Nora Vasconcellos In Conversation With Chelsea Kinch
Images by Myles Laurion
Intro by Sam Hetherington, Interview by Nora Vasconcellos
Chelsea Kinch is an abstract painter based in Maui, Hawaii.
She grew up on Rhode Island, taking a liking to oil paints when she was ten years old, and hasn’t looked back. Her work is a representation of Island life, rich with colour, nature and the ocean. She’s also Nora’s pick of artists to feature in this issue so we decided to hand Nora the voice recorder and do the talking while we headed to the pub.
Hi Nora, sorry I’ve just gotta get my cat.
Hi, that’s okay.
We called our cat the government when we were younger, that just reminded me.
That’s the best cat name ever.
Yeah we’d come home from school and be like, ‘the government bit me! Where’s the government, he hasn’t been home for two days? We’re worried.’
Okay ready. Miss Chelsea Kinch. We’re here. What’s your middle name, why do I not know that?
I don’t have one.
Oh, ha. Hi Chelsea. Please start off by telling me your sun, moon, and rising.
I am a Pisces, Aries cusp. Moon is Capricorn. We have the same moon.
Fuck yeah. I'm not going to pretend to know much about that other than I know a bit about your sun, but you were born on the first day of the Zodiac, so that's powerful. How do you feel that you embody your Pisces, Aries cusp?
Like a rollercoaster. It’s the beginning and the end. I’m the full spectrum of everything.
Now that I know you well, you're definitely the scale because I remember when I met you, we were having a little show in Haiku and I remember being like, ‘she looks really intense, but she looks cool as shit. But I'm scared of her.’ But then you were funny and had this great personality. I didn't know you at all and so I was just kind of intimidated.
That's so crazy to hear the first impression.
Dude, you were wearing this sick green blazer and these striped pants. I just remember being like, ‘no one in Maui really has good style, and then I met you and was like, ‘oh, fuck yeah. This girl dresses well and paints well.’
That's so funny.
Maui life was very different. So you grew up in Rhode Island and you've been on Maui for most of the last decade. You also have some roots in Block Island, which is a tiny island off Rhode Island. How would you say that coastal living flows through you? Would you say it's a big part of your art?
Yeah. I’ve spent half my life on the Island now and I don’t think I could operate any other way. I hate being on the mainland. I love Island life so much. The community. I love that on Maui we can grow our own food. It has totally become who I am. I think the ocean plays such an important part in my work. I’m so inspired by it.
Well the first art I ever saw of yours is from the night I met you. You had two or three big paintings up. The big epic waves. Your art has so much movement in it which is reflective of you as a person.
Yeah. And I think that kind of ties back into the cusp thing. I can be super outgoing and then I can not see or talk to a person for like a month and be totally fine with that. I'm very good at going inward and outward. I guess you make a really good point because there's so much movement in my work and I think watching the ocean constantly helps, which is funny because we know that I'm not a big surfer. I longboard, but I'm not like a ripper or whatever. I feel like it's such a meditative thing for me to watch the ocean that I spend so much time looking at it. When I first moved to Maui, within like three weeks of being here, somebody that I met found out that I was a painter and they got this huge easel and canvas for me. That’s when I just started painting waves. Each kind was dedicated to a certain person in my life that had passed away. I noticed this similarity between the way waves reverberate and people reverberate through your life.
You say you're not a big surfer or anything, but you're like the only person I know who prioritizes being in the water and being outside in the way that you prioritize it. It’s always the first thing you do with your day. When was the first time you sought art and felt compelled to paint?
The first time, I honestly was wowed by something. It was not painting. It was the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Holy shit. That blew me away. She's coming down Fifth Avenue with a croissant in the most amazing dress you've ever seen in your life. And I remember being fourteen and being like, ‘what the fuck?’ That dress totally did something to me. I was just absolutely mesmerized by her. And the shot is so beautiful. Everything about it is so romantic. She's been out all night. And I think her character really inspired me.
Yeah. It makes sense, though. You also spent time in New York City, and I think that you're really compelled by women specifically and their unique journeys into just womanhood and owning themselves. Breakfast at Tiffany's does a good job with it, that storyline of female empowerment. And then when did you start painting?
I grew up in a family of artists where I was taken from museum to museum. I did some art classes but it was kind of on my own.
When did you discover oils and find that was going to be your kind of favourite medium to use?
My art teacher in the fourth grade sent me home with a note that said, ‘Give this to your mom.’ It said ‘Does she want to do art lessons?’ My mom looked at me and she was like, ‘Do you want to do this? Your art teacher says you're okay.’ And I just thought, sure. So I started doing classes after school every Friday with a group of eight kids. Just learning pencil sketching. And I was into it, but also really bored. And the next year, the teacher introduced oils. I remember the smell. I remember the turpentine and the way my brush would dip into the texture of an oil and mush. It lit up. I was like, ‘what the fuck is this? Oh, my goodness.’ And then just working with it on the canvas, I instantly realized that it was so much more fun for me than pencil. I never, ever drew again after that. It just made so much sense to me. So yeah, ten years old, and still to this day, anytime I try to paint with acrylic or something, I'm like, ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ And I put it away, and then the oil comes and it's like I know how to explain the feeling. It's like being away from someone you love and then having an embrace, which sounds so dramatic, but that's what it feels like.
That sounds great. I love that.
Every time I smell oil, it's the same thing. Especially if it's been a while, I get so excited.
I love that. Let's see. I want to talk about Italy as well, because I know you went to Italy this fall. It was your first time across the pond.
Yes.
Yeah, I just remember you talking to me a little bit about it because you were like, ‘do I go? Do I do this?’ And I was like, ‘yeah, duh’. But can you tell me what it was, what maybe you learned about your art, and the direction you want to take with it from that trip?
Yeah, so I was in Venice for most of August and a bit of September I was studying with this program through the institution called the European Cultural Academy. It was like a contemporary art course where we focused on how to develop your framework from start to finish. It's kind of focused on big projects and installations, which was really cool. You had the freedom to kind of interpret that any way you wanted to. It’s like the X Games of the art world in a way. There are trophies. Someone wins - that kind of thing. It’s fucking dope, and it's, like, the biggest honour, whatever. It was so inspiring. There are no limits. I think the biggest takeaway I had was seeing these really big works and just knowing I had to paint bigger. I have to go bigger. The art is just next level. It's so wild what's happening over there all the time.
I just think it's crazy to be put in cultures like that. I think as an artist, going back and seeing structurally the architecture, the way food is made, it's not consumer driven. It's driven by art. Like, you see the way that it's intertwined, and you can kind of feel it. The quality of things is so different. Everyone has a base level of knowledge about art, so there's always a conversation about it. That was lovely.
You’re like ‘I'm with my people.’
With my people. Yeah. And the cool thing about 90% of the artists were either women or gender nonconforming.
That's so great.
It was really cool to learn about many female artists that I had no clue about who. I now adore their work so much and look at it all the time for inspiration and read about them. So that was really dope, too.
I love that. Hell yeah. I got to go to Italy. We'll go together.
Let's go together.
Let's go. Okay. If you had an unlimited amount of money and resources and time, what would your dream project look like? You could work with whoever you wanted. You could work wherever you wanted, and we would give you all the oil paint you can imagine.
I'm not sure. Micheline Thomas just did a set design for one of Dior's shows, which was really cool, where they took her collage paintings and made them into tapestries and hung them all around. And she embellishes a lot of her work. So they did that. I like being involved in something so large-scale because I think when those two collide - it's really interesting. I’ve also thought about doing a set design for a ballet. I think that would be so cool. I think if I had unlimited resources it would involve some kind of outdoor situation involving art and dance and things.
That'd be so cool. I want Chelsea Kinch wallpaper in my house one day.
Girl, I pretty much mailed you some and you still haven't hung it up.
It's getting stretched right now.
It's getting stretched?
Yeah. I took it two weeks ago. I know.
Oh, my goodness.
I think I'm putting it over my bed. I want it to be the first thing I see.
That's incredible. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I can't wait to see it.
Should be done any day. Let's see. What have you been painting to music-wise? Give me three albums.
Putting a full album on to get creative and paint is just so nice because I like getting lost in it and having the structure and then having to not be queuing stuff. Or sometimes I'll put the songs on shuffle. But album wise, any freaking Ethiopian jazz album, any single one.
I love that.
Actual Life has been on since it came out, whatever the hell that was. In the summer. Maybe you're like September. And then I've also been on Yo La Tengo kick and then Renaissance. Yeah, it's a good go to get you in the mood.
Yo La Tengo?
Yeah.
So we have Ethiopian jazz. We have Yo La Tengo, Renaissance. Of course. The Queen Beyonce. And what was the other one you said?
Fred again. Actual Life 3.
Fred again. You were sending me the video performance of the set, like the DJ set. I was just like, that's fun.
I was dancing hard at that show. I'm convinced he's just a really good person, too.
Yeah. And that's what we need.
We need the good boys.
Where them good boys at? All right. And then I want to wrap this up with a very personal question. If you could be any animal for 24 hours what would you be?
Oh, a dragon.
Fuck. Yeah. Like a fire-breathing flying dragon?
Yeah, they fly. They swim. They get to do everything.
I'm surprised that the dragons aren’t Pisces Aries-like symbols.
We could submit that to the committee.
We should submit that. I also think another Chelsea project needs to be a full tarot deck.
That would be dope.
That would be dope, but, like, a little bit more abstract than they normally are.
Yeah, I think that comes later on in life.
I think it does, too.
When I'm like an auntie in the woods or something.
We're old, watching our grandkids, and we just, like, paint, drink chamomile tea and drink. Dude, our grandkids are going to love us.
Oh, for sure.
Kids be like ‘My parents aren't cool, but GMA is cool as fuck.’
