February 3, 2022
Transcription: Paintings + NFTs Explained With KEEMO
Transcription
Anne Kelly (00:00:18):
Hey friends. Welcome to art in the raw conversations with creative people tonight, I’m excited to introduce you to Curt Atkin, AKA Keemo. Kurt’s gonna tell us about his life as a creative person and his adventures in paintings, prints and NFTs. If this is your first time watching, first of all, thank you very much. And if so, you might be wondering who I am in a nutshell, I’m somebody that’s been in love with art and music, basically my entire life. I’ve now been working in the professional gallery world for about 15 years now. And I started art in the raw about halfway through 2020 to keep people connected and inspired. So if you see value in that consider subscribing and telling like-minded friends. In the meantime, I’m excited to introduce you to Curt. Welcome Curt. How are you tonight?
Curt Atkins(00:01:20):
I’m great. Thank you. I thank you for having me out. And where are you at tonight? Right now? I’m out in my studio in grand rapids, Michigan sitting right in front of my phone. Chatting with you.
Anne Kelly (00:01:28):
I’m curious about what’s happening behind you. Is anything maybe in progress we could see?
Curt Atkins(00:01:35):
Yeah, we can take a quick look around with, this is basically like an old garage that I converted into a studio. I’ve got the couple walls that I can put paintings on. And generally this is like my painting area. So I run with two different eases. I had to flip this painting around though, because it’s a custom portrait I’m working on. This is the painting that I was telling you about. That is the one that I’m working on for the rest of my life. It’s only 24 by 36. I can’t imagine how thick it’s gonna be by the end, but, uh, that’s that painting really like a big, huge table that I do all different kinds of paperwork and illustrations and just where all of the junk ends up. It, it seems what
Anne Kelly (00:02:15):
Is the three dimensional? It’s a mannequin.
Curt Atkins(00:02:19):
Yeah, this is a, it’s a big sculpture that I’ve been working on for a couple years. Well, I say working on, it’s not finished and I started it like a couple years ago and I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with it next. I was just kind of exploring like with, with different fibers and you know, different painting techniques and all of that, but where I’m stuck with it is right now, it looks like a mannequin and it kind of drives me crazy. The I’m trying to figure out what are the next things that I’m gonna do with it to make it into something that actually is a little bit more unique. And I’m not sure what that is. And so that’s why it’s not done, but that’s as far it’s still in progress. So
Anne Kelly (00:02:57):
That’s the cool thing about having the ability to do the long term projects is, is you don’t have to know by tomorrow. Yeah,
Curt Atkins(00:03:05):
Exactly. You know, so, so just some other art, this is a, a portrait that is actually a custom portrait. I gotta ship that out fairly soon to couple. They live in Columbia and you can see they they’re two dogs down there. So I that’s gonna be going to Columbia soon and some recent small pieces that I just finished. I was just experimenting with the black background. I really just wanted to explore that a little bit more. Another one with kind of the black background there 18 months ago, or so I had a heart problem to go to the hospital and all that stuff. And I thought, oh my God, gosh, I’m gonna die. So when I got out of the hospital, this was the first painting that I did when I realized I was not gonna die. You know, there’s lots of symbolism in there from that time.
Curt Atkins(00:03:48):
And like before that, I was in a lot of physical pain. So I was using a ton of black, all that. And so my first painting out, I decided I wasn’t gonna use any black. I was just gonna have it be light. And I was so happy to be alive and, and all of that. So that’s that painting? Um, I’m glad you’re okay. I, I’ve learned to really embrace wheels so you can see my floor is like a hard wood, all of my tables and everything I, I put on the wheels so I can move them around and like the eases on wheels and all that. So I can move it around. I, I generally keep most of my paints here in this cart. And a lot of my supplies are in that cart there. I have this little table, this is the one that I move around.
Curt Atkins(00:04:30):
And then I work generally from, I have another little table that’s identical to that, but that’s what I was sitting at earlier. Can just move them around for whatever I want, if I need to put ’em together other or whatever, really every space is kind of a workspace is how I look at it, paint all over the floor. A anything in the studio is fair game to make something <laugh> is how I look at it. So the little room back there, that’s additional storage and bathroom. And I have my sink in here, here. I’ll share it with you, my mirror. So over my sink, I, I don’t have a mirror, but I put that as my reminder for myself when I come in and, and clean my brushes.
