About the Art
It all starts with synthetic fur, scissors, and a little bit of *magic*.
There is something truly special about a bear… whether it’s a childhood teddy bear, or a collector’s artist bear. They have soul. They hold something inside, like a little pocket of love, memories, and fanciful imagination.
I am a self-taught mixed media artist ranging from pencil drawing to sculpture… but my main passion is the bears. Each bear I create is hand crafted from my own pattern. They are combination machine and hand-sewn, weighted, armatured, and jointed for posing. Their faces are thread (soft) sculpted, scissor sculpted, and shaded to create their unique and whimsical expressions, and they have handmade premium glass eyes that I’ve also painted, unique to each bear. Each nose is also sculpted by me, secured onto their face, and glossed in just the right places. Their little cub toes and paw pads are also thread sculpted and shaded. Scissor sculpting is the most time consuming and meticulous part of making my bears. It takes many hours, sometimes only trimming a millimeter of fur off at a time, in the tiniest of places. The process of creating each bear takes days from start to finish. I hope that my attention to detail shines in my bears!
I’ve always felt that my bears also create themselves. Sure, I’m holding the needle and pulling the thread, but as I’m stitching each bear develops his or her own personality, and ‘heart’. Each one is special and different, and it’s something that happens on its own, no matter how I intend to sculpt them out. I let whatever intuition comes guide my needle and scissors. The process of creating a ‘Bear’ Bottoms Original bear isn’t simply sewing pieces of fabric together and filling them with stuffing… it’s going into another world where innocent childhood emotions, whimsy, and magic come to life. I suppose the bears kind of take ME on a journey of bringing them to life… maybe it sounds silly, but the bears look back at me as I’m creating them, and I can feel their magic. I hope you can, too!
Thank you for taking a moment to learn about the bears, and how each is brought to ‘life’!
~Kimberly MK
Behind the Art
Art has been a part of my life since early childhood. My passion began with pencil drawing, which got me into plenty of trouble in school. I spent a lot of time distracted, daydreaming, and ‘doodling’… much to my teachers’ displeasure. As I grew, I dabbled in many art forms, and am thankful to my High School Art teacher for giving me the freedom to explore whatever mediums my heart desired. I truly believe that he was instrumental in opening my creative mind. After high school, and through my adult years, I’ve dabbled a bit in many mediums – from Mural work to clay sculpture, from wood and resin to jewelry. from stone fabrication to… soft sculpture!