Inside a Colorful Mind…Paintings & Poems by Kimmie Hamm

Kimmie was sitting at the keyboard one day touching various keys.   “If we could see music notes,” she said, “I wonder what color they would be?”  A few days later she had created, Piano at Night, Sounds of Light.  

Piano at Night, Sounds of Light

Up until then, I had not known music notes had colors. I thought of a story, which I’m sure you’ve heard, about the little girl who tells her teacher she is drawing a picture of God. “But no one knows what God looks like,” the teacher says. “They will in a minute, the little girl replies.”

Thank you, Kimmie, for showing us what music looks like…Dorothy Hamm

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About Kimmie Hamm

When I end up with paint spatters on me, I feel that I have had a good day.

A client told her she had a very colorful mind, an apt description for this Texas artist who has said she can never quite replicate, on paper or canvas, the colorful images she sees in her mind. 

Communications specialist Jayne Lybrand described her work as “art deco blended with technical fusion.”  

Another aspect of Kimmie’s work are the stories her paintings bring with them, stories she may not have imagined when she started the painting.  

 

 

 

 

I create art because it is a part of me. I am an explorer and optimist at heart who has always had a passion for creativity.  When I hold a brush or pencil I don’t want to mimic the world around me, I want to explore its…Possibilities.

I am deeply rooted in the beauty and wonderment of nature and love exploring the visions and stories in my mind, everything from a small flower or blade of grass to ancient cliffs and seas to distant unexplored imagined worlds filled with whimsical creatures and thoughts of what if…

My maternal grandmother said, ‘If you have strong roots your spirit can fly anywhere and still return home.’  She has left this physical world but her wisdom remains with me and continues to spark and influence my imagination.

Perhaps the explorer in me comes from my immigrant ancestry. My great grandfather’s family traveled to America on a steamship in 1874. I can imagine them traveling for what must have seemed like an eternity.  I try to imagine what they might have been thinking.  I often try to express their willingness to embrace the unknown, their anticipation of infinite possibilities in my art…Kimberly Klose Hamm 

 

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Here are some samples of  Kimmie’s work, along with her thoughts on how they go from mind to canvas, or paper, and even some wearable art in collaboration with the Vida company.

Fire in the Mind’s Eye 

Oil on Canvas, 18×24

 

My vision of an artist’s mind:   When you look through the eyes and into the mind you see how an idea takes hold and creates a fire.  Flames of orange and red spark creativity, riding along with the swirling brainwaves of thought process.  Represented by the color grey, they plant themselves intermittently somewhere between the mundane and the serene.

 

  

Fire Cave  

Oil on Canvas, W 24″ x H 36″

Swirls of color meshing in a cyclone of fire inspired by visions of volcanic caves and stalagmites hidden deep in the earth.  Perhaps a secret magical world where color begins…Kimmie

 Fire Cave, translated to a fabric scarf by   Vida. (https://shopvida.com/pages/our-story )  

Dragoness Flower Water Color & Pastel on Paper 18×24  

Dragoness Flower     

Protector of the Fire Cave. The meadow of the royal fortress  hidden deep in the woods of Cynemear.  Shrouded in mystery, a secret magical place providing a gateway to the Fire Cave where the Protector,  disguised as a flower, lives.  Dragoness Flower and her kind, have protected this secret place for millennia.  A fierce, courageous warrior beauty whose dedication is tempered with infinite kindness and wisdom.

 

 2614

Acrylic, Spray Paint & Pencil on Canvas 18×24

Future visions of world conflict and a new world order come to mind.  I feel the approaching army.  Here and there, boots thumping the ground in unison.

But not everyone in the city feels the same. Some are proud, some are anguished, some are defiant and some stand in silent disbelief.

Some of the inspiration for this work came from the novel 1984 by George Orwell and an Apple Macintosh commercial from 1984.  These potent images leave me pondering our future…

 

 

Go Where Music Takes You Watercolor on Paper 18″x24″

Music can take you to fantastic & fanciful places.  This classical guitar serenades a mermaid & a school of fish in the sea.  I see in my mind sound waves resonating through the water & the mermaid’s hair, causing her to stop & be in the moment allowing her mind to imagine many possibilities.

 

Nameless, Acrylic on Canvas

Nameless

Acrylic on Canvas 16×20″

Broken and nameless in life, but restored in heaven I see rows of nameless graves on a dark road but ahead in the twilight sky visions of beautiful music so powerful it begins to heal the brokenness creating a place in heaven and writing a name forever in the book of life.

 

Driven

Watercolor on Paper  16×20″

Driven from their land once more, this proud mother and son prepare for their journey.  They dress in their finest colors of orange, blue, yellow and crimson, hopeful and determined to find a land to call their own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kimmie Hamm: Awards, Shows, Exhibitions

2018

• Trinity Art Guild Juried Spring Show: Best in 3D Category for “The Piano Building”

(Description: a 3-dimensional sculpture with found Items 16x30x16)

• Public Display Bedford Library

2017

• Trinity Art Guild Juried Open Show: Third Place 3D Category For “The Call”

(Description: a 3-dimensional sculpture with found Items 18x26x16) 

• Trinity Art Guild Juried Fall Show: Second Place Works on Paper: for “Driven”

(Description: Watercolor on paper 18×24) 

• Dreams and Nightmares art show Fort Worth, TX
• Art and Words collaboration sponsored by Art on the Boulevard Gallery Fort Worth, TX
• Artlandash art show Fort Worth, TX
• 2-month Public Display Hurst Library
• Trinity Art Guild Juried Spring Show
• Bedford arts Festival
• 3-month Public Display Bedford Library
• Central arts of Bedford Gallery Show

2016

• Trinity Art Juried Winter Show: Second place Integrated Words Challenge For “Love and War”

(Description: Oil painting with mixed media overlay on canvas 28×30) 

• Trinity Art Guild Juried Open Show: Honorable Mention Water media category for “Solomon Sea”

              (Description: Mixed media; Watercolor and ink on paper 18×24)

• V.A.A. Gallery Show at Plaza of the Americas Dallas TX: Best in show for “Solomon Sea”

(Description: Mixed media; Watercolor and ink on paper 18×24)

• Retro Future Show at Central arts of Bedford Gallery
• Public art display Bedford Library with Central arts
• Trinity Art Guild Juried Spring Show: Third place for “Abstract Heart”

               (Description: Mixed media; Watercolor and ink on paper 18×24)

• Public Art Display Bedford library
• Public Art Display Euless Library
• Non-Juried Trinity Arts Guild show

2015

• Trinity Art Guild Juried Open Show
• Trinity Art Guild Juried Artist favorite things Show: Second place for “Alex”
• (Description: a 3-dimensional sculpture, nod to a favorite artist Alexander Calder with found Items 10x10x16) 
• Trinity Arts Guild Juried Professional and Emerging artist show: First place for “News”

        (Description: a 3-dimensional wall hung sculpture with found Items 24” round with 8” depth)

• Non-Juried Trinity Arts Guild show Ode to the past
• Public Art Display Euless Library

 

2014

• Non-Juried Trinity Arts Guild Hot Summer Show
• Trinity Arts Guild Juried Emerging Artist show: Honorable Mention, Works on canvas for “Strength of the Forest”

           (Description: Mixed media, Coffee, and Ink on an oval canvas)

2013

 

• Athens Art Show at the Arboretum in Athens, TX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Dimensional

News

The Call

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Links:  Absolute Arts

Kimmies collection on Vida.  http://shopvida.com/collections/voices/kimmie-hamm-1