INTERVIEW WITH BIG EYE ARTIST KELLY HAIGH!!

Interview with Big-Eye Artist Kelly Haigh
Interview conducted by Sandra Scholes

There's too much standard artwork out there, but for those who like their fantasy art a little darker with some good humour thrown in for good measure, there is no better artist than Kelly Haigh who has been drawing her big-eye artwork for a while now and has been kind enough to share her thoughts with us.

Sandra: Of all the big-eyed artwork featured in the Big-Eye Art Book, yours is a portfolio that stands out as being unusual in a Tim Burton kind of way. The art is beautiful but in each painting there is an underlying sinister tone (in Offerings there is a beheaded grinning Cheshire cat.) How long have you been painting in this way?

Kelly: Thanks, Sandra! Offerings was a painting I did for an amazing fashion designer, Jennifer Nicholson. The cat is her father, (actor extraordinary, Jack Nicholson). I've been painting this way for many years. I have a painting I did when I was 11, in a similar fashion. A dark brown sky, weird black winged things,

and an owl, waiting on a mouse, who sits beside a rose, unaware the courtship will end in death. I've  always been fascinated and intrigued by darkness, and death. All the talk of eternal fires at Sunday  school, and a truck driving daddy, (who always told me road stories of big crash ups he'd seen). One time he was going to set up flares beside one such crash, and tripped over a body. When there was enough light, he discovered the man had no head. I was probably 7 when he told me about that. Every summer vacation driving past that area near Ontario, I would watch out the car window, and try to find that head. My dad  told me I might find it if I watched closely. In retrospect, I think he was just trying to have some peace and quiet, and not hear me talk, or bicker with my brothers.

Sandra: You have candy trees and sweets in your paintings. I love them
to bits, but what made you include them in your work?

Kelly: First off, I've always been obsessed with stripes. Striped T-shirts, socks, smoke stacks. The candy trees growing  from the earth are sometimes a simple representation of the sweetness of life, and sometimes, the black and white trees are illustrating the dark and light, and when combined, and equally embraced, they are something sweet.

Sandra: If you had to choose, what is your favourite paint medium, acrylic or pastel and why?

Kelly: Acrylic, without doubt. I don't have much experience with pastel. I love brushing on colours, blending and layering them, squeezing them from the tubes. The whole thing. I love painting on wood. I've been moving away from canvas lately.

Sandra: What was your first ever commission?

Kelly: My first ever commission was when I was 18. A lady saw my paintings, and asked if I might paint her silver Siamese cat. I obliged.

Sandra: When you take on a Commission now much time to you tend to spend with the client?

Kelly: I don't take on a lot of commissions. I don't have much time. I just need photos, and some ideas, and the freedom  to go wherever I want for a piece, otherwise, it's not worth doing. That's not an ego thing, it's just I go into a mindless state, sometimes, and like to let the piece lead me, rather than me trying to force things. The paintings I am most happy with are a surprise even to me. Characters, situations, skies that just 'happen.'

Sandra: Was there a painting you saw as a child that changed your life?

Kelly: My mom hung some paintings in our bedrooms when we were children. A beautiful girl with a white bonnet, big blue eyes, and the ones in my brothers' room were those pitiful cat and dog paintings by Gig.

Sandra: You've been an artist for some time now, have you ever taught
people to draw, or run a local workshop?

Kelly: My best pal, Jimmy Roy, (legendary steel guitar player), painted in his 20's. He has always wanted to get back into it,  so on the days we have band rehearsal, we start in the afternoon with painting lessons. He's a quick study! When we
finish, he teaches me things on guitar, and we learn new songs for all our shows.

Sandra: At age ten what was your idea of a dream job?

Kelly: At age 10, I KNEW I wanted to paint, sing old country songs, and be a hairdresser. I do all 3.

Sandra: What are you only just starting work on at the moment?

Kelly: I am starting a commission of a little boy. I painted his sister before he was born, and there is a hanging rabbit in the painting,  and he asks if that is him. The guilt is unbearable. I better get this fella a portrait of his own before he feels inferior his whole life! ;)

Sandra: Cats or dogs?

Kelly: DOGS. My dream is to have an island full of dogs... A giant bar filled with mattresses, a retractable glass roof, so we can see moonlight by  night, fresh air by day. I am in love with my dog, and would have her implanted in my chest as a 'Siamese twin' if I could. (Frances, the singing dog).

Sandra: What would you like to say to your fans?

Kelly: Gosh, a huge thank you for their kindness, and support, and for making me want to continue making things, and sharing them. When people write with kind words, it really and truly fills my heart, and is no small thing. Ever.

Contact information for Kelly Haigh:
http://www.kellyhaigh.com/