INSPIRATION
The line between play and work is somewhat blurry for Kim Odine Van Stygeren.
As an artist, designer, musician, photographer and master craftsman, her currency, she says, is ideas and creation of all things "beautiful, whimsical and paradoxically profound."
As a portrait artist, Kim has an impressive list of subjects such as Mike Myers and Moses Znaimer. A show of Kim's artwork was held by Bravo in 2000 and was featured by Star and Citytv. This fall she will be among several artists featured on Bravo Canada's Star Portraits. This 13-part series introduces Canadians to working artists and pairs them with wellknown Canadian personalities as their subject. In her episode, which airs November 14, Kim and two other artists meet astronaut Dr. Roberta Bondar, and after only hours of getting to know their subject they each create their own masterpiece. Each celebrity chooses only one portrait to add to his/her personal collection, and of the remaining portraits six will go to the Portrait Gallery of Canada and the others to charity auction.
As a decorative artist, Kim is commissioned for gilding and painting for billionaires and high-end department stores. She recently spent over a year in Colorado with a crew of four artists painting and gilding the ceiling of a replicated 18th century castle. She is off to Barcelona this fall for similar work.
For the past 15 years Kim has been rooted to her one-acre farm in the Louth area of St. Catharines, playing and working inside her studio— dubbed One Acre Studios—a large, airy 150-year-old Mennonite barn. Her latest venture has turned her studio into a collective for germinating artistic ideas. "We call it the Brain Farm—with different fields of artistic vision: art, photography, design, music, theatre, novels and video. I have my gooey hand in all of the pies save the writing of any novels. We are collectively churning out lots of ideas and products."
The Design Plant is creating a line of high-end re-purposed fur chandeliers and furnishings, which will be available in spring 2010. Photography 20/200's recent projects included Art City in St. Catharines, where strangers came into Mad Cap Hats and had blurry portraits taken in a handmade hat. The results are to be made into a new book. In the Writer's Plot, the Farm is designing and marketing the book The Last Bohemia, which will be published in small quantities with a GPS device placed in the cover, and an online presence where readers can interact with the book and follow its journey. 
As for trends in the Niagara design/art scene, Kim is excited about the entire region. "As a Toronto transplant, I see all the potential we have here. The arts are finally intersecting. Between the culinary and viticulture, the theatre, the design, the music and this upcoming downtown arts building, I am thrilled to be a part of the growing new environment," she continues. "I'm hoping that one day, when I am old and wise, I will be able to help manipulate the new young minds of the region, so that they see the world as I do—blurry, furry, and lighthearted." THE INTERVIEW :
Niagara Magazine's Interiors: How would you describe your sense of style?
Kim Odine Van Stygeren: Fun. Whimsical. Elegant.
NMI: Are you a collector of anything?
KVS: Local wine. I am so excited to be living on the wine route. Although I am saddened to hear that the Frank Gehry winery for Le Clos Jordanne doesn't seem to be happening anymore. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
NMI: What's your favourite colour scheme?
KVS: It changes with the seasons like handbags. I like to play with neutrals and toss in elements of colour and texture.
NMI: What country or culture do you find inspiring?
KVS: I followed a dream and moved to Paris to study art the week after high school. The architecture, fashion, design worlds are a part of everyone's breakfast there. They dip it in their café au lait, and mop up their plates with it.
NMI: What does this quote mean to you: "Beauty is truth; truth is beauty?"
KVS: There is an arrangement, albeit different for each person, where elements line up and create a calm, happy state. Truth and beauty are essentially the same for me.
NMI: Describe what makes you feel fulfilled.
KVS: Good food, wine, friends, and love. Collaboration with people who share the same visions, where our sentences need not be finished. Singing till my insides ooze out. Laughing so hard that I cry. When my portrait subjects see their pieces for the first time, and they cry.
NMI: What one item couldn't you live without in your personal space? 
KVS: My spotted dog, Bix. He's a soft happy blob of love. With a heart shaped spot on his back.
NMI: What would you name your autobiography?
KVS: Perhaps the same as the title on my last CD—5¢ A Ride. The Last Bohemia is already taken.
NMI: What traits do you admire the most in others?
KVS: Humour. Intelligence. Passion.
NMI: If you were a superhero, what would your super powers be?
KVS: I'd be able to make everyone feel happy and free like a 10 year old in a playground on their birthday in a cool new outfit. With good hair.
NMI: What's the best gift you've received?
KVS: I do like taxidermized creatures. I received a punk rock squirrel— pierced nose, ears and mohawk—for my birthday that just thrills me.
NMI: What is your most treasured possession?
KVS: Fresh flowers. Always.
NMI: What song would you like playing when you walk into a room?
KVS: Here Comes the Bride.
NMI: What was the toughest point in your career as an artist?
KVS: Years ago, choosing to leave my ego behind as the owner of a company and discover who I was as a painter. It's not easy for adults to let themselves be bad at something new once they are accomplished at something else.
NMI: Do you have any "studio rituals"? What helps to get you in the mood for working?
KVS: I try to meditate before a painting. Clear the brain out. Sometimes I will play my old piano and sing. Actually getting my butt in the studio is the first ritual.
NMI: If you could get just one message out to a large group of people, it would be…
KVS: Enjoy life. Have fun. It goes so fast. But that's three. Hey, I can count.
NMI: How has society influenced your creativity?
KVS: I consider it my job to show the world that society's rules are just guidelines, a framework to build one's life and designs around. Or in my case perhaps, to joyfully poke fun at.
NMI: Do you remember the first thing you ever painted?
KVS: I painted lots of crap for school. I remember finally throwing out all the old nude figure drawings and paintings from my school days— stuff I originally didn't want to get rid of, till I realized it was caca—and I put it on the bonfire pit out back. Well, didn't the wind just pick it up and spread it all over the orchard for the Mexican pickers to enjoy.
NMI: You alternate your role as designer, artist, musician, photographer, and craftsman. Is there a distinct line between them?
KVS: Creativity is a universal. There is a wonderful moment whether designing a coffee table, a room, creating a song, or a portrait that is always constant—when the process goes well there are always 12 white doves that fly in V-formation above my head singing "Hallelujah". Or so it feels.
NMI: Would you rather design or actually produce with your hands? Why?
KVS: Tough one. They are equally exciting. One occupies the brain creatively, the other uses cell memory and dexterity and creative errors to produce an end product. I ran a decorative art company for years, which turned into very little design and lots of management, so I killed that off.
NMI: Describe what you like most about your studio…
KVS: Ah yes, the Brain Farm's "world headquarters." We have the ability to play in it, creatively, freely, like I did as a child with my best friend in my basement. We have tools, paints, fabrics, places to draw, build, play music, and lots of space. We own only one acre, but the studio sits freely in the centre of hundreds of acres of orchards. Also, I love the energy that is present from the Mennonites who built this huge barn a century and a half ago. It is completely hand hewn, peg and dowel. Knowing that the entire community of Louth and St. Catharines played a part raising it reminds me of its earlier importance. OK, and the view over the orchards doesn't suck.
NMI: Could you share some of your philosophy about art and artistic creation…
KVS: Muck around. Have fun. Throw out everything you do at first. Ruthlessly. Don't expect it to be any good. Good doesn't matter. It's all about the process. Through the process one discovers so much more about themselves and the medium that one is working in. Listen to how your body feels as you go—if you feel good then you are doing something right. If it feels like your mother-in-law is serving you up another piece of witchypoo pie then it's probably best to try something else. And keep at it. Repetition, repetition, repetition creates ease. With ease comes the ability to listen without judgment.
NMI: What turns you on creatively?
KVS: Brain Farm in all of its divisions. The Design Plant is creating a line of high-end re-purposed fur chandeliers, which will be available in spring 2010. We're also gathering old wood and metal from wreckers' old industrial materials. This week we're checking out an old theatre that's being torn down. I love creatively re-purposing old materials into new imaginative beautiful objects. Also as structural elements for interior design. Music Fields is recording and designing videos, which marries the music and the visual. And Photography 20/200 has taken off—we recently launched a book of photography Improper Vision 20 / 200, beautiful blurry portraits that replicate the blurry legally blind view that I have without my glasses. www.kvsm.com NMI
