This episode is two things in one: an honest, personal check-in from Kat as we head into summer, Q&A from our community. followed by a conversation with San Diego-based Mexican painter Yahel Yan, a Create! community member whose 100-day challenge journey ended in a full solo exhibition.
Kat opens by sharing what has been on her mind lately, from the turbulence in the art world and the economy to a growing sense that artists deserve more privacy, more mystery, and more protection of the creative and intellectual work they have built over years. She reflects on the pressure to share everything online, the times that oversharing has cost her, and why she is choosing to reclaim some intentional secrecy, not as gatekeeping, but as a form of boundaries and self-respect.
She also answers questions submitted by listeners through the Create! broadcast channel on Instagram, covering practical topics like what to do when you do not have a mailing list at an exhibition, how to approach interior designers as potential clients, how to identify your ideal collector when you are just starting out, and where collectors are actually discovering new artists today.
Then Kat sits down with Yahel Yan, a Create! Magazine featured artist and community member, for a conversation about her winding path to painting, the deeply personal chair series that became her signature work, and what it felt like to complete and exhibit 100 paintings in 100 days.
Yahel grew up in Mexico City, surrounded by color and the energy of a sprawling metropolis. After pursuing graphic design and building a family, she arrived in San Diego in 2000, pregnant with her third child, navigating a new country, a new language, and a new life. Art became her anchor. When her youngest started preschool, she returned to the studio and has been painting ever since.
Her "Chairs Are People" series began in 2012, almost by accident. Yahel had always collected small chairs, filling her home with so many she joked there was nowhere left to sit. When she began painting them, something shifted. She started seeing chairs as personalities, as stand-ins for human presence, romance, grief, and memory. Many come from the street, discovered and abandoned, each one a mystery she gets to invent. Others she takes on what she calls field trips, photographing her own chairs in new environments before bringing them back to canvas.
Earlier this year, Yahel participated in the Create! 100 Day Challenge, painted all 100 pieces, and turned them into a solo exhibition, presented as grids of nine that let viewers spend hours discovering objects they had not noticed at first glance. She shares why she never planned to show the work publicly until she simply had to.
In this episode, you will hear:
Kat's solo Q&A segment:
What is weighing on her in the art world right now, and how she is choosing to respond
Why she is reclaiming privacy and mystery in her practice and her business
What to do when you do not have a mailing list at a show (and how to start one)
How to approach interior designers as potential clients for your work
How to identify your ideal collector when you are just starting out
Where collectors are actually finding emerging artists today
Conversation with Yahel Yan:
Growing up in Mexico City and how that shaped her palette, energy, and sense of movement
Why she chose graphic design over fine art, and how that path served her
Moving to the United States with two children and one on the way, and how creativity helped her build community in a new country
The origin of "Chairs Are People" and how chairs became characters with stories and feelings
Finding chairs on the street and taking her own chairs on "field trips" to photograph in new environments
Joining the Create! 100 Day Challenge and discovering unexpected joy in painting food, hot sauce, and other overlooked objects
Exhibiting all 100 paintings as a grid installation and the experience of seeing them as one complete body of work
What is next: a ceramics workshop in Maine with her daughter
Links mentioned in this episode:
Yahel Yan on Instagram: @yahel.yan.art Yahel's website: yahelyan.com
Create! Substack (subscribe free or paid): createmagazine.substack.com
Create! broadcast channel: follow @createmagazine on Instagram
Join the next 100 Day Challenge cohort waitlist: www.createmagazine.myflodesk.com/challenge
Ireland