Kyle Hawley: Creativity, Motherhood & Meaningful Work

Judy Oskam: 0:03

Hi everyone and welcome back to Stories of Change in Creativity. I'm Judy Oskam. Today's guest is someone who truly lives at the intersection of art, entrepreneurship and purpose. I'm talking with Kyle Hawley. Kyle's journey weaves together creativity, family and a deep love of storytelling. We talk about how growing up in a multi-generational household has shaped her work. We touch on how she uses printmaking to encourage hands-on learning, and she also shares what she's learned from parenting, building a business and making art all at the same time. Well, I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Welcome, Kyle. You want to give a little intro for the audience.

Kyle Hawley: 0:54

I would love to Judy. My name is Kyle Hawley. I am the founder and creative director of Letterpress Play, which is a design studio and retail store. I serve also as creative director for the production company that I share with my husband, 26 Keys, and that we produce film and television. He's also a novelist and so we do a lot of adaptation projects, and I'm a proud, proud graduate of Texas State University it used to be Southwest Texas State University when I graduated as well as Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Judy Oskam: 1:38

I love that. I love that. Well, and let's start at Texas State. Then how did you kick off your whole life career? You're also a mom, and we're going to talk about some of your artwork later on too, but from Texas State. How did the education kind of launch you?

Kyle Hawley: 1:57

Thank you for asking. I love to talk about Texas State. I do, judy. So I went to a high school for the performing arts, which was a wonderful high school in Dallas, texas, a magnet program in downtown Dallas. It had a fantastic program for helping launch kids into their next chapter of college. We had senior showcases and I had colleges from all around the U S come and and I was able to audition for them.

Kyle Hawley: 2:35

And while I did get scholarships to many of these places, um shot, you'll be shocked to know that theater scholarships are not very big scholarships and so, um, and I was uh, you know, did not have a lot of means and so, you know, price tags really made a difference, um, in what the decisions I was making and, um, one of my um theater teachers knew that was the, you know, made a big difference for me and she really I believe she might have been a graduate I feel I'm remiss in not knowing a Texas state and and she said it's one of the best programs, whether it's affordable, more affordable or not, whether it's affordable, more affordable or not and she really helped guide me to Southwest Texas State and Texas State, and she wasn't wrong. The theater program was really unparalleled, and I'm so happy that that's where I started my career. We are too.

Judy Oskam: 3:43

We are too. I'm very proud, and were you always a creative kid? How did you? How do you think of yourself as far as creativity?

Kyle Hawley: 3:51

I was. I was always a creative kid. I've always loved storytelling. I started storytelling in UOIL, you know I was. I did competitive poetry and prose readings. Oh my gosh.

Judy Oskam: 4:06

Oh, wow.

Kyle Hawley: 4:08

And that you know and that influences. You know, all the women in my family were storytellers, through either writing or through the visual arts, and so it really was just a part of being, you know, living in the world for me.

Judy Oskam: 4:31

Yeah Well, and living in that world, that also kind of fed your entrepreneur spirit. How did you, how did you come to start Letterpress Play and what's the story behind that? Did that tie in with your family as well?

Kyle Hawley: 4:46

uh it it did in a, in a in a sense um. So the beginning thoughts of letterpress play came out of a thesis project that I was doing at arts center, college of design and um I was looking a lot at. I had started photographing abandoned spaces. I had, as a child, lived in an abandoned schoolhouse for a short time, which is a, you know, not a particularly common story, but not unlike some people's stories, and it made an impact on me and it was a I wanted to look at kind of the beginning and end of things.

Kyle Hawley: 5:34

And that carried me into looking at restoration playgrounds, which came to be umWWII, where Europe was recovering and they were trying to build, they were trying to create places of play for children, and so these places really evolved where they would give them a set of tools and a plot of land and really all of the materials to build their own play, and so there was a lot of thought around being able to rebuild their own world by their own hands.

Kyle Hawley: 6:16

You know they were trying to really fold into that therapy through play, through the work of the child, and so that's where it started and, and so you know, that's why the work, that the outreach that we do in letterpress play is always about um focusing on the work of the child and giving back to children. Um, that's why it's very focused on tool using through the presses and and printmaking and I fell in love with printmaking while at Art Center and so I think, like any kind of um concept or idea, you just kind of have to follow um a core question and the answers will come to help you shape it more fully, and that and that's yeah, and for you, what was that core question?

Kyle Hawley: 7:17

that core question was what happens when something is ending and, um, and, of course, when something ends, something new begins, and and that was really what I was in pursuit of, that really hot pursuit of that, uh, and, and that was the case. That was just what they were doing with the restoration playgrounds right, a way of life was ending. They were looking to create new beginnings for children. I had experienced that personally, bringing things to life right, fostering ideas, shepherding ideas into a more fully articulated expression.

Judy Oskam: 8:14

And yeah Well, I'm fascinated by your beginning and the fact that that kind of led and grew helped you grow this. What do you say to people that might be in a similar situation about how can they move forward, I wonder? I think there's some good advice that you can share.

Kyle Hawley: 8:36

You bet. So part of my great success, I feel I mean when I just when I say success, I mean just kind of personal contentment was really grounded in the, the time I spent with my grandparents, and, and of course they're of the greatest generation. You know, my first, my first best friend, I say often, was my great grandmother and she was at least 80, 80 years, my senior. Wow, and, and I was really I witnessed was they shared with me, you know, their stories of growing up on the plains of of West Texas and their, their joys and their, their tribulations, and I began to really understand that whatever difficulty I might be facing, there was a solution to be found. And I think that that was really at the core of these generations that you know were either adult during wartime and depression, or children during that time, which is the two generations I was, you know, being really well held by.

Kyle Hawley: 9:58

And my grandparents were also, you know, civil servants. They were deeply my grandparents. My great, great grandfather was the county sheriff, my, his son, my grandfather, I mean my, my grandfather was the county commissioner and my grandmother was the election judge. She started the public library. You know, it was just you found, you know, when, faced with a problem, their instinct was not to turn away, but was to dig deeper for us.

Judy Oskam: 10:34

But I think that's fascinating, that you knew that as a child to ask those questions and to really be engaged with your grandparents I think that kind of did help shape you.

Kyle Hawley: 10:45

Yeah, and the beauty of, I think, of children. Well, there are many things, but you know, children they love. Like children, humans start just wanting to love, right, and when they're handed and when the people around them love them back, they're available. You know they're sponges and they're handed. And when people, when the people around them, love them back, they're available, you know they're sponges and they're available. And so I was just, really I was given a lot of love by these people and I was, and I was, and I was able to see that, although they would face difficult things, it didn't, it wasn't dispiriting, I mean it, it wasn't fun, but but they didn't, it did, it wasn't, it didn't, it didn't close doors, it opened doors, and that, I think, was just a really important way for my brain to be, to grow. You know, in relationship to problem solving.

Judy Oskam: 11:43

Well, and how do you then take that now that you're a parent? So how did that shape your parenting style?

Kyle Hawley: 11:55

Well, you know, don't ask my kids because I have two kids too, I know. You know I was like I think it's going like this, right. You know, I was like I think it's going like this, right the same. You know, I also had the good fortune, at least to be in Montessori early, early child. You know I was, I would, I was able to have an early childhood education.

Kyle Hawley: 12:19

Luckily Montessori, and I think there's a lot, I think Maria Montessori, she's kind of one of my, she rose. There is a lot about her, her, her doctorate and her, her pedagogy that it can be misinterpreted as anything can be, but at the tenant of it, at the core of it, it is similar to some of the kind of these notions that I'm reflecting about on my grandparents. It's just like the work of the child is, is play, and and we solve things and and humans want to problem solve, quite naturally, right when given a safe environment with enough tools. And so I tried to do the same for my kids. I tried to provide a safe, loving environment and enough tools to problem solve, you know, and it is at the heart of it. That's what I'm trying to do, you know.

Judy Oskam: 13:30

And it sounds like that's also what you're trying to do with your businesses. You're trying to tell stories, You're trying to still problem solve. Talk about, talk about that a little bit. What are some projects that that you are the most proud of?

Kyle Hawley: 13:43

You know to kind of tie the previous question and this one together, because my kids are 12 and 17. So we've got sixth grade, which refers to the first year into junior high, and then 17, she's in her junior year and so we're looking forward to college. Um and um. You know, I'm looking at how, supporting, supporting them and their next plane of of problem solving, Um and, and I think I, what would I?

Kyle Hawley: 14:21

What I say to them often is you just have to follow what you're most passionate about. Is you just have to follow what you're most passionate about. Really, at the end of the day, you're going to learn all the reading, writing, arithmetic along the way, but what, what you must choose is something you really fundamentally care about, and in my opinion, you may. You may have a different idea. I don't think it really matters what that thing is. I just it has to be Totally agree. Yeah, totally agree, and that's why, for me you know my businesses do that they're the things I would do whether they were a business or not, and they allow me to learn all the things that I still continue to learn.

Kyle Hawley: 15:10

I mean, it's like my business was before. It was a business. It was just my art studio, me and my art studio, and then suddenly you invite people in and then you invite customers in, and then so there's all this whole body of lessons that you learn as an entrepreneur, and then you're a boss, and then you're a boss of many people, and then you kind of have this like You're, you're, you're getting your MBA, just you know, in in the life, in life and the throes of it, and that's really hard, Judy. Yes, it is really hard, it's really hard and it takes up a lot of time and um, that part you know just like, but um, because it's in, it's in service to the main meditation of what I'm asking, the question that I'm asking, and the and the and the, the jobs and the creative thinking that I would just want to do. Anyway, it's like a spoonful of sugar with the other things that, and I think that's just kind of a good recipe for life.

Judy Oskam: 16:29

Yeah Well, and that's what I was going to say, it sounds like you're crafting your life. So there's not a separation of career, home life, where it's just your life. And maybe is that the life of an artist, but it's also the life of an entrepreneur or someone who's passionate about what's next. Right, it is.

Kyle Hawley: 16:50

It is. You know, it's interesting. So being a commercial artist is kind of a hybrid of being both an entrepreneur and having corporate partners and business partners, and so you're so, so and I have that, so I have kind of two, two jobs. And while Letterpress Play is purely entrepreneurial and 26 Keys is entrepreneurial, we do have clients Right, and 26 keys is entrepreneurial, we do have clients right and um, and, and I think what the the difference between doing fine art and doing commercial art? It is that you are problem solving to someone's request, right, they come to you with a problem and you solve it. Versus as a fine artist, you are asking your own question and solving it through that exploration, and I would say that both require an equal amount of discipline, because you're not going to solve the problem unless you get in there and do it every day.

Judy Oskam: 18:14

Sure. So you know I don't actually I've lost my way in the question, but let me get you back because that kind of ties into what I was going to ask you about your latest exhibit and that is a fine art venture and talk about that and why the connection to motherhood. That's fascinates me. I went and looked at your work online and just look fascinating.

Kyle Hawley: 18:45

Yeah so motherhood, and just look fascinating. Yeah so motherhood. You know, I look a lot because I am, you know, a designer and an artist which, at the core, is a problem solver. I think a lot about symbols and you know, and communications, you know, which I didn't say earlier. I started in theater and then I moved to communications and so, you know, and I ended up kind of having both at the end, and so what I was really pursuing at Texas State was communicating right, right right Through art. Yeah, yes, right Right Through art. Yeah, yes.

Kyle Hawley: 19:46

And so, you know, as a fine artist, I think a lot about how people receive information, and we receive it through through roads, through symbols, right through through key ideas that we hear or see, and so, because of that, motherhood is a symbol, motherhood is an archetype, and mother is an archetype, and I had a very big, broad understanding of motherhood. I had a very complicated relationship with my own mother, um, and, and a very uncomplicated relationship with my grandmother and grandmother, my great-grandmothers and my grandmothers, and I think there's a narrative in the world that mothering has to come specifically from the person that's given birth to us, and the truth of the matter is that the mothering can come from many different places, and that's been my experience. That's my truth, right.

Judy Oskam: 20:55

My truth too. With two adopted children, that's my truth too.

Kyle Hawley: 20:59

Right, so many people's truths, and that's what I really really think a lot about. I a lot in my fine artwork, um, and there were many things where, when I started, when I chose to become a mother, um, that was scary for me because my mother was a teenage mother and that was um uncomfortable for her and uncomfortable for me and really shaped her in ways that were, I would say, did not result in her flourishing. So I was unclear on whether or not I would be have the right tools right, the right instincts. The biggest thing was no-transcript, and so I did a deep dive into motherhood. I put my career on pause completely as far as my external career.

Kyle Hawley: 22:10

I only worked in my studio in the time that I had and was raising my children when they're younger years, because there was a lot of it turned out, there were a lot of answers and questions that I still had, because I I didn't have, I didn't get them from my own mother and it's, you know, which is the beauty of becoming a mother Like there's a lot Right, mother Like there's a lot right. So that topic for me, judy, is just deep and rich and wide and will never be on under explored, and I and I feel quite confident that everyone else feels that way too, I totally agree.

Judy Oskam: 22:52

Well, and what you did? You did the exhibit talk about the pieces that are in there, and what was your technique?

Kyle Hawley: 23:00

and yeah, so, again, you know, I think a lot, I'm a tool user, I love being a tool user. All the women in my family were tool users, either through handwork or or you know, machinery of some particular kind, and so it's a natural for me and I use very specific tools. They were garments. They were either garments or blankets or hankies, and they were very utilitarian in their use. And I wanted to look at the tools of motherhood and I wanted to like being a mother and being a parent. Sometimes we comfort and sometimes we clarify right, you're always kind of having to decide which door to walk through in any particular moment, and I really wanted so. So that's what? So that's what those tools, those are literally the tools that I, that I have used and even continue to use, and that's why they are featured in the work. They're the cast of characters, let's say.

Judy Oskam: 24:27

Yeah, and we'll put a link in the show notes so people can go look at the exhibit online and they can see the art. Well and going through that I'm sure had to be Well and going through that.

Kyle Hawley: 24:46

I'm sure had to be. Was that therapeutic for you or was that just? That's just what you do as an artist? Yeah, I think you know. I feel so fortunate.

Kyle Hawley: 24:58

You know, my journey as an artist, as I said, started there. You know, my grandmother put knitting needles in my hand when I was four and and I, just it was the moment where I realized it, it was it, would it? Um, I, I realized that I could have a form of self-expression. It gave me instant autonomy, I was able to create, and so it, just it, it, it fired off so so many different ideas and but I do think, many times as an artist, and early in one's career and not necessarily young some people come to being artists later in life.

Kyle Hawley: 25:41

I just think, when you come being early in your career, there's a lot of questions and what I'm most interested in as a fine artist is, um is to not present the question, but to present what I perceive as the journey to the answer.

Kyle Hawley: 25:58

So I, you know that that's that's what I'm always, that that's where I am with my artwork is that it? And it takes me a while sometimes to create a body of work, because I'm still kind of stuck in the question, and and I don't to me, that's not my job. My job as as an artist is to have a reflection, so that when I'm reflecting out this, this answer or this pursuit of an answer, that it allows other people, it invites them into that and so that they can join in. And I think that that's what the job of art does. It allows you to reflect back into yourself and and and there's a catharsis oh, I know what it was it's about, catharsis. I don't present. I don't go to art as as my therapy. I go to it as an, as a to ask questions and to and find answers, and that's what I hope it does for the viewer.

Judy Oskam: 27:03

And what advice would you have for people that are in a place no matter what, and they're maybe not an artist? How can they embrace their own creativity to do just that?

Kyle Hawley: 27:17

Well, one of the great, one of the important tenets of being creative is to do it. Is you got to? You just got to just quiet your mind, you know, and just pick up anything that makes you feel good to make a mark. Make a mark in the sand, make a mark with a pencil. A mark, make a mark in the sand. Make a mark with a pencil, make a mark with a house paint. But you have to show up for yourself and do that consistently. And maybe you have the time to do it once a week or three times a week or once a month, but when you show up to do the work, do the work. That's when the inspiration can find a home. But if you don't give it a place to find a home, it won't.

Judy Oskam: 28:09

And that's when that magic can happen. You have to create the space for the magic, for the inspiration.

Kyle Hawley: 28:15

You do, and quite literally, I mean we've all experienced this, it's just like you know, we've all experienced this. It's just like you know, you, you, it just takes time. Ideas take time because, because ideas are not um, ideas are like a, a house that has rooms, and you know, and you, just you gotta, you gotta build it, and and, and you can't build it unless you show up to build it.

Judy Oskam: 28:41

Yeah, yeah, you know exactly well, speaking of building what, what are you building next and what? Where do you see what's next for you?

Kyle Hawley: 28:53

well, we have um a lot and that's great's a lot. I have a team of people, so we're continuing to launch more products out of letterpress play. We're continuing to grow our outreach and marketing presence for for the, for the retail and for the studio and 26 Keys. I'm helping really build a brand of 26 Keys. We hadn't taken that approach before in our production company, and so I'm doing very similar work where we're looking at how we're gonna touch the community and be a community builder and connect various different aspects, and then we have a show that has a global launch.

Judy Oskam: 29:59

And look ahead five years. What are you going to be doing five years from now?

Kyle Hawley: 30:05

Five years. I mean, you know, that's again to kind of come full circle. Hopefully just the same, hopefully more of the same. Hopefully we've got a list of more projects that we've completed, more people that we've connected, hopefully we've built and helped grow a community of emerging artists and voices. And you know, the great thing about this point for us, Judy, is this is what we were looking to do, this is it, and so we want to do it. As long as anyone will, let us do it.

Judy Oskam: 30:44

I love it. Well, I'm going to let you do it as long as you want to do it.

Kyle Hawley: 30:47

I love it.

Judy Oskam: 30:48

And I love. Thank you for sharing your story and your passion for this. I have loved this. Thank you so much.

Kyle Hawley: 30:57

Well, thank you for having me, Judy, it's a real honor.

Judy Oskam: 31:01

 And thank you for joining us on Stories of Change and Creativity. I loved getting to chat with Kyle. Her perspective on creativity, motherhood and building a meaningful life really hit me and I hope it hit you as well. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd be grateful if you'd leave a five-star review and share it with a friend. It really helps more people find the show and, more importantly, hear these powerful stories. And if you know someone with a story of change and creativity or you have one yourself, reach out to me at judyoskam. com. I'd love to hear from you.