How life impacts the way you create with Katalin Klecz
Today I'm sharing the second part of that interview where Katalin talks about her son's illness and how it has impacted the way she creates her art. What Katalin shares is very touching and candid. Enjoy.
What are some challenges you’ve faced so far in your career?
My artistic career is like a mirror reflection of my family life. Art and parenthood both are creative processes with many challenges, uncertainty and questions. For me, one doesn’t come without the other. I’m certain that I wouldn’t have learned many things had I not had children. But life also gave me a big challenge, one of the biggest trials a parent can face. My son was diagnosed with a life threatening disease when he was 6 years old. Not only did this devastating event interrupt my career for many years to come, but also changed my life and me tremendously.
This experience put my life and art in a very different perspective. Inspiration and creativity was gone. The white paper stayed blank. We went through life where everyday was a challenge and a fight for life and happiness. It took me many years to get back and create again. After this very long break I created my watercolor collection influenced primarily by flowers I got from my son for Mother’s Day. Later these paintings were the inspiration for my scarves collection.
How were you able to return to art and design after your son's illness?
After my son was diagnosed, my desk, paints and brushes stayed untouched for a very long time. Our lives had changed completely from white one day to black the next. From then on we faced difficult decisions, we had to go through treatments and therapies that lasted for years. Within this period, it was as though my soul was crushed. I left the studio untouched for a very long time, and then came a moment when I simply packed it all up, not even looking back for years. I didn’t feel like sitting down to paint or draw. But in this difficult period I learned to be patient and appreciative. I had to learn to live day by day without making any big plans for the future. For me living that way was very difficult because I had always liked to make plans ahead of time.
Deep inside I knew that one day I would return to creativity and have the urge to fill that blank paper with colors. The loss of that interest was very difficult and kind of depressing. Many years had passed before I got back to art. Through exercising and yoga, I tried to move forward in this critical point in my life. And at one point, the moment came when I began to feel the need to create again. I started with oil painting, my very first love. Painting with oil paint is very forgiving and gives endless possibilities for exploration.
At this point I wasn’t even thinking about textile design. The industry changed so much, everything became digital and I didn’t know how to use Photoshop or Illustrator. But I took out all my old paints and started just to experiment with them. Gouache, acrylic watercolors and my favorite ink paints. I tried to follow my heart, not listening to the outside noise, and just paint. I painted intuitively without any planning for what the finished piece will be. I went with the flow and incorporated all the “happy” accidents into the whole painting.
This was something new to me since I always used to plan and had been afraid of making mistakes. Now I realized that imperfections and mistakes are a very important part of the whole. Not only in life but also in art. Being spontaneous in the moment became very important to me. And that’s how my first collection of watercolor paintings was born. Without even realizing it, somehow I was not only painting but also “designing” and finding my own motifs for patterns in those paintings.
Katalin Klecz Artwork
How has your creative process changed since returning to the art work?
First of all, I started listening to my inner voice. I used to be very inpatient, never looking into what was underneath the surface. Now, with many years of life experience and so many ups and downs, sorrow and happiness, I realized that a simple bouquet of flowers is not a bunch of beautiful, colorful plants but a lot more. They represent feelings, love, a relationship of a mother and son. They are the sun, the earth and the water. They capture the now. They give us memories as well as relief from pain – the Joy of beauty, colors and shapes. They express caring and forgiveness.
The process of creating my works helps me to reconnect with my own self - to heal, to grow, to appreciate, to love and to feel loved, and to create my own reality. For me what became very important is the way of getting there not just the end result. Before, I had only been concentrating on that end result.
Katalin Klecz Artwork
What advice would you give to artists who are going through difficult times as well, who find themselves staring at a blank page?
Find you inner voice and follow your heart. Be patient. Creating art is a journey not only a destination. Explore and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Those mistakes, just like in life, are a very important part of the whole process and sometimes can be the best part.
Also, persistence is one attribute that is needed in life to make things happen. Not giving up and getting up stronger after every failure is key. Hard work is only one side of the story - we also have to trust the whole process and hope that at one point everything will fall into place.
What are your future goals?
I’m working on a new pattern collection right now and if I could have my own fabric collection, that would be my dream come true.
Want to see more of Katalin’s work?