Art equals self discovery for artist, viewers

Kim Strohbeen, a part-time art teacher at Kissinger and Franklin Elementary schools, will show her own artwork at an exhibit beginning March 1 at the Le Mars Arts Center. [Click to enlarge]

That's all Kim Strohbeen, a part-time elementary art teacher at Le Mars Community's Kissinger and Franklin schools, thought about in high school.

"I don't remember anything but painting," Strohbeen said. "I just painted all the time."

Strohbeen, of Sioux City, will show her paintings starting March 1 at the Le Mars Arts Center.

The exhibit's title "Self Full," is taken from a chapter of Peter London's book "No More Second Hand Art." The title of the chapter is "Self-Full, Not Selfish."

Strohbeen said the last line in the chapter helps define her art: "... every stroke we make, every color we choose and do not choose, corresponds to a personal quality within."

"I work a lot with layers, erasing and going back in and adding things," Strohbeen said.

She uses a lot of textures, portals and detail subtleties in her work to draw in the viewer.

"They have to really look at it because there are so many things I might not even know about it," Strohbeen said. "They begin to relate to it in their own terms."

Her exhibit will encompass pieces she did while an undergraduate student at Morningside College, in Sioux City, an art education graduate student at University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls, and her student teaching years.

Strohbeen said her beginning artwork was mostly abstract using shapes and colors, while her later work focuses on more tangible subjects like a swan or a tree, something easily recognized.

Even as a child Strohbeen always enjoyed art, and she attributes that to her parents, who introduced her to many forms from pottery and polishing stones to ceramics and paint by numbers.

"They gave us a lot of opportunities, my parents did, to try everything," Strohbeen said. "They let us be what we wanted to be."

Strohbeen takes the same approach with her students.

She doesn't believe in producing an example for students to mimic, but instead lays out a few guidelines for them to follow.

"We're just trying to create and make art," Strohbeen said.

She's teaching her kindergarten through fifth-grade students about artists and the different mediums they use to get the children interested in creating their own styles.

"Little people are so smart, and they notice everything. They notice the things that adults don't," Strohbeen said. "They relate art to their lives."

Strohbeen still paints when she can find the time.

During her student teaching years, Strohbeen said it wasn't uncommon for her to produce 25 paintings in three to four months.

"It was so inspiring to be with kids," she said. "They're terribly uninhibited."

Strohbeen hasn't ever sold her paintings because she said she rarely stretches or frames them with wood as one would do if they were marketing their work.

"It's not what my art is," Strohbeen said. "That takes away from the process and how it was made."

She hasn't painted any large canvases lately because Strohbeen doesn't have time or space. But she does create smaller, postcard-size pieces.

Since September, Strohbeen has made about 50 of those, some of which she turns into actual postcards and bookmarks that she gives as gifts.

"I miss painting large. I'm bummed out because I don't get as much space to create," Strohbeen said. "This summer I hope to get back into it."

Although she's always loved art, it wasn't until her high school years that she really began thinking about how she could apply it to her life.

"I had a phenomenal art teacher in high school," Strohbeen said.

That instructor helped her put together a portfolio, which led to her acceptance at Morningside College, an institution known for its art program, Strohbeen said.

She enjoyed the hands-on nature of the curriculum, the small-group settings in the classrooms and the use of actual studio settings.

"We could bounce ideas off each other and be inspired," Strohbeen said. "By my junior year I thought I was just going to be an artist."

It wasn't until graduate school that she decided to combine her love of studio art with her student teaching and make it into a career.

"I probably do a lot more painting than most teachers," Strohbeen said.