Artisan of the Month
Kelly Weik

Kelly Weik graduated from The Columbus College of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree majoring in illustration.  She originally planned on embarking on a career illustrating children’s books.  Straight out of college she went to work at her parent’s flooring store and became involved in the business, especially the interior design aspect, while she sold her mixed media art on the side to galleries.  Realizing that the path she was on was not what she wanted, she stayed true to her goal of having a career in art and describes it best as; “I decided to make art my full time thing, murals, art, design, painting.”  Kelly went into business for herself and has not looked back!  She is extremely happy with her choice in life.  Her business, Art by Kelly, is located in Toledo, OH.  She has travelled to Columbus, OH and to Mansfield, OH for faux finishing jobs and even had an offer from a client to stay in their home in FL during the winter to do work.  She primarily works in the Northwest region of Ohio and the Southeast region of Michigan but she will travel anywhere.

With Kelly’s ten year anniversary for her business in February 2011, she says how important education and constant forward thinking are to her career.  “I get a lot of my inspiration from travel, it is everywhere I look.   In Portugal, there were so many ‘natural’ faux walls.”  Taking classes to further her education is another avenue she pursues.  In 2010, Kelly attended the Open Décor Show in Naples, FL and loved the new product lines from Oikos and Proceed.  The gorgeous Rough Glass Bead Texture was a new innovation she found there and put to use on the walls for her job in Mansfield, OH.  She is constantly keeping up with new trends through interior design, art and fashion magazines.

There have been so many favorite jobs that Kelly has worked on which makes it so difficult to pick a few to remark on!  A popular comedy club and restaurant, Fat Fish Blue Home of The Funny Bone, was a challenging job she found very thrilling to work on.  “I was so excited to take on such a large scale commercial project like that. The height of the giant two story foyer was daunting at first and I had 7 different assistants and artists helping with various tasks throughout the job.  With all these different trades working at once on the jobsite, there were so many trials and tribulations that we had to overcome. It was still one of the most fun projects despite all of the hoops we had to jump through.  I had to use an electric scissor lift and a cherry picker lift machine to reach the high foyer walls, approximately 30 feet tall.  I had to learn how to use these machines fast to paint and faux finish the walls.”  Her faux finish sample board of a red and brown crackled Venetian plaster was the inspiration for the entire color scheme for The Funny Bone comedy club.  “I am happy with the finished results of the comedy stage wall for the Funny Bone.   I have seen several great shows there and was thrilled to know that the comedic talents of Pete Lee, Mark Knope, and Howie Mandel (just to name a few) did their performances in front of my handiwork.”

Liking diversity, Kelly will take on big jobs like the restaurant as well as smaller jobs such as helping make switchplates disappear.  “My client had just done a remodel in a new bar area and wanted the switchplates to match their new granite. I also painted custom switchplates in the kitchen to match the backsplash tile colors so that they would not stick out.  She felt better and was very happy with the outcome, and it was a fun project for me.”

Challenges also intrigue Kelly.  “A woman sent me out to a restaurant in Port Clinton, OH where she had seen this brick in a restaurant and she wanted me to duplicate it.  I like challenges like that.  I like working with layers, standing back and looking at it.  I enjoy doing faux brick and stone projects, especially faux stone around fireplaces and breakaway brick like at Fat Fish Blue.  The multi-layers of different faux techniques are fun to work with, they develop and evolve.”

Several jobs that she talks about bring back fond memories that have to do with children.  The first was for a couple who had a little girl and were hoping and trying for a second child.  She painted a Noah’s Ark themed mural for them in the future nursery room where they hoped that one day they would have a second child sleeping in.  “During the time they waited to become pregnant with their second child, they had me come back to do more work on their home in other rooms.  The beautiful nursery was dark and empty  but they eventually did become pregnant  and now  they have a little boy. It was really special to get the news that the room I painted finally belonged to someone!”  Kelly is so touched by being a part of her client’s lives and how she is able to bring their dreams and thoughts out in art.  Making them happy is not just a job to her, each day is exciting and wonderful, and she enjoys the personal connection with her clients.  “I started out wanting to be a children’s book illustrator, and I still feel that I am doing that, just in a different form.  Like one giant page at a time, one wall at a time, for one child at a time.  I am painting butterflies, cats and frogs for children.  What job is better than that?  It is great!”

Another touching story was about a family originally from Greece, who moved from Boston to Toledo.  Kelly was hired to paint their son’s room at first.  “Their young son was stressed about the move, and I was hired to come and paint his favorite comic book in his new room.  The windows in the buildings of the city skyline were painted with glow in the dark paint which gave it a really cool effect.  When it was finished he loved his room and in turn he felt at home in his new surroundings.”  What a major transformation for a difficult time in a young child’s life when faced with leaving everything behind and having to make all new friends.  Kelly helped in many ways and was able to make a difference in his life resulting in a very unique and positive move forward.  She continued doing work for that family and helped bring elements of Greece through murals and faux finish techniques to their home.

“I like making people’s ideas into a reality on their walls, and giving attention to small details and projects.”  Kelly did just that when she was hired to paint a mural for a little girl in her bedroom.  “The little girl wanted an angel on her wall and she drew a sketch for me of what she wanted her guardian angel to look like and I painted the angel for her based on her sketch.”  That little girl got to have her dream idea become a reality that everyone could  see.

Kelly was hired to paint a toy room for her client’s son Christopher.  She filled it with such whimsical wonder, each  section of the room has a station where Christopher and his friends can let their imaginations roam free.  The room is bursting with color and has the feel of being outside sitting under a beautiful blue sky with scattered clouds.  Flowers and grass grow at abandon with the occasional happy frog, seagull and butterfly setting a warm and friendly atmosphere to play in.  Clever areas abound in this toy room, some of which are: “a faux textured tree with a climbing platform, a mini townscape that includes an ice cream shop, a barber shop, and a bait shop, a dry erase board on the wall, 1950’s TV set mural, a slide, an airplane attached to the ceiling that the kids can climb in, and an airplane mural.”  A shimmery pond off in the corner is seen with colorful fish swimming.  “The customer wanted the pond mural to have a high sheen effect to enhance the idea that it was water. I was not sure the best way to get a high gloss look for a floor mural and I called Kathy Carroll; she was so knowledgeable and helped us make the right choice on what to use to achieve the high gloss sheen we wanted for the water.  She knew that if we tried to use pourable resin we would have a sticky, gooey mess on our hands.  She took the time to speak with me and to steer me on the right path.  She was able to tell me what the right product was for the project and our end result was fantastic.  The pond could have been ruined if it wasn’t for Kathy’s knowledge and advice, she really saved the pond mural project. “

Kathy Carroll helped out on Kelly’s project for Fat Fish Blue as well.  “I was stumped.  I needed to purchase a large amount of Versiplast and I could not find it.  That was how I originally found Kathy and ended up placing the order through her.  She is really friendly and willing to help out.  I am so happy that I am able to have a supplier for my favorite plaster to work with again!  I also order various metallic plasters, trowels, bolts of cheese cloth,  gold leaf, seals and mostly the 5 gallon size buckets of plaster through Kathy.  She is such a wonderful person to work with.  She has such a personal touch and is so very prompt.”

As for Kelly’s future, she is looking forward to some more travelling.  “I will be travelling to Rome this October and will have lots of extra memory ready for my camera.  I enjoy photography very much and that will be a place to get lots of inspiration from. There are so many beautiful natural faux finishes that happen due to time and weather and I just love seeing those kind of walls and architectural elements  in person. Old brick walls and layers of peeled paint and ancient textures are something I am excited to see.  I am currently accepting private commissions and am excited for more large scale commercial jobs in the future. I am working on some new mixed media paintings using collage, encaustic wax and assemblage techniques.  I also have started working on making jewelry and that is a new, exciting venue. My jewelry pendants have a faux finish like patina to them. They have a weathered look; an old world finish.”  There are lots of exciting things ahead for Kelly.  Make sure to keep an eye out for what she does next.    

For more information about Kelly Weik or Art by Kelly please call 419.283.8657 or visit www.artbykelly.com or http://www.facebook.com/artbykelly