Early Years: California & Midwest

Kelly was born in a cool, beachy California surf-town in 1974. Her parents were stylish Minnesota natives — he the quarterback on the football team, she the prom queen. Kelly has vivid memories of the faded pastel colors of her beach towel and surroundings (in the most classic, best-of-the-70’s way).

Infused with the Pacific breeze and Paul-Bunyan trees, her family moved back to the Midwest when she was four. Her nickname was “Dirty Kelly,” because she always spilled on her shirt. Summers meant waterskiing on the town lake in a yellow pastel ski boat; winters, downhill skiing as much as possible. The town had 1,300 people, and not many more today. It was an innocent childhood — but/and, she felt the need to explore.

Adventures Abroad

At 18, she moved to Sweden’s forests to attend an international school, then worked at a youth hostel in Amsterdam. Travel became a no-brainer. After inter-railing through Europe at 19, she attempted to “do the same” in her Dodge Omni in the States. Adventure was her middle name.

SF Bay Area Beginnings

She earned her degree in Interior Architecture from the University of Oregon and moved full-circle back to California, this time to the San Francisco Bay Area. The same month she quit her architecture job to sell apples for a local orchard, she met her South African husband. Sign-making at the apple stand drew the attention of a blue-chip gallery owner, and soon she was selling her art alongside the beloved apple gig.

Her company Messy Monkey Arts emerged in these years — an attempt to get people to think outside the box and back into their creativity. Participants painted with brooms, turkey basters, and other unconventional tools, often on rooftops, beaches, or surprise locations. This led to art fundraisers, and eventually to Party in a Box kits for at-home celebrations.

Big-Scale Work: Cape Town

But she wanted to go bigger — much bigger. In Cape Town, she launched PLAY JUMP EAT, inviting people to bounce on a bed she hauled all over the city. Archbishop Desmond Tutu jumped in his boardroom, surfers at the beach, maids at a hotel, fishermen at the harbor. She wrapped oak trees in fabric (Oak Couture), and models in sheep’s wool (Sheep Couture).

Life as Art

Her next deep-dive was curating her children’s childhoods. Everything for Kelly involves color, texture, taste, smell, and experience. She’s obsessed with movement, almost minored in dance, and has continued to explore dance and movement extensively.

All of it — the travel, the motherhood, the painting, the movement, the installations — is about bringing people back into their bodies through a multitude of mediums — play, color, sensory immersion, words, bones, and gravity!

All of this helps us remember the flavor, the saltiness, the smells — remembering we’re alive, we have a pulse.

Renhabiting our own skin again — fully, messily, beautifully.

Kelly paints with zero questions — the paint flies as she closes her eyes. All of her life experiences have woven into a deeper knowing of her language. All the mediums express the same remembering and suggest the same dares.