At the crossroads of artistic mediums

Harlan resident, artist, and art teacher Kimberly Piro creates art from varying avenues, like metal embossing and painting, each riddled with inspiration from the natural world and more recently, a fantasy world

    HARLAN -- Multi-colored animal skulls hung on the wall of Kimberly Piro’s art studio while she explained her love for creating what she describes as ‘weird art.’ The remnants of a pale winter sun shone through the dimly lit studio, producing a natural light pleasant to any eye, even through a Zoom call.
    The former graphic designer-turned multi-disciplinary artist and teacher teaches grades K-2 and 6-12 at Riverside Community Schools in Oakland, where she implores her students to create art that is different.
    “I tell my students that all the time, like ‘go as weird as you can, because that’s what’s going to get attention and that’s what’s going to be unique, and that’s what gets your name in papers,” Piro said with a laugh.
    The Harlan resident began practicing her mantra after someone donated the skull of a cow that had died on their land. The artist took the skull to a variance of places — like the school to be utilized as a drawing subject — until she determined to paint the object turquoise. Hailing from Southern Colorado, Piro said she became inspired by the Native American art surrounding her and adorned the cow skull with Native American-inspired designs and feathers.
    But the project did not come without its challenges. Painting on bone is interesting, Piro mused, because of its peculiar surface texture and odd shape. Nevertheless, she continued her work, and people in the area started donating skulls to the artist; igniting a circle of life where an animal meets their true end as artwork.
    “So that was kind of my first experiment in the ‘weird’ side of art,” she explained. “And I still do them but they’re hard to bring to shows because they’re fragile, they’re big, they’re awkward.”
    Another main ingredient in Piro’s artistic repertoire is metal embossing, where she draws almost three-dimensionally and presses abstract designs into the metal, causing it to elevate on the other side.
    Piro’s abstract design inspirations are derived from the natural world. An abundance of her pieces look like cells or seashells, though she finds a particular likeness in creating animal-inspired metalwork. But she suspects there’s an overt reason why.
    “That’s probably because I have a daughter and I teach, so a lot of my stuff tends to lean that way unintentionally,” she said.
    Delving into a world contrary to natural and realistic, Piro has recently embarked on a journey of fantasy-inspired art. While the artist said she is unsure what led her to construct this new art series, she knows it will — and some of it already does — consist of dragon metal pieces and dragon eggs.
    The dragon eggs are complete with glitter, colored scales and a bulging dragon eye from the crack inside the egg, giving the impression that the magical creature is near its entrance into the world. In a more recent endeavor, Piro has started to mold clay dragon claws, which she said she hopes to give the appearance of emergence from the eggs.
    The process of making the eggs is similar to any quest: it may take a while to complete and the task could reign cumbersome. Piro starts with a foam egg that she purchased online and carves out the middle to give a sense that a dragon is hatching.
    Then, she presses hundreds of thumbtacks onto cardboard, spray paints them, pours glitter or sand on them to add texture, dips each tack into tacky glue, and finally inserts them in a spiral pattern that covers the entirety of the egg.
    “I’m not the first person that’s come up with this idea,” Piro said. “If you search Etsy, you’ll find a lot of different versions of it — I just thought it would be a fun experiment to kind of put my own twist on it.”
    Exploring disparate artistic avenues is Piro’s favorite part of practicing art. Whether it’s researching for her art lessons or trying something different, there’s no ceiling to reach, she said. The artist illustrated her first children’s book this last year, “Beaver’s Dam Friends” which was penned by Cami Larison.
    In the school context, Piro said that if she finds a new form of art she’s never practiced before, she’ll introduce it to her students, and they learn together.
    “And that’s what’s so cool about art is, it’s a never-ending loop of newness,” she said. “...It’s always new, I’m always finding something new to do.”

 

 
 

 

Harlan Newspapers

1114 7th Street
P.O. Box 721
Harlan, IA 51537-0721

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