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The ever so talented Kimberlee Tubbs will be featured in the Columbia City Arts Commission’s second annual Whitley County Studio Art Tour on Saturday, September 7 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

While new to the tour this year, Kimberlee has had art part of her life since the early age of five.

As a young girl, she enjoyed her lavender bedroom and loved sewing bright colorful outfits. Also, early on Kimberlee enjoyed painting and even planting elaborate flower gardens where colors were so alive.

Today, she uses acrylic oils and charcoal graphite inks. She enjoys creating mixed media abstract portraits of pets, nature, and people.

While the case for many artists, Kimberlee finds creating art as very therapeutic. After a life changing horseback riding accident, causing her to leave her job as a hair stylist for 40 years, Kimberlee began to find her way back to art, a passion she had drifted away from after high school. She began teaching some neighbor girls how to draw and paint. Together they learned the joy of realistic art, creating graphite portrait drawings of family, friends, and still life. This then led to realistic acrylic paintings. From there, Kimberlee became bored with browns, grays, and tans for natural skin color and began evolving her own techniques/creativity. Soon she began losing track of time, having a wonderful time creating colorful rich creations.

For Kimberlee, she feels like art touches the love within you. She has fond memories creating her first graphite drawing of her brother who transitioned, leaving Earth too early.

At this moment, Kimberlee realized portraits can provide love to heal hearts and can create a physical connection to one who is missed dearly. Many times people will share with Kimberlee regarding her work that the portrait has a sense of “aliveness” or that the portrait takes “their breath away”. Due to Kimberlee’s connection with people through her portraits, Kimberlee began thinking of herself as an “Art Heart Healer.” In fact, she autographs her pieces of art with, “Celebrate Life with Art”.

Lastly, Kimberlee continues learning and growing and currently taking an online course with Milan Art to further broaden her creations.

For more information about the tour, visit https://ccartscommission.com