. His book had humor and silly characters, and as I started drawing them, I realized how much I loved working that way.
It took about a year and a half to finish the illustrations. My skills drawing from imagination weren’t quite there yet, so I used a lot of photographic references and learned how to meld what was in my head with what I could do technically. That project really taught me how to combine the two.
Q: You started with oil color, what led you to oil painting and how long did it take you to learn the medium?
I learned so much just by doing it. I hadn’t read a lot of books, but I had heard little tips and tricks and tried them out as I painted. As the paintings took shape, I started seeing things on my own and adjusting. It was a lot of guess and check.
At first, I was using fairly big brushes because in college we were told not to use tiny brushes. Use big ones, get gestural marks. That’s what I thought a painter should be doing.
Then I met a portrait painter named Duffy Sheridan. He came to my studio, looked closely at my paintings, even touched the surfaces, and said he got the sense that I wanted to paint more realistically. He invited me to his studio, and what I saw there completely changed my approach.
He used tiny watercolor brushes for oil painting. I didn’t even know you could do that. He also thinned his paint a lot with turpentine and worked in layers, building up washes to get that realistic look. It gave me so much more flexibility. Mistakes were easy to correct, and painting over areas wasn’t a struggle.
That was around the time I painted my first feather boa. I don’t think I could have done that without those small brushes and that thinner paint approach. That conversation with him, maybe one or two hours long, changed everything.
Q: What do you think needs to change in society's understanding of creative work?
When I’m drawing, I’m really trying to understand reality visually. I’m trying to see what is there and do it justice. That requires being incredibly sensitive, both to what I’m seeing and to what I’m drawing. I have to be willing to constantly see my mistakes and correct them.
So drawing is serious to me. I’m not just expressing. I’m wrestling with it. I’m trying as hard as I can to get it right.
Some people think art isn’t serious or that no one really cares anymore, but then you see collectors who value paintings deeply. They don’t see it as a hobby. They see these works as one of a kind, as relics, as something special that moved them or showed them something they didn’t know was possible.
That’s what I aspire to when I step in front of my canvas. I want to create something that is truly one of a kind, something I put my all into, and hopefully it inspires someone else to do the same with what they love.
Q: What was the hardest business skill you had to learn?
I started with outdoor markets because they were affordable and accessible. I was lucky to get juried into some of them. I also learned that magazines were a really good way to sell my work. My work is a little unusual, and people don’t often see things like it in magazines, so it stood out.
One opportunity came from a fine art show where they offered to include my painting in a publication for a fee. It felt expensive at the time, but I decided to try it. They featured my painting in American Art Collector, and someone who had never seen the physical painting reached out and bought it for $14,000.
That was the first time something like that happened to me, and it happened again later with another publication. I wasn't sure if people would want to pay that much for it, but I sold it.
Q: What inspired you to create your book There Will Be Nonsense?
People would come to my booth and ask if I had a children’s book. The paintings tell stories, but they don’t follow the same characters, so I didn’t want to create a traditional narrative book.
Eventually, I thought about pairing the paintings with questions that would help people tell their own stories. I happened to have a surgery coming up and knew I wouldn’t be able to paint for a while, so I worked on the book during recovery.
I wanted it to be really well done. A cloth cover, gold foil, a dust jacket, lots of white space. The questions are short and sweet, and the paintings are where you spend the most time. Every time you open the book, you notice something new.
One of my favorite memories is reading it to a little boy at a book fair. He was mesmerized. When his mom bought him a copy and I wrote him a note, he hugged the book like it was the greatest treasure. That moment meant everything to me.
Q: When did you decide to make art more than a hobby?
My kids were small, and I realized that if I didn’t get back to making art part of my life, it wasn’t going to happen. I saw other artists having success and knew how hard I had worked to learn to draw. I felt like I could really do something if I tried.
At the time, I was working as an academic counselor and helping students with goal setting. They had jobs, families, and school, and they were still finding ways to succeed. I used those same goal setting skills on myself. I had a job, a family, and I wanted to add becoming an artist on top of that.
That’s how I found my way back.
🔑 Key Takeaways
Art is built through sensitivity and persistence
Developing skill is not about shortcuts or talent alone. It is about showing up, paying attention, and being willing to see mistakes clearly and correct them.
Different disciplines strengthen each other
Sculpture informed drawing. Drawing informed painting. Letting mediums speak to each other can deepen both technical ability and creative voice.
Style emerges through curiosity, not pressure
Finding subject matter that genuinely excites you is more important than chasing labels or expectations of what art should be.
Learning often happens person to person
A single conversation, studio visit, or shared insight can radically change how you work. Stay open to guidance and new ways of thinking.
Art becomes real when you decide it matters
Making art more than a hobby starts with commitment, goal setting, and the belief that your work deserves time, seriousness, and care.
📢 Check Out the Full Interview
Watch the full interview with Leah Kiser below or youtube @ainahcommunity
Explore Leahs's work: artifactfa.com | IG: artifactfineart
