Student Profile: Leigh Kaulbach, Printmaking
Hometown:
Sandown, New Hampshire
What degree are you pursuing at KU?
Master of Fine Art in Visual Art, Printmaking
Where did you complete your undergraduate degree? What was your major?
Stanford University, BA in Religious Studies
What brought you to KU?
I wanted to work with the amazing printmaking faculty at KU.
When did you know you wanted to pursue art?
In middle school, I loved collage. I became serious in high school and decided to pursue a degree studying religious art. Before my senior year, I took a year off to work in a Boston art gallery and a youth music organization, and to make art. That’s when I found a creative community and could imagine a life as an artist.
What drew you to zines/printmaking?
In undergrad I took printmaking because the time commitment and physical labor appealed to me as a high energy person, and because it seemed to weed out students looking for an “easy fun class.” In a Book Arts course, one of the TA’s brought in a simple, photocopied zine, and I found it to be such a profound idea and direct way of working. Another professor encouraged me to pursue zines as a form of non-institutional, feminist street art and, feeling I needed an outlet from academic pressure, I started collecting and making zines anonymously under the name “LoKK.”
How do the arts have an impact on your daily life outside of the classroom?
Art makes me more sensitive and empathetic to the world, from subtle sounds to complex socio-political questions. I think because of drawing my relationship to “truth” is both highly subjective and fundamental. Talking about art is another way of talking about the most personal, meaningful and intangible issues each of us experience on small and large scales. I think I’ve become more interested in questions than in answers. I also love teaching art.
Who is your biggest inspiration either personally, professionally or both?
My childhood violin teacher is my biggest inspiration. Her commitment to music, performance, training, aesthetics and joy is infused in all of her choices and interactions. She’s both totally open and completely certain at the same time. She’s a magnetic personality, but highly sensitive.
What is your creative process like?
Creatively, I think I’m moved to make art out of a desire to participate. I like to work in community and think a lot about my peers. Reading novels and feeling connected to authors through their word choice motivates me to seek that same connection as a producer. I like to draw uninhibited in my sketchbook and then go back through to pick out what worked well.
What message do you hope to communicate through your work?
I don’t think I have a message in mind, except maybe to connect with someone through the work so that the viewer understands themselves a little more through their relationship to it.
What advice would you give to students just starting their path to an arts degree?
Be open to challenge, change, and discomfort. You can only improve by trying new things and breaking outside of your comfort zone. Every new skill, technique, perspective you can gain adds to your toolbox and ability to understand other artist’s work, and so the world.
If you could invite five people, living or deceased, to a dinner party, who would you invite?
All four of my grandparents and my sister.
If your life had a theme song, what would it be and why?
I hum and whistle constantly, so I don’t think I need one!
See more of Leigh's work on her website (leighkaulbach.com) and her Instagram (@leighkaulbach).