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[pounding]
- If practice makes perfect...
- I think, to date, I've painted 1,800 people.
- ...then Kelly Meredith has spent
the last 35 years of her life brushing against perfection.
- And the longer I paint faces,
the more I notice, you know,
very little intricate details
that I didn't know the day before.
I say that every portrait teaches me a little bit more
about the human face
or something about the human face
I actually didn't know yesterday.
Really weird things like, you know,
the ridge of your eyelid and, you know,
how that all works together.
And so, every day,
I pick up a little detail or a little piece of awareness,
and it's just through the sheer repetition.
- Kelly paints realistic historic murals.
Lots of them.
*
To date, she's painted close to 128 small town murals
across Wisconsin.
It's artwork that can take weeks or even months to complete.
- Once the piece is done and it's out the door,
it's not mine anymore.
It's now-- it's the community's.
It's the people who interact with it.
I've always said, not that-- I don't have any kids,
but I've always said
it's kinda-- must be what it's like
to send your child off to college.
You've done your work.
Hopefully, you've done a good job.
Now, it's up to them.
Now, they have to go and have a life of their own,
and I feel like the pieces themselves
have a life of their own.
Sometimes, I don't even feel like I belong to them anymore
that they're-- they've even been done by me.
That feeling of separation
helped Kelly complete her most challenging work,
a nine-month installation
at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center
in Ashland, Wisconsin.
- I think it's 140 different species of animals,
then like, maybe 72 different bugs and insects.
So every night,
I would go and read about that particular animal
or that particular bug
and make sure what does it eat?
What eats it?
What is the appropriate environment?
And what size because everything has to be perfectly scaled?
I feel like I have
a much better general anecdotal history of this area.
Simply because I've done so many historical murals.
I feel like I have a sense of, you know, how we got here?
What happened?
What was the boom and bust economies along the way?
How did they shape things?
How did they shape the people?
How did they shape the community?
I have all that because I had to do all this research.
- Kelly's efforts haven't gone unnoticed,
especially by the people her art really highlights.
- I have two people that have passed away in my life:
my brother, who was very young.
He was 21.
All my brothers and sisters said, "Yes, let's do that."
They chipped in and had purchased a space for him,
and then, my son actually is on the mural.
- Just so appreciative all of us here at the center are
that she was-- all the work that she invested
and the time away even from the center.
She did so much research on this project,
and she really got it right,
and she wanted to make sure she got it right, too.
She wanted to include every animal and plant
that was in this area
and tell the story of the Chequamegon Bay.
- And for many, Kelly has gotten it right.
With each stroke of the brush,
she adds another detail
that just wasn't quite there before.
- So, much of this-- of what I do
are people's relatives.
You sponsoring somebody that you care about.
Whether it's a veteran or it's a waitress,
and so, oftentimes,
it's people who aren't famous, aren't well known.
That's very emotional, and it means a lot to people
and, you know, people plan family reunions
around these things
and so, no, it's a big deal.
It's work that honors my life, too, so.
- Work that Kelly hopes honors
the lives that it's meant to illustrate the most.
- I hope that when you finally see your dad or your mom
up there that you just have a sense of relief
that you have this finally,
you know, finally, they got something.
Finally, they're not invisible.
Finally, they're real.
Finally, they have a story.
Finally, they exist.
I think that's the biggest thing
so that people don't feel invisible
like they never existed in the first place,
and I think most people harbor that.
I think that speaks to peole so...
So, yeah, relief.
I hope you feel relief and closure.