Meet Kira Ru-djen!

Kira Ru-djen (she/her)

Hi, Kira! Where are you from?

I've lived many places, born in Nashville, went to school in MN/ND and lived for most of my adult life in NYC before coming here for my husbands grad school program (shout out to the Drama Therapy KSU program and Sally Bailey!).

How long have you been making art?

I have been doodling on the sides of pages to help pay attention to things as long as I can remember, but I've been professionally working as a full time artist since 2017/2018. 

What is/are your medium(s)? Why do you gravitate to that media?

For the last few years my work has mainly been in pastels, soft pastels and oil pastels. I have a lot of love for watercolor and will pick that back up from time to time to get something out of my system. While I've been out of college for a good amount of time, my degree is actually in pastels. My baccalaureate show was oil pastels (an entire skelebuddy show!) and I was the first person to graduate with that emphasis. For me, pastels work as fast as my interests go. While other mediums teach you patience, pastels teach you intuition. Go with your gut and go boldly, they seem to say. The sort of tactile immediacy of pigment and the intimacy you can have with your paper - it's one of the big reasons I've stuck with soft pastels over anything else. I was recently elected as an Associate member of the Pastel Society of America. 

What subjects do you select? Why?

I work with delight as my compass, I'm ADHD and delight isn't in short supply so I can be compelled to create from anything. With my landscapes, it's because I'm feeling grateful for the scene I was there to witness. With my portraiture, it's because I've felt a recognition of importance, of connection. With still life work, it's because I've felt grateful to be seeing the light the way I'm seeing it - very like my landscape work. I enjoy being alive and I think my work reflects that.

Of course, then. There's also my skeleton work. This collection of work is a bit of a meditation on spending time with myself as an artist and as a human. I've learned that the amusement I get from them when they're finished is different from my other work, which I see as a series of choices. With the skelebuddies, they've almost become their own personalities that I was there to cultivate. Sometimes, they'll have little things to say alongside them - usually a thing I choose afterwards. I'll ask - what is it that they need to say? - Or, - what is it that someone needs to hear from him?

Tell us a little about your process.

 I start my works with vine charcoal quite loosely and then use the colors to create the forms and legibility of the piece. Because I work ambidextrously, this approach allows me to explore my piece fairly quickly. While I work towards completing the translation from reference to paper, I'm balancing sharing what I see and the How of seeing it. Usually, there's a sort of wiggly capitalisation that happens with a bold line towards the end of the process that can bring me back to myself (instead of feeling compelled to be photorealistic in my rendering) and with that act of ownership I kind of know that all I need to do next is level it all out. 

How do you overcome the blank page?

This is a question that often plagues the homies so I'll answer it as though I'm talking to them - and I know perhaps this isn't the answer people want but - find what you love about life and work and do that. Find other hobbies that bring you peace and recharge you, so that you're not pinning everything on this next piece. You are not your work, and you do not have to ONLY create masterpieces. Allow yourself the grace to throw away a work that isn't working, and allow yourself the peace of mind to know that you can always recreate the masterpiece you just did.

Personally, I used to really be sunk by the pressure of the blank page and it wasn't until I started working as often as I could without waiting for motivation and inspiration that things really started to click. I think there is a bit of a misconception about artists that everything comes from a twinkling aura of grand creativity and that everything flows - but thats not the case. It's work, and the more you work the better you know your work. It's the whole thing with talent vs skill. Sure, people can be talented, but most artists I know have worked incredibly hard to cultivate what talent they have to become deftly skilled. This skill mindset vs talent mindset gives you more responsibility and ownership over your work - it's not chance that creates a great artwork, it's dedication and listening and practice and follow through and maybe a little bit of luck. So frankly, I haven't worried about the blank page in years. 

How do you know a work is complete?

Most of my artist life I share on social media, so I know a work is complete when I go to share it on instagram and I'm not distracted  by anything. If the photograph I'm about to share is how I see both the reference and the translation I've done, then I don't touch it anymore. It's a neat trick. And, I know when to photograph a work when I feel like I've shown everything I could about how I see and how I feel about the thing I'm working from.

What inspires you? 

Being alive and being glad about it and feeling a closeness to other artists throughout history by continuously reading about them.

How can people find more of your work?

Instagram and my website! While I try to keep my website up to date, on instagram I'm sharing behind the scenes about works in progress, often filming it as well, and people can claim stuff before it's listed by DM. I am incredibly open about my work on there, and I've met (digitally) some of my closest friends on instagram through my work too so - artists if you're not on there you're missing out! You can find me at my name - kirarudjen.com and instagram.com/kirarudjen

If someone is interested in purchasing your work, how should they contact you?

They can email me at kirarudjen@gmail.com  

You have a reception coming up! Please share the details of your party!

Yes! My party and studio pop up is happening at Switch Wicked - they're the coolest. It's on May 17th from 6 - 8 and it's a bit of a goodbye party as well. I'll be bringing all the skelebuddy works I've got and sharing a bit about why I do them, but I'll also be giving a little talk about the Meditations on Landscapes show I've got in the Underground right now. It's a collection of some of the best places I've ever been to. I'd love to see all the arts community before we move back East, so please do come connect and say hey! (Light refreshments will be provided).

If you could own any piece of art in the world, which would you choose?

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni. It's a sculpture that makes me cry every time I see it - rendering the way air moves around a figure in motion versus creating a figure itself? Amazing. Special shout out to my favorite painting of all time, The Raft of the Medusa by Theodor Gericault- too big to own, but truly an exceptional record of human stories.