Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathy Soles.
Kathy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have been making images since childhood. Drawing for me is the key. The charge and the immediacy of a mark on a surface open so many possibilities of expression.
Originally from the Boston area, I also lived in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The opportunity to visit wonderful museums continued to feed my interest in art and helped to form my decision to make a life in the arts. I moved back to Boston in 1981 and lived on South Street for ten years and in the South End on Washington Street for three years before moving to Milton.
I began as a printmaker and drawing at Emmanuel College and The Maryland Institute. It was at The Maryland Institute that I decided to pursue painting instead of printmaking. Painting the landscape on site became a passion. A summer at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and graduate school at American University solidified my interest in the landscape as a subject.
As my process has evolved, the memory of place became more significant in my work. While I continue to make work from life, the images serve as references. Initially a direct response to place and experience, my work develops into a dialog between dense accumulations of paint and drawing materials and open passages evoking light, air, land, and water. The accreted marks tell their own histories with a sense of urgency and vulnerability as they collide, dissipate, and reassemble. Natural forms, real and imagined, are explored. My love of drawing and mark-making remains.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I wouldn’t say that it has been a smooth road, but it has been a steady road of commitment to my work. As with many artists, juggling work and studio time can be challenging. For me, family, parenting, studio time and my job have been a constant balancing act. It is always shifting. I have been fortunate to have a wonderful group of artist friends who offer support and criticism. I have been able to find a strong arts community regardless of where I have lived. There have been many jobs between graduate school and my fulltime teaching position including waitressing and working at an art transport company to working at MIT as a visual art and architecture image cataloger. Studio work kept me grounded.
My position as a professor at Emmanuel College has also provided me with time to pursue my work. My role as a mentor to my students and my friendships with my colleagues also keeps me engaged.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Kathy Soles story. Tell us more about the business.
I exhibit at Hallspace Gallery in Dorchester and The Degas Gallery in New Orleans. Julie Mussafer of Julesplace in Boston also represents my work.
I have exhibited widely in both group and solo exhibitions. My exhibition venues include Danforth Museum of Art, MA; Portland Museum of Art, ME; Dartmouth College, NH; Fitchburg Art Museum, MA; Fuller Craft Museum, MA; The National Museum of Fine Arts, Viet Nam; and Apothiki Arts Center, Greece. I have also been awarded artist residencies at the Millay Colony, Austerlitz, NY, the Apothiki Arts Center in Paros, Greece, the Goetemann Residency, Gloucester, MA,, the Provincetown Compact C-Scape Residency and the Cill Rialaig Project in Ballinskelligs, Ireland. Public collections of her work in Massachusetts include the Boston Public Library, Meditech Corporation, Emmanuel College and CSC.
Contact Info:
- Address: 96 Cliff Road
Milton, MA 02186 - Website: www.kathysoles.com
- Phone: 617-429-4724
- Email: kathysoles@comcast.net
- Instagram: kathleensoles
- Facebook: Kathy Soles
Image Credit:
Portrait – Carolyn Ross
Artwork – Stewart Clements
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