Featured Artist Friday - K-Fai Steele

This week's Featured Artist is K-Fai Steele, my cousin who has become one of the most original and interesting people I've ever met. This blog is all about original thought, and I can tell you K-Fai has more of that in a day than most of us do in our lifetimes. She is a unique person with a style all her own, and I am so proud of her. For a look at K-Fai's work, check out her website http://www.k-faisteele.com. 

It is no surprise to me that K-Fai's artwork has a fun and yet sneaky and sometime illicit style to it - she's known for her naked cat characters - they make appearances throughout her artwork. K-Fai grew up with two hilarious older brothers, well known having the best sense of humor but also always getting into trouble. I'm pretty sure that my sister and I never laughed more than we did with K-Fai and her brothers, but we also got into more trouble with them than we did with anyone else. 

K-Fai lives in Philadelphia, where she works on her growing list of commissions and teaches visiting artist classes at schools in NJ and PA to help inspire children to follow their dreams. The kids love her work, which she says is no surprise when her main focus is animalia and fat anthromorphized animals!

I asked K-Fai what she does to keep inspired. She's lived in some of the most inspiring cities and has traveled all over the world, but she said the most important thing is to be observant. She says, "I think if you make drawings for some specific audience in mind, you eventually run out of ideas and the work becomes repetitious. But if you're going to the zoo for example, and watching movies and cartoons and remaining generally observant about people and behavior, you've got an unlimited well of inspiration."