Kelly Parks Snider Artist Statement
“I give everything to the creative process. I write and paint to create a character, express a thought or make a connection. I am not concerned about adhering to a specific style, medium or format. This allows me to be fully absorbed in asking: What are all the possibilities here? What I seek is to share a profound connection I feel with a character, an idea or an aspect of my life. My hope is that readers feel that connection as powerfully.”
Kelly Parks Snider explores contemporary cultural and social issues. Using art and words, she educates communities, stimulates dialogue about target issues and creates social change.
As a visual artist, Kelly’s work exhibits nationally through both public and private galleries. Her Rural Women: Voice and Spirit exhibit was funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Art Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Commercial Land Exhibition was the culmination of a two-year exploration of the effects of contemporary media on young teens’ live and attitudes is exhibited nationally.
Kelly is the co-founder of Project Girl (www.projectgirl.org), a nationally recognized non-profit, award-winning program and touring exhibition that combines art, media literacy and youth-led activism into a unique educational experience for children, parents and educators. Project girl was recently featured in Family Circle Magazine and was an awarded youth program in the new national youth empowerment and philanthropy program called Best Buy’s @15 Change Exchange project.
Kelly is also the founder of Goathouse Press, an independent publishing company dedicated to children’s literature that illuminates and inspires children to create their own culture and discover their own truth. Zilly: A Modern-Day Fable is Kelly’s first children’s book. She considers Zilly tobe her protest book. She has also co-authored curriculum with Jane Bartell (co-founder of Project Girl) and Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D. (Professor of Education and Human Development at Colby College in Maine).
Activism is the foundation for all of Kelly’s endeavors. Her objective is to educate young people, parents, educators and communities about targeted issues in the hopes of shaking up the status quo, creating a catalyst, examining the questions that shape and inspire all of us. Her activism is rooted in a conviction that a healthy democracy depends on informed citizens, and our youth must be considered in this truth.
Kelly lectures nationally about media literacy, serves in artist-in-residence programs and produces workshops. She lives and works on a little farm outside of Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband, and four children.
