Today we’d like to introduce you to Traci Kegerreis.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
After graduating college, I decided to pack my suitcase and explore the tiny island of St John in the US Virgin Islands. My plan was to stay for 3 months. 11 years, 1 husband and a daughter later we moved back to the continental US and Florida became our new home. We have now been here for 22 years.
Living in the U.S. Virgin Islands for 11 years shaped my creative approach, teaching me to embrace limited resources and transform them into art. The principles of reuse, recycle, and renew became second nature, influencing both my daily life and artistic practice. When I moved to Florida in 2004, I found myself immersed in a new world of possibilities, a thirst for discovery, experimentation, and an expanding range of mediums and substrates.
Returning to the continental U.S. also deepened my awareness of how easily we take objects for granted. We discard them without recognizing their inherent beauty, their history, or their potential for reinvention. This realization led me to Mixed Media Assemblage and Mosaic, two forms that celebrate the unexpected and honor the discarded. Finding the fortuitousness in forgotten materials, appreciating their past, and thoughtfully weaving them into new narratives is both my challenge and my joy. Art, for me, becomes most exciting when I apply the many techniques I have discovered while remaining open to spontaneity.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Is the road to becoming an artist and discovering your voice easy? I HOPE NOT! That is what makes us all, in whatever field calls us, have an individual view that is unlike everyone else’s and that is what needs to be shared with the world.
When I moved from the Virgin Islands, I realized that I had lived there for my entire adult life thus far and had become a complete foreigner in my own country. I had driven on the left with no stop lights, in bare feet and lived a life so vastly different that just knowing the basics of everyday life was something I had to relearn. Everything, including being a serious artist, was foreign to me. I didn’t know where to begin.
In the islands I learned to use what I had at hand for materials. There were no art supply stores nearby. But here there were endless mediums, materials, substrates it was overwhelming. I spent many years discovering mediums and letting myself become emersed in each one.
The world seemed so very big to me at that time in my life. It took a long time to find the places that felt safe to show my work, new ideas and to meet like-minded artists that celebrated each other’s unique voice.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Being a multidisciplinary artist has allowed me to show my work in vastly different galleries. I am mostly known for my assemblage work and mosaic, specifically glass on glass.
I think the first time I walked into Florida CraftArt in Saint Petersburg was when I discovered my people and realized that you do not have to be a traditional oil painter to be successful. My goal after that was to show a full body of assemblage and mosaic work. My first solo show was at the amazing Art Ovation Hotel. If you have not been there…go! They show different artists weekly in their featured Artists in Residence gallery. I had the opportunity to send invitations, hang a full body of new work and see it in a beautiful gallery setting. From that show I was interviewed by Phil Lederer for SRQ Daily about my assemblages. Seeing something like that published about your work really changes your perspective on how seriously you take your art and how you present it to the world. It was eye opening.
A few weeks after my show reception at Art Ovation I received a message from the executive director of Englewood Art Center Ringling College of Art and Design asking if I would be interested in doing a solo gallery show during their season open house. That was the most exciting opportunity I have had as an artist.
From there I have really taken my medium more seriously.
I took a chance this past year and entered a juried international mosaic show for the Society of American Mosaic Arts International Exhibition and was 1 of only 47 artists invited to show my piece at the Albin Polasik Museum. To be among artists I have learned from and admired so greatly was mind blowing!
Assemblage, mosaic and mixed media art is a focus that calls to me. I have tried to be a more traditional artist and use more conventional mediums to please my audience, but what I have learned is that the most valuable thing creatives can do is to lean into your true passion. That belief in your craft is everything you need.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
I love podcasts, but not only about art, but life in general. Art Juice, The Art Marketing Podcast, Beyond the Studio, The Mel Robinson Podcast, Heavyweight.
I have to say my best decision was to learn from other artists, online classes or locally and also to share what I know and have learned from my hard work with other artists.
I had a studio at the amazing Creative Liberties in Sarasota for many years. It is a collection of over 20 artists who have studio galleries. They work and sell their art there, celebrate each other’s successes and become like family. People can come in and walk through the galleries, take a class and view the rotating shows. It became my home away from home. Artists shared knowledge, ideas and even collaborated.
When shoppers or other artists came into my studio and asked me how I made something I would tell them, explain my process, share my sources and give them my card if they needed help. Many times those people came back and bought or commissioned a piece and even became friends.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/art2oranges
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/traci.kegerreis
