Rebecca Kelly
When life gives Rebecca Kelly lemons she cuts them open, squeezes the juice onto paper, bakes the paper in the oven at 250°, cuts the paper into strips and then promptly hangs them as part of an art installation. R. Kelly (as some may call her) also used her life lemons to meet her boyfriend, while stocking them at the well-known grocer Trader Joes. Lemons are sour just like the way Ms. Kelly describes her hometown in Long Island, New York. She views her hometown as a cold, confining and judgmental place full of lies. A lemon’s skin on the other hand is tough, vibrant, and fun, just as Ms. Kelly describes her new place of residence in Queens, New York. It may be a loud and smelly place; but it is a place of acceptance and community.
Ms. Kelly has a fire burning within her. Her glowing red hair and sparkling blue eyes reflects this and so does her style of design. Through life experiences Ms. Kelly has been uncomfortable and struggling through many situations. Nowadays she has turned her life around and is finding a new spark to keep he fire burning bright, though a passion for interior design and installation artwork. In many of her installation pieces Ms. Kelly strives to make the viewer attain an uncomfortable position to allow them to have a taste of what she felt like though her period of struggle. In the future Ms. Kelly envisions her work to be able to make everyday uncomfortable objects or places, comfortable and accepting to various audiences.
Ms. Kelly is most scared of one intangible thing. Success. She is the youngest of 4 children. All of her siblings have gone on to become successful doctors and business people in a hectic world. Her parents also started out just scraping by, but as time went by, their success and wealth grew to the extent of being able to live in the “cookie-cutter” neighborhood of Rockfell Centre in Long Island. Ms. Kelly wants nothing to do with their success. She wants to be able to create change and integrate transformative design with power and inspiration, but without the fear of letting success get to her head and changing the natural creative beauty that is shown throughout her early work. Her ideal future includes residing in an apartment in Queens, New York with her boyfriend, lots of cats and her dynamic principles of reinventing ‘uncomfortable’ design.
Ms. Kelly is inspired by Indian and African style and design, and would one day love to travel the world to experience cultures like these and integrate their styles into her body of work. Every day she wakes up at 6am takes a train, bus, then subway just to get to her classes, followed by working at Trader Joes after class and on weekends, she forgets the definition of free time. The drive and passion to create stunning pieces of work and to pursue an education at Parsons School of Design ignites Ms. Kelly’s flame every day, striving not for success but for acceptance, change, and inspiration, through pure creative genius.
