hello everybody and welcome to the place to soar where our motto is step out and redesign and the focus is always on you i'm your host anita russell and this is my very good friend gayle tele farrow she's my co host and we have a very very esteem guest with us this evening he is an artist a local artist and his name is kenneth lewis and i'm going to start off by reading a little bit of his bio kenneth lewis is a fifty five year old self instructed artist who began painting on cabinets canvas at the unusual age of forty seven kenneth had a set has a special relationship and deep sensitivity for what he produces for the last couple of decades he has expresse artistic creativity through house painting interior design and furniture repurpose inc on new year's day in two thousand and eight kenneth painted his very very first piece and called it contemplation and he quickly learned that he had a very raw and latent give any pain it more as a hobby from two thousand and eight and till the death of his beautiful mother and two thousand and twelve his mother's departure from earth and ignited the artist's flow in him canis mother could always draw but she never attempted attempted to embrace or further explore her talents he knew that he had to create not only for himself but also for his late mother so khanna why don't you dom was so excited you know with this opportunity to come here speak with you all and so i may have a little bit of the jitters but i'm excited i'm one of seven children my father was a baptist parents are deceased and like i said i'm one of seven throw them in the middle two girls in a boy older and two girls and a boy younger as you were saying in the bio my mother she would always sketch at the kitchen table  i was a sports guy growing up playing basketball football track and all that so i saw artists is i liked art i always knew i loved art and artists but i never thought it was something you know for me i was so much focused on  sports and but i knew i always loved art i actually had a frame shop for almost ten years as well a custom frame shop so i was always around or and always admired artists  but around two thousand and two two thousand and seven towards the end of that year i just i had been married for twenty some years got divorced and this is a year after that i'm sitting at home and that october i had bought a campus and some paint and it sat there from october november december i didn't touch it but i felt like there was just something i wanted to do and it was this urge that was coming at me and i just didn't know what it was and so i put the new year's day i said ok what do you do you can do different with your life this year and so i was in this contemplated mode and i sat the canvas on the easel and i waited for the ball to drop on two thousand and eight and i cracked open the paint and i start painting and what i realized i just had a natural gift to like see and midge and recreate that image without even thinking about it i could just really just create a face or whatever just naturally and so i started painting and i started really when it has feeling like grant was done it it was like it was like a spiritual thing for me it was like i could see the end result it was like it was it was i can literally see the vision of what i was going to do prior to me finish it and i'll go back to that when i pay about winding mice my studio that  i started you know you know creating the painting saw like wow this is really coming and i didn't realize i knew how to shade and all this thing mind you i didn't even know the names of the brushes that i was using i didn't know how to mix paint or anything i didn't know anything about that or like i said shaking but i could i could do it and at that point i really really knew it was a gift but i didn't realize how much of a gift it was at that time so i painted it and i spent it for fun for a few years and then two thousand and twelve on let me think about contemplated contemplated it's a it's a picture of a man and he's looking off to the side and he has hands like sort of like this and he's looking off this way and the it's represented to me the past and there was like a little bit of a shadow going that way but then it was a bright light like going into the future so he was contemplating the future  and that was kind of ideas that are at the same and i was at that point yeah and so that's what came out and then i realized that you know once i had certain feelings and urges for certain things where i could see some images i could see something inspires me and then i would have this urge to create something from it so fast forward to two thousand and twelve i was sitting in my house and i was painting this one i had this urge to paint this elderly woman and i started painting her and right when i finished the phone rang and my mother has stopped breathing no one has ever seen this picture i will never sell it and i don't even know if i'm read show it to anybody yet but it was a picture of a woman sitting there an elderly woman at peace and right after that i got the call about my mother from that point on i still wasn't in the mode where i was really doing this as a career i still was doing it for fun i would post things on facebook and twitter and instagram and all those things but still not trying to do it as a career and then my sister got diagnosed with cancer and i moved her my house and she had just retired and within a year and a half she had passed and i dedicated one of my paintings and we go it's on my blog you know the information about dedicating the painting to my sister but at that point i knew that i had to when she became ill she a work of thirty eight years at her job and retired and then got a diagnosis of cancer two months after she retired  knew that i had to live now and just be happy yes and so i just became so open and i became so appreciative of every day of the people around me and everything that i had and i no longer thought about all the things i don't have i would became so appreciative of everything that i had and then that good started to explode even more i started painting at a frantic pace in a seven year time period i have over three hundred paintings oh wow my paintings average about five to six feet each five foot by six foot six foot by six foot and man i also notice that i love to paint were bursts of color and energy in my paintings and also my sister live with me in the room there where she stayed i gave her my master bedroom and i made that into my studio and i call it the cage a l r sanctuary she actually passed an easter sunday in that room and i don't know i was barefoot in the room i have a spiritual connection with that room and just my mind just flows and goes free you know within if i call it the k j elkhart sanctuary you know when i go in that's what it was forty seven forty seven forty seven you had that awakening and then the next thing you know now you're happy because you're doing something that you love to do and that is just so awesome because people when we get older we tend to shy away from the names that we have an interest in because some of us think it's too late but not she just went ahead and you just flourished in doing something that you actually love to do and that's really also near i've always  been the type of person that you know if i do something i put you know a lot of energy into it and i really have a lot of you know confidence in myself and i have confidence in others as well but i have confidence in myself as well and it doesn't to me i don't look for approval from people for what i do as far as the are some so natural i don't think about is someone going to like this piece of artwork that i create because i'm creating the with love and so everything you know most of my posts and things you'll see hash tag much love and that just means that i put a whole lotta love into what i do it's just a whole lotta love and it comes out and it shows and people i buy art for me they like really really resonates with them they say we can tell that you really enjoy doing this and that you put a lot of love in there so i've always put much love on every page that so there's another  aspect of your story and that is the fact that you sort of made that transition from painting as a hobby so to speak and now you use the work career because what i know about you is that you've always had an entrepreneur spirit like when i met you was when you had to the bookstore so can you tell all it's a little bit about some of those milestone things that happened in your life along the way that also contributed to where you are now as an artist and as a driving business person in the arts well i got to go back to building debbie kaufman there are friends of mine besides my father who was very entrepreneur he would buy houses flip houses me and my brothers would be in their work and we hated it but now i go we're going to myself but we hated it but my father was that five years besides being a minister he worked at general motors and the last was so he was a he was always had seven kids and he was only one to work my mom was a stay at home mom so he had to provide for seven kids and i just watched my father and his work ethic and so i got work ethic from my father i got a the artistic skills i truly believe from my mother i believe that what i'm doing is jess my mother coming out of me and that's why you know this i'm a go to finish to what you're saying but if you know if i paid a lot of women i have a such a high degree of respect for women i actually have a series that i started of sculptures and it's for the strength of women and every single painting or sculpture in there is going to be some form of repetitious cetacean of the strength of women and i think you know i had the last art reception i dickason and i was working for lincoln properties in plainsboro and they came in they had a coffee service and i was in the office and i cussed start talking and we made friends and husband asked me it was just the two of them they distorted his business and he asked me what i come to work for then he asked me how much i was making he said would you come work for us and so i decided to go work for him and i learned a lot about being an entrepreneur from debbie and bill kaufman got the three of us took their business and they're still in business called polar spring water  new jersey and they were initially called coffee men so that you know my entrepreneurial curiosity was piqued working with them and learned a lot about running the business and then i went from when i left from there i started mine builders which was a bookstore and custom frame shop and i put it as a prank i had a friend shop in a because i loved art i'm again at this point i've never tried to paint anything but i just love art so running that store mine builders for for almost ten years was a great experience as well and then i went from there i went back into the property management for a while and then i opened up another frame shop so i know it seems like a lot but being fifty five that's quite a few years don't but that i mean when you think about it though that's how we're supposed to live because we have so much inside of us and you are an example of a person who along the journey in their lives as you discover more about yourself you put that into practice that's commendable yes and i'm not and i'm and i have no fear and i feel that i lot of people though they may look in the bible say nothing to fear but fear itself and all this stuff but they don't really believe that you know not having a beer is something that i i don't have fear i'm not afraid of succeeding or failing i'm not afraid but that happens when you're walking  yes where you walk into a purpose you know you're full yes absolutely and just everything that's happening is supposed to happen again i'm just living life and allowing life to take its course and and it's wonderful my my friend karen my lady friend carol she is on the same page in concert reminds me of those things as well about you know always the same and it's important to have people around you too that you know  encouraging and supportive and i do have that my son and my daughter they work every exhibition whitney is is a blessing really and that's really it's that's another interesting point them because you went from experiencing your father being this entrepreneur and now you're instilling that now in your children as well so it's sort of like this this legacy if you will within your family of being entrepreneurs and not and a also about education knowledge yes you know teaching the skill set to you know the you know our sons and daughters and stuff like that it is best legacy as you know and i think to your point i think a lot of people think of legacy as like when i'm gone but that's not if you're you're continuing a legacy that was out there with your father and i would be willing to bet if you were to trace it back before him that you would be able to see how that legacy is generational but it's not the kind of thing where you wait until afterwards and exactly what i'm saying like you are living the legacy that your father instilled in you and you're also instilling that in  and that's so important you write a song portrait and i am i just want to set a good example for you know my my children my grandchildren and all my other nieces and nephews and all of them is well yeah they all are very very happy everyone is so surprised because this just came out of nowhere and i said that's where everything comes from nowhere it's like that's where everything comes from into existence you just but you just have to believe it have it in your heart and it will flow it will just come out you know whatever it is you know and it becomes your life's journey so again a lot of the things that you have talked about your past with the book because i've known you or moved into this area your bookstore was one of the first established myths that i you know implies because it was owned by an african american and that was very important to me i was raising that much children i love the books that you had in there and and all of that so when i think of kenny that's when i automatically go back to in the bookstore but now obviously seeing this and so all of those things along the way along your journey were that was preparation absolute for you to do what it is you're doing now you know everything even when i got the little beach and when i was bad but all of it was all just sculpting me and you know and all i had to do was just not resist what what is and i just try to stay positive and and just try to do the best you can every day and that's all you have to do you know what and that's it's that simple words we give into our gift things and then the la times we struggle because we have so many other things to think about you know life gets in in the way of our purpose and you know work at you know working at a job gets in the way of our purpose but what i like about you is that ok and then later age you went ahead and walked in your purpose and you started fulfilling it and now you're happier your life  different you know and that's how life is intended to be and not so much of a struggle of doing something that you really don't want to do but once you walk into your purpose in and the gift things that god has given you an absolute you know everything is a lot easier and you want to share it and this all started with me really like also just wanting to share the art that i was creating i was letting people see it so next thing i know my sister my mother is passed and my sister  again my sister had a cancer and was living with me and i did my first show this was in two thousand my mother passed in december of two thousand and twelve and my sister moved into my house in the beginning of two thousand thirteen when she got the diagnosis and february of two thousand and thirteen i had my first arctics addition to trenton social and there were other people a curator of the show i went there a few months beforehand i watched other are and i'm also the type of person that i will i will look at what someone else is doing and if i'm going to do something i'm going to make sure i'm prepared for it and to be as successful as possible so i want the i watch the artist see how they hone their stuff  labels weren't all the stuff so i did that for sears few months before my exhibition it was my first exhibition people ask me you know aren't you afraid you know put your art out there like that i said already been doing it and i said on top of that i'm not afraid i said i'm either going to sell a lot of art i'm a sell a little bit are i'm going to sell no art right at the end of the day it's all good so i went there put my paintings in there and i had in my mind i'm going to do well and i came prepared i had  it was one of the best shows they ad there and it was because i believed it was going to be one of the best shows they had there even before i got there and it wasn't a thing of an arrogance or anything like that it was just a truly a belief that that the aware of that but then i also want you to talk about what you've got going on in chelsea new york ok so there's two things one day me and carol and it's again not being afraid to let me let me say this before i say that there i relatively new and doing art i know artists that have been the one for twenty five thirty years all their life and they come and ask me for advice because they see that the no fear and just allowing things to happen i like how that how you do i've been doing this all my life i don't have a website don't do this i'm like sam but you can't it's a very simple thing to just create a website you don't have exhibitions or uniting galleries or anything then go to galleries or create your own exhibition and again and i was like ok i have big art so it's very i have to because i have to try to figure out places that can accommodate that so instead of me waiting for someone to ask me do you want to do a show i go to places i went to ewing mall i curated two or exhibitions with six or seven other artists on both those shows i created it myself these are all things you can do yourself instead of waiting around for someone else to do it and a lot of artists they're stuck in the more creative side and they don't think about the business side of it as well so i do both of those things by pretty pretty well and and that's all i tell them i said you got to look at the business side of it and spend half your time doing that and half your time doing the art as well which takes me to going to chelsea new york me and karen with the chelsea we said we're going to visit we've got a book from barnes and nobles and all art galleries and so we went there and we said what's going to go and talk to them went to the very first place street we went on we went  to in the chelsea area in new york we stopped the one gallery and then we went into a gora gallery and i went in there and i told him i said i'm an artist and i said i want you to see some of my images and see what you think and you know what would it take for me to exhibit here and i showed the young lady and i was like you know i'm a very good art is that but i'm like really pump and pump it up to her and she looked at it she went back and called another lady out she started looking at it and she said ok give me your cardinal stuff with the before we left new york they had emailed me and they said we want you to submit your bio some other information less than two weeks after that they sent me a letter saying we would love for you to join the family of artists that we have here and you know i signed a two year contract with you know my first exhibition in new york is july fourteenth and are to be up for four  weeks at a board gallery so how do people find out like if somebody in our audience wants to come and see your show where do they get the information on my website i have a section for existing our current and  doing things they've been having shows at whole of valley vineyard they have a guided cure rates there and you know we talked a few times but i never curated and never participate in any of the things so i was my day i do my own show and i went right there to the owners and went in there said listen i'm an artist there's my images right here i want to do it i solo show here and so the show went so well that you know as you guys attended they women i decided i didn't i don't just paint on canvas i paint on oriana stram board i paint on tarts i panel roof material there's paintings on there look like this on campus but it's all roofing material i paint with brushes i paint a rollers i paint with my feet i paint with my hands i paint with a palette knives i paint with fabric so i don't even jest use brushes because now i'm expanding because i figured anything that's not growing or expanding this light and if the states stagnant that's like a degenerative form it's like you're going backwards so i feel that i continually have to grow as an artist so i've branched out and now i'm into the sculptures and i went from painting things that like the piece i had here multifaceted of thirty six to forty eight i went to large campuses and then i start creating the canvases i start stretching the campuses in a making them to whatever size or shape that i want to make them and then i started with the sculptures and the series that i'm doing is the strength of one min series and i feel that women are the nuts and bolts of society and i made it out of step aerobics mat s tart pilot he says grout nuts bolts sparkplugs a woman's torso layers and layers of paint fabric curtains thermal ware and created this this image in a sock of a woman like embedded into the women and it's like the birth of humanity and i feel that the very first beings are creatures or whatever you want to say on this earth i believe there were  women and and so i actually can see we're almost out of town and out of town rather than and i really want to make sure that people know how to get in touch with you so is there a phone number website give all the information so that they  nugget of information for somebody that might be out there struggling with a gift that they want to kind of burst forth of just one nugget of information or wisdom that you can leave for our audience you got like ten seconds believe in yourself and have no fear and be humble stay home bill and prayerful and grateful that's what you have to do ok eccellenza you heard it right here canning though is make sure you go in second now to new york at the chelsea theatre and go check them out on online as well thank you for joining us