Meet Kristin Calabrese

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kristin Calabrese and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kristin, how do you think about risk?
Once I know everything about what I’m doing, after attaining the initial glee at competence and possible efficiency, I tend to become less interested. Risk taking and uncertainty tend to be a motivating factor for me.

Painting is both a finite and infinite. A painting has only be a small number of variables in materials/craft choices – basically paint and substrate. It’s scary to make something so wholly invented on a canvas that is you, that the artist alone is responsible for. It’s something of a statement, whatever it is. Somehow it feels quite vulnerable. 

I am in search of the masterpiece, (is that a masculine term? shall we call it a mistresspiece?) You don’t get there without headlong risk of failure, ridicule, poverty and embarrasment. Painting is the most important thing in life for me – painting being both a noun and a verb. It is what my life has revolved around, sustaining my constant attention. My pursuit of art (painting) is something like looking for love. When I find love with a painting, I feel the painting is radiating back at me, asking me questions, giving me answers – a feeling of firing on all cylinders which fills me with love feelings, not unlike the experience of falling in love with a partner and looking into their eyes while they look back into mine – or looking into the eyes of your newborn baby for the first time.

Similarly curating a show or curating our project space is putting forth our vision combined with the way the winds blow. It’s an exhilarating feeling to leap into the void, being moved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this artist’s work is amazing and you want to present it to the world. The artist might say no. It’s also exciting to ask, similar to asking someone out when looking for love – a risk. It’s thrilling when they say yes.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
business/artist/creative – hybrid

Three things here, a Cerebus of faces to the public: artist, stretcher bar company, experimental artist project space – three headed dog (cat), all the heads working together like a triad or a trinity. It’s a three legged stool, which if one of the legs gets too short it will fall. Everything I do has branched naturally from painting.

I love thinking about how to make an object that seems to feel alive – transubstantiation minus the Catholic. I want to breath life into a web that I construct through simple tools like wood, linen and canvas, pigment and oil…. and a little rabbit skin glue (all mediums are a-okay, whatever works). I think that’s not an unusual goal for a painter.

I value community and feel the need for the support of peers so I’ve curated shows and participated in other peoples’ projects when I get the chance.

My husband, Joshua Aster, and I started a stretcher bar company called Stretcher Options. We make stretcher bars for other artists and art galleries. It wasn’t easy when we started, because we had no money. We got a bad chop saw from a good friend (Lisa Adams) for $50 and splurged on a small job site table saw that we strapped to a table to start ripping poplar. Ten years hence, we’ve graduated to a good chop saw and a nice big SawStop table saw, plus some other tools. We have a small art store where we carry Gamblin paint and we are linen distributors, getting various rolls of linen shipped direct to us from the mills in Belgium. We’ve been strictly word of mouth, preferring to stay small so we can continue to put most of our energy into our own paintings.

Most of the people we know are painters or artists of some kind and artists love to support artists so we’ve been lucky that way in having a built in customer base. My job at Stretcher Options is mostly customer service. My Dad calls that “Front of House.” As a painting nerd, I love to talk shop with other painters. I also love to be of service. Finding out what and why other artists do what they do feeds my insatiable artistic curiosity. We make stretcher bars for other artists and art galleries. Our business has been strictly word of mouth, preferring to stay small so we can continue to put most of our energy into our own paintings. We are cooperative rather than competitive. In the beginning we made a point never to steal a customer from another stretcher bar maker. We also like to recommend other companies when someone wants something we don’t do.

Having curated lots of group shows for other art spaces including LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition, Circus of Books, Green Gallery in Milwaukee, and one of the earliest shows for Honor Fraser Gallery, it was a small step to transform one of the rooms in our studio/warehouse space into an exhibition space to host art shows of other artists. We also collaborate with the artists to provide at least a few of the canvasses to each artists’ specifications for free with no strings attached for their exhibitions. It is with great earnestness that we’ve called our gallery project space $erious Topic$.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, they should come see one of the shows or events at Serious Topics. The beach is also fun, although somehow closed after dark. There’s always a cool lecture, event or film at the Hammer Museum or a great show at one of our favorite art galleries. A couple more interesting art gallery gems include DeBoer Gallery, Commonwealth and Council, Gattopardo, La Loma, Bozo Mag, Five Car Garage, AF Projects and many other venues showing innovative work.

I confess it’s difficult for me to be away from my paintings for even a whole day, so our perfect guest is someone who wants to paint along with us in the studio. When Anne Harris had a show with us, she came out from Chicago and stayed in the gallery for a week while constructing her painting-centric installation called, “WIP.” Josh and I prepared her favorite meals every day so she would have pampered, uninterrupted working time.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’m grateful to many people. Here are a few: 

I didn’t know we were going to have an art gallery in earnest until the paintings of Emma Gray compelled me to ask her if she wanted to have a show at our space, $erious Topic$. Emma makes paintings of psychedelic nude faeries frolicking with abandon. Emma has a gallery called Five Car Garage in Santa Monica. It was sheer luck that she was our first solo show because she showed us the ropes.

I’m grateful to Annabel Osberg who makes fascinating surrealist drawings and paintings, some of which she showed in our recent summer group show. Annabel penned a review in Art Forum of Amy McCormac’s solo show at our gallery. Amy makes confessional paintings of family trauma that strike just the right funny bone. Annabel also recommended us to artist, David Humphrey, who we’ll be doing a project with in the spring.

Jaqueline Cedar is another artist who was in our summer group show. She’s an incredible painter who also has a traveling gallery called Good Naked. Jaqueline curated us into a show, then recommended $erious Topic$ to be an exhibitor at The Future Fair in New York this past May.
I’d also like to shoutout Charles Karubian, who we showed at the Future Fair. He’s an inspirational paint slinger who has helped me out in many a pinch. There’s my great friend and ally, painter Salomon Huerta, who always brings gallerists to look at my paintings and customers to buy our stretcher bars from our stretcher bar company, which is called Stretcher Options. One more shoutout goes to artist Brian Porray who really helped us out in a time of great need — plus all the rest of the artists who I know and love.

Most of all I’m grateful for my wonderful partner Joshua Aster, who is my everything.

Website: https://www.serious-topics.com/ https://stretcheroptions.com/ https://kristincalabrese.com/

Instagram: @serioustopics @only_future_thing

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sallyjones

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@serious-topics

Image Credits
1st pic is me painting in the studio 2. Kristin Calabrese, “Mom’s Panties,” 2021, oil on linen, 63 x 63 inches 3. Here’s me and Joshua Aster showing artist, Charles Karubian’s paintings at our booth at The Future Fair, NYC May 2024, photo credit: Michael Slenske 4. and 5. My painting from 2001 is on exhibit now at LA Louver Gallery in Venice. Pictured is me now in front of “Luck of the Draw,” 2001, oil on canvas, 96 x 120 inches. 6. Here I am again in front of my truck which is also the sign for our gallery, $erious Topic$. 7. Another painting about teaching, which I’ve been known to do from time to time: Kristin Calabrese, “Back to School,” 2021, oil, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 50 x 89 inches. 8. And another painting: Kristin Calabrese, “Saving My Eggs,” 2019, oil on pink canvas, 39 x 28 1/2 inches. photo credit: C. White I don’t know which you should use as the first photo. I gave you the one of me from the studio but I also would be okay with the panty painting or the one with Josh at the art fair taken by Michael Slenske, your choice. The paintings were shown at AF Projects in LA late 2021. My newest show is in progress still so I can’t share the paintings yet.