“it is plain and simple, really. I had no choice but to become an artist.”
chelsea Michal Garter
My story
It’s plain and simple, really. I had no choice but to become an artist.
I was placed in a long line of brains that have to exude talent from their fingers whether that be by paint, camera, by worship, music, drawing, bleaching articles of clothing, koi ponds, delivering mail, or planting enormous amounts of bulbs every spring, you name it, our family dabbled in it.
Just so happens, God gave me paint. I like paint. I like the way it smells and gets in your fingernails and ends up on all of your favorite clothes. I love that it drips & mingles & the way the inspiration takes up the room and makes you forget you need to eat or pee.
I also studied photography. Mostly the kind that you do in a very dark room where you hope you don’t run into other people or where you learn people by the inflection in their voices or the shape of their waist (as you bump around) and not their face.
My true love though, if i am honest is paint and writing. Besides those forms of art, I spend time doing hair. I have walking canvases… canvases that have all sorts of different hair, clients with pet pigs, a love to kayak… clients who were brought to America by Mother Theresa herself, clients who love change or never change their hair or really only come in for the head massage, rather than the company.
More than most things, I pride myself in the grace God has given me to get to stand next to my fam-bam as they applauds me in my ideas and my crazy pipe dreams that I manage to make reality.
My hubby Max pushes me to travel + retreat, to change environment, which gives me inspiration. He knows how it waters and cultivates my practice.
We live in a crinkly little beautiful home in a far-from-perfect neighborhood on the grand river which floods every year. I cannot describe to you how much i’m in love with it. Our house is small and electric and moody and messy and I still want to eventually iron my curtains— but, and i am learning that in every situation I want to say thank you. I am surrounded by friends and family that I could not do this life without.
Mostly, I give credit to Jesus who has saved me and given me hope for the future. I hope that in all of my work– paint, writing, people, & hair–it all tells the story of Jesus because he has walked me to where I am now, and teachings me what love looks like. I heart you.
Artist Bio
Grand Rapids based artist Chelsea Garter has worked in abstract art for many years. She uses a fluid mixture of watercolor, oil paints and acrylic to express her passion for the impermanent, communicate her interest in the individual, and as a means to convey her emotions and write her story.
Plants that are plucked from the earth, in-season flowers that quickly die, a sunset, even a fleeting moment; Chelsea views her abstract paintings as a way to suspend the temporal, and each season of life is a unique chapter. The outdoors and the experience of new places are great inspirations for her.
With the use of line, she works to understand human-to-human interaction, the complexities of people groups, and the different stages between brokenness and reconciliation in relationships. People, and the way they function and communicate interest her greatly.
Painting is her passion, and each piece displays the energy and emotion she is working through. Using art as a means of personal, internal work and a place of relief through which to express herself, it is Chelsea’s hope to inspire others in their own creative endeavors.
Chelsea started professionally as an artist in 2006, and resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She lives in a crinkly little neighborhood with her husband and two kiddos. Her love of nature, the ocean, gardening, travel, and people drive her work.
