About me
Aloha! My name is Kelly!
I am a Native Hawaiian/Okinawan transplant from Hawai’i. I discovered art as a need to find healing during times of great loss in my life.
In my art I feature women and girls at various stages of their lives to celebrate their complexities of emotion, their deep capacities to love and forgive, and most importantly their abilities to persevere through a world that continues to give them messages that they are not enough.
As a Native woman, I do my best to tell stories through my illustrated characters’ eyes, the same way we would share our history stories through our chanting, our passionate expressions, and our hand movements in hula.
My advice for viewing and connecting with my art is to stare into her eyes long enough until you can see her story unfold.
In addition to being an artist, I am also a guide for processing grief during transitions and for understanding your position in antiracist work in the world.
I am a grief art facilitator. I believe in the power of grief and loss and that there is something healing and magical about it, if you let yourself learn those lessons. I find art to be the perfect medium to explore the process and emotions around grief. The grief rituals that I facilitate are deeply connected to my art practice and these have become a bigger part of what I do.
I am a social justice facilitator. I earned a Masters degree in Education, Leadership and Policy with a concentration in Teaching Adult Leaders and Social Justice Pedagogy. I host workshops to facilitate a better understanding of the systems of oppression and to examine/implement action steps to dismantle racism internally and throughout the communities we live in. My passion for doing this work is driven by my professional research and personal lived experiences as a Native/Asian women living far from my homeland.
I’ve been exhibiting my art locally in the Portland and Hillsboro region since moving here in 2014. As a volunteer with the art literacy program at Jackson Elementary School, I’ve facilitated art for youth in my children’s school.
Always feel free to send me an email at insprink at gmail dot com if you want to chat about something you read or share ideas. I’m also open to collaborations and trades. I love supporting other small businesses and artists.
Mahalo Nui Loa for sticking around and getting to know me better.