February Artist of the Month

Kelly with her twins

Our February Artist of the Month is Kelly Zalenski and the name of her etsy shop is klzart, the home of the 'twinzees' (onesies for twins).

Kelly joined etsy in November 2009 and became a member of ETC in December of 2010.

She has a BA in Art Education from Ohio State and is licensed to teach Pre-K art. Previously she taught in the Columbus City Schools but was laid off and then had her twins :) She also paints and participates in a dozen or so art shows/festivals each year. She categorizes her art and twinzee designs as 'fun,bold and modern'.

Having her twins inspired her to begin making her 'twinzees' because she found that there was scant 'cool twin stuff'. What was available was either expensive, poorly designed or both. She made her first set of twinzees from her hubby's old t-shirts when her twins were 6 months old and everyone loved them. Others kept asking where she got them and that was when the idea for her shop was born (no pun intended!)

Her most recent creation has been quilts for her twins made from their special first year t-shirts and onesies, cutting them into 6x6 inch squares and sewing them together to make bedspreads for their beds. A great way to recycle baby clothes!

In 2010, Kelly won the "People's Choice Award" at the Delaware Arts Festival . She received a ribbon and a free booth at that event again this year. She has also been asked to be a featured artist at the 2012 Winterfair where she will be painting live. In 2011 she had a booth at the Columbus Arts Festival (a juried show). Unfortunately, she lost all of her art during a freak thunderstorm. This lead her to 'survivor painting', painting only those things that would sell. She has since decided to start over so she chose to sell all of her art at the Art Studio Clearance Sale at the Ohio Expo Center during the last weekend of January.

Currently, her favorite shop item is "Who's Who?" that are owl twin sets for identical boys/girls. She was inspired to create this design because so many people asked how she told her twins apart (even though they are a boy and girl!) and because owls are so popular now.

We wish Kelly much luck in her future endeavors and look forward to seeing whatever new designs she creates for her twinzees.

Kelly's contact information:

Sketch1021@yahoo.com

http://www.klzart.etsy.com/

www.facebook.com/pages/klzartcom/77928329367

Just also found out that she is to be featured in the Huffington Post so stay tuned!!