Tue, 01/06/2021 - 10:50
Kelly Herrick, a landscape artist, is one of the latest to be welcomed as a new Banks Mill affiliate member, and the community is eager to learn from her experience. Kelly, like many of our members, is a University of Derby alumnus, having graduated from her BA Marketing and Business programme in 1998. Kelly used the talents she gained from her education to work in corporate company as a Marketing Director after graduating from university. It wasn't until years later that she realised the corporate world wasn't satisfying her desire to be seen and heard in the world, and she sought to reignite her artistic gifts.
The Derbyshire-based landscape artist uses passion, colour, and energy to produce work that celebrates the planet and connects people to nature. Kelly believes that fostering this connection encourages people to engage with nature and, as a result, to take better care of our planet. Kelly is a firm believer that art may help to create a more sustainable and environmentally viable future and applies her formula for creativity everywhere she goes: Creativity = curiosity + action x repetition.
Rather than painting replicas of landscapes, Kelly focuses on understanding and interpreting how a location makes her feel. Our new artist has a passion for painting the British coast and countryside; vast views, sea and sky, meandering lanes, forests and hillsides; all inspire her art. Painting numerous landscapes in her home county of Derbyshire and the Peak District, Kelly still devotes time to travel all around the UK for inspiration.
Kelly employs mark creation, textures, and dramatic colour combinations in her oil and mixed media paintings. As a self-taught artist, she draws inspiration from her childhood, enticing memories spent on the fair, where she was surrounded by colour and pattern.
When she isn't out exploring the countryside, Kelly organises outdoor and online art events to help individuals connect with their creativity and discover avenues to natural connections via art. Since lockdown, there has been a growth in the online events, and this will only keep climbing. Organiser of the ‘Wild Heart, Creative Soul' retreat, a creative wellbeing event held in Edale, Kelly helps empower women to step into their creative selves while reconnecting with nature. This is just one illustration of how Kelly and her efforts create a lasting difference in this world.
Making the transition from a vocation to a passion is not simple, and Kelly took advantage of several possibilities to assist her in her endeavour. She began to actively design a life that felt truer to her. Joining the Quad's business committee, being a member of a team, and meeting new people was a starting stone of this transition. Kelly also volunteered at Format Festival, performed in a play, landed a new job with Derby design firm Katapult, and, most significantly, reconnected with her creativity. Helping her along was an empowering women’s community, Remarkable Women and artist and life coach, Nicola Newman.
Kelly reveals: “The women gave me the extra mindset and energy boost I needed to realise that I could create my life to look any way I really wanted. I had the power to start my own Art and Creative Wellbeing business if I truly wanted, and I did!”
Though life has taken Kelly and her talents elsewhere since her graduation, she has remained close to the university, attending Prof. Miles Richardson’s inaugural lecture, conversing with his colleagues, and broadening her horizons. Kelly has maintained contact with her University of Derby associate lecturer, Richard Mayer, throughout her career. He was both a mentor and a friend and will be pleased to see her circle back to the University sites.
Expressing her feeling toward her future at Banks Mill, Kelly commented, “Being an artist can be isolating in some ways and it’s great to have a group of like-minded creatives to network with, learn from and ask for help.” Banks Mill will be there every step of whichever way Kelly takes her art next.
To learn more about Kelly and her landscape art, visit her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.