Kate Renee

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I have been working alongside Check Advantage and creating products with my artwork and designs on them. In addition to checks and checkbook covers, my artwork is on address labels.

When you order a series of address labels there are four different images. Above is the Adorable Animals Series. This group of images are my most popular works of art. What better than to have all four!

These are the four images that are for the Troll Series address labels. What is super cute about these trolls is that they all have individual wacky hair styles. While there are only four trolls here, I have over twenty small paintings of trolls.

Four of my princesses from the Beauties Behaving Badly series has been turned into checks and address labels.

Last but not least, the Frozen Treats Series! These address labels have a variety of popsicles, freezies dreamsicles and other frozen goodies.

Click here to make your way to the Check Advantage website and get your own set of Kate Renee address labels. 

This is part of a series of interview-based articles that highlight the mentors and protégés in the 2013-2014 Mentor Program cycle of WARM (Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota). These women artists are working together for two years to help build relationships, foster creativity and support each others professional careers. Kate Renee is interviewing each member in the program and sharing some of their art, projects, goals and involvement in the WARM program.

 Storm Series: Threshold

Kate: Can you tell me who you are and what do you do?

Linda: Linda Ricklefs Baudry, I am a pastel artist working primarily in abstract landscapes. I have two quite different series I’m working on at the moment. One is vivid color with defined mark making, the other is more mystical, with multiple soft layers.

Kate: Who is your mentor? 

Linda: I am the protégé of Marcie Soderman-Olson

Kate: How did you get involved with WARM and what made you want to join a mentor-based arts program?

After years of finding all kinds of reasons for why I didn’t have time to do my art, I realized that I truly needed to express my art to be whole. I found out about WARM from a former protégé, just as I was looking for a way to get involved in the Twin Cities art community. I joined as a member last summer, participated in the WARM Pop-Up Gallery in Saint Paul, and applied for the mentorship program.

Kate: During the program cycle, the proteges are asked to make goals and create a work plan, what are some of your goals that you have this year?

Linda: I made a commitment to myself that I will devote serious time to my art…finally. I am looking to establish a creative community to have going forward that is supportive, encouraging and challenging, and I believe I have found the start of that with WARM.

Kate: Can you share with us some of your pastel work?

Linda: White Bear Spring was the piece chosen to be part of the warm 40th anniversary exhibition.

 White Bear Spring

Kate: The WARM program keeps us busy, You and I just saw each other at the Clay Play event this past month, but we have had orientation, a potluck, book club and a simple salon. What are some of your most favorite events you have participated in with WARM and why did you like it?

Linda: I feel like I have been late out of the gate with participating as I was sick for a good month, but everything that I have since attended has been so wonderful and engaging. Most recently was the Clay Play date where I was fully immersed in the awe and wonder of being a kid working with clay and color. I am looking forward to many more such events!

Kate: I remember at the beginning of the program, the process seemed a bit daunting to get a mentor. You and I met at the program overview at the NE Library. There were also two meetings where the mentors introduced themselves and talked about their mentoring process. While it was a lot of work to get into the program, its been a great pay off for me. Can you give some insight into how the process was for you?

Linda: Throughout the introductions and interview process, everyone kept repeating over and over again, ‘Trust the process.’ And it turned out to be so true. I interviewed three potential mentors, and felt that I could learn so much from any one of them. And then I interviewed one more. Then I heard from the advisory group that they were having trouble defining a clear match for me and three separate people suggested that I interview Marcie. When I finally did, we both knew within ten minutes that we wanted to work together. Yes, trust the process!

Kate: That’s great! I had a similar experience where I also interviewed additional mentors too. Anyho, what is one artistic change you are implementing during the program?

Linda: I am creating once again, and am finding my voice!

Kate: Although we are still in the first quarter of the program, I’m sure you have had many ah-ha moments, changes and realizations already. Can you talk about some of the things you have realized during the beginning stages of the program?

Linda: I came to the program thinking that what I needed to learn the most was the business side of art…how to price, market, establish a presence.  Little did I know that what I really needed was someone like Marcie who could help me increase my artistic vocabulary and find words to go with what I am expressing visually, as well as someone who could delve into the issues specifically related to two-dimensional art.

 Waiting for Details 2 

Kate: What is one personal or artistic change your dealing with at the moment?

Linda: Dealing with the changes in my personal life, I am finding how healing it is to be doing art and to be in this program.  This is true inspiration, appreciation and celebration of female friendship.

Kate: If someone was interested in contacting you or finding more information about your work, where can we find you?

Linda: You can find me at: www.mnartists.org/linda_ricklefs_baudry and lrbaud@gmail.org. I will be part of a two-person show at Unity Church-Unitarian for the month of June, and I am so excited to say that I will have a solo show in August at the River Junctions Arts Council gallery in Wabasha!

Kate: Congratulations on your solo show; that’s fantastic! Thanks for talking with me Linda, I know we will see each other at many more WARM events in the near future! 

The St Paul Art Crawl was this past weekend in Lowertown. I exhibited alongside Marnie Erpestad, Julia Helen Rice, Mark Elton, Kristy Childress and Mary Foote. This is our first exhibition together but we had previously worked together in 2012. In the past year, I taught these artists through the Solo Exhibitions Program at Altered Esthetics. After they had completed their program year, the artists were interested in exhibiting again and decided to invite me along too! We met last fall and decided to work together. We needed a venue and a concept, and there birthed the two ideas: anniversaries and Echo Arts.

During the chilly and very long winter, we worked on creating art based on the first anniversary theme: paper. We decided that we could base our group exhibitions on anniversary themes as our work was very different in concept and media. We also decided to try to make each of the pieces as interactive as possible.

I showed three works of art in the Paper (Ex) Change exhibition at Echo Arts. I showed my traveling installation, The Bad Fortune Cookie. I have blogged about this interactive piece numerous times. The basic concept is to provide people with affordable and approachable artwork. People can pay $10 to get a handmade wooden fortune cookie. They pull the artwork right off the wall and peel off the fortune. The reactions to the funny or ‘bad’ fortunes have been fun to watch over the art crawl weekend.

I also had the opportunity to debut my checks and checkbook covers. It was great to show these new pieces and they fit in with the theme because check art is made on paper! I showed check book samples and had each of the leather covers there too.

The third piece was my latest new work. Part of my goals in being in the WARM program was to work on solidifying my goals and working on projects and art that reinforced my creative purpose and direction. I have shared my vision boards in other posts, but I needed to share something a bit more personal. I took every single goal, dream, idea, experience and object I wanted to do, get or accomplish and printed it out on a teeny slip of paper. I then stuck all of these in individual glass corked jars and placed them on shelves.

I also invited the viewers to pick through the bottles and read them. I had people come up and ask to buy my goals! It was shocking at first, thinking that someone else wanted to pay money for my dream but I actually sold a lot of them this weekend!

I also allowed people to write down their own goals on a slip of paper and put it in a small glass jar that they could take home. They also got a free Kate Renee Pen.

 I had so many people participate in this interactive aspect of the piece that I was almost out of small jars to give out!

Here is what was left after the show was up for 24 hours!

Another interactive quality to this project was online! I was live tweeting from the show the entire weekend. Every five minutes I had one of my goals posted on Twitter. Studies have shown that sharing your goals with others helps make them happen.

So I have shared my bottled goals in person and online and helped facilitate others to realize their own goals! I even sold some along the way! Showing with Echo Arts, Jessie and Mary who run the space in the Northwestern Building, are truly great people offering a great opportunity for artists. They were extremely kind and helpful, I was having issues with installing the Message in a Bottle piece and they went out of their way to make the piece come together the way I envisioned it.

I would just like to extend an extra thank you to Echo Arts, Mary and Jessie. I’d like to thank the viewers and art crawl participators for stopping by the opening and the exhibition. I’m so thankful that people sought meaning in my pieces and for interacting with them too. I’d also like to thank the artists whom I exhibited with, thank you for inviting me to continue to work with you all, it has been great to see you all grow over the past year and a half I have been working with you. I enjoyed exhibiting with you and seeing this opportunity come to life!

Interested in more about Echo? Here is a bit more information Echo has provided about themselves: Echo Arts is an artist-run,community based, multipurpose artspace based in Lowertown St. Paul Mn. Our mission is to support all forms of local-art by providing the physical space, support/guidance, networking opportunities, and an open and uninhibited environment for creativity to flourish. If you have need for space for your creative endeavor, please contact us and we will see what can be done to make it happen!

Last weekend was City Page’s Envision Artopia! It was a one evening event with a fashion show, art, booths, food, live painting and auction. I was invited to participate in this event with RAW.

The 5th floor ballroom was complete with a large white catwalk for this spring’s latest fashion. This event is fairly focused on fashion and featured approximately 12 different designers, 3 different accessory designers and 8 artists.

Before the start of the show, I got there extra early to begin set up. I was exhibiting my Beauties Behaving Badly series on my new Pro Panel System which are the black boards the works are hanging on. I exhibited 5 out of the six paintings in the series.

 Here is me, all set up and ready for the event to begin. We had to be ready to go by 7:30 PM because VIP began at eight and general public came in at nine. The show and event was for three hours and featured two fashion shows, photos, food, vender, non-profit, and artists booths, live paintings and more.

I was one of 8 RAW artists invited to participate in the exhibition. We had a special room dedicated to us. I was the first artist in the doorway. I shared the conference room space with five other artists, and a sixth and seventh were doing a live painting in the common hallway during the event.

I debuted by checks and checkbook covers at the event too! Here is my table with my portfolio, free pens, business cards and check samples. You can receive a discount to purchase my checks when you head on over to Check Advantage and enter the promo code save2kr. Valid until April 30th.

Here is a view into our room of artists. We had just finished setting up and were waiting for out guests to show up. Below shows fellow artists booths who exhibited alongside of me.

I had such a great time at Envision Artopia! It was a great experience and I was glad to share my art with everyone who attended. Thank you to RAW for inviting me to participate in the event and thank you to those who attended and who stopped by to look at my work.

This is the second in a series of interview-based articles that highlight the mentors and protégés in the 2013-2014 Mentor Program cycle of WARM (Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota). These women artists are working together for two years to help build relationships, foster creativity and support each others professional careers. Kate Renee is interviewing each member in the program and sharing some of their art, projects, goals and involvement in the WARM program.