Introducing: The Artist's Fingerprint

As many of you know, I have been an artist ever since I could hold a crayon. Passion, engagement, and investment in the arts are as much a part of me as my red hair. I have embraced the platform of investing in the arts as my personal mission both in and out of pageantry.

This year, I would like to introduce to you my official platform that I will take to Miss Kansas as well as across our great state in communities and schools.

I have talked about the artist's fingerprint as I have traveled across Kansas as an advocate for the arts, but I'm not sure I've ever quite put it in to writing... If you will take a moment with me and look around you -- what do you see around you that you recognize as "art"?

Did you note whatever you may be sitting on? Or the building you're in? What about the font that you are reading right now?

It is my mission to change the way people think about art.

Every piece of technology, clothing, architecture, advertisement, and media form (I could go on!) that is around you has gone through the hands of an artist. We are amidst the birth of creative entrepreneurs where the definition of what it means to be an artist is changing at an astonishing rate. The fingerprint of creative thinkers is being left on our world in more ways than you and I could even imagine.

In order to continue to be a global competitor in creation and innovation, our nation must invest in creativity early. This means art in schools. While some may see a child playing with paint and tooting away on recorders - I see these children expressing themselves in the most honest form possible. I see students exploring their humanity and their emotions with empathy and freedom. In the arts, there is not just one answer - in fact, there is not even a right answer. Children are taught to engage in problem solving to create melodies and shapes and movements to compose pieces of art that express so much more than their face value would suggest. It's this kind of creative thinking that will encourage our youth to seek out new answers for the problems that face our world.

With the Every Student Succeeds Act, the arts are validated as part of a well rounded education. With over $50 million being cut from education in Kansas alone over the past two years, and lacking any matching federal arts funding on top of that, we need to work harder than ever to provide arts education and creative outlets for our students and communities.

Everyone can access creativity in some way - If you can move, then you can dance. If you can make a sound, then you can make music. If you can create a mark, then you can paint. If you can see or feel or hear, then you can experience. Experiencing creativity is the priority.

I believe we are all life long learners. Adults crave the arts education we had as children. We know innately that arts provide a connection to friends and family, to community, to ourselves, and ultimately to the world. The arts have immense social impact. They are life changing. They touch us on an emotional and functional level.

So now it falls upon us to cultivate an environment where our children can have this same understanding and experience of the value of arts on our world.  I have the amazing opportunity not only to connect people with the arts, but also to each other. I am engaging a community of creative change agents to be a driving force in creativity and innovation within their fields.

By investing in the arts today, we are creating master artists, innovators, and classics of tomorrow.

Join me in recognizing the artist's fingerprint that is intrinsically tangible throughout our world. Pledge with me to actively engage and invest in the arts in our Kansas communities so as to provide a better future for us all.

-Annika Wooton

Miss Kingman County 2017

The Versatility of Paint

When I step foot onstage on June 7th to perform my talent, I am representing much more than just myself.

The decision to present "speed painting" as my talent for that portion of the competition at the Miss Kansas pageant was made 3 years ago, two years after the first time I had attempted speed painting at all during a high school assembly with our jazz band.

What I want to convey to you is the application of speed painting in the real world, the vast amount of preparation and work that goes in to this kind of talent, and the circle of people surrounding me that have been imperative in the success of bringing speed painting to the Miss Kansas stage.

When not speed painting in the Miss Kansas competition, I am a full-time student at the University of Kansas studying illustration as well as a student manager at the largest dining hall on campus. I have used some of the ideas and techniques learned in my studios to lend themselves to coming up with compositions, color combinations and subject matter for my performances. However the live painting is not limited to the 90 second competition piece. I have been invited to paint at 14 individual events since the fall semester began in three different states, completing over 20 paintings that have been donated to the event or organization to then be auctioned off for charity or kept in the schools that I spoke to. To have the gift of painting innately in my fingertips and then explored and developed so that I can present it many different ways to a variety of audiences sparks a wonderful conversation of the importance of art and creativity in our society today.

Not only can the art I do be translated to live painting performances, but I am able to donate my more meditated work to auctions for causes I care about. I can take coloring books - for both children and young adults, alike - into the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and connect with them while we engage in the act of simply coloring together - making genuine connections through a commonality that we all share as a human race - the need for self expression, which often can be attained through some kind of art.

The moment the music starts and my brushes start whirring and the clock is counting down is the most anticipated moment of the competition for me. The gears in my head started turning for this year's concept the day after Miss Kansas last year. Since then, I have collaborated with more people than I can count to come up with the image and performance I will present in less than 20 days. I have a team that stretches from Virginia to West Virginia to Tennessee to Missouri to New Mexico to Kansas - creative minds giving me feedback and ideas to help further my success on this road less followed.

While most talents on the Miss Kansas stage can be coached by a dance teacher, a vocal coach, or a music instructor...who coaches speed painting? I was incredibly fortunate this year to be able to meet up with Mike Debus - a performance painter from Overland Park, Kansas. As it turns out, he also studied illustration at KU and had some of my same instructors. Mike patiently listened as I explained my concept and gave me some tips and advice that has helped me jump a few hurdles before I even got to them. I am so thankful I was able to connect with Mike and pick his brain because there are so few of us who do what we do, and it was so cool to find someone in my area who not only "gets it", but also does it professionally.

So normally after Miss Kansas, I write a blog that picks apart the entire process I've gone through to come to the final product of the painting performance, complete with pictures. I'll probably do that again this year, but for the sake of trying to explain this whole process but also not reveal anything, I will give a "brief" overview:

Ideas are tossed around, generally between me and my dad, of subject matter - what will appeal to the audience, is something I'm interested in painting, and am capable of painting in 90 seconds? Okay next, what am I going to paint on? Glass? Canvas? Paper? What kind of easel or contraption? Last year's allowed me to paint while facing the audience and in three separate pieces. I work with a man named Cotter in the shop at KU's art building to fabricate these monstrous tools to help present my painting in the best way possible. Next is music, I'm lucky to know a few people who can masterfully edit tracks to cut to time or rearrange to have awesome musical embellishments that compliment my work. A lot of it from there on out is mental - listening to the music over and over again, figuring out what will be painted at what time, sketching to make sure I have the best composition and best image for my concept, and coming up with choreographed moments to engage with the audience. Don't even get me started on costuming...! Finally, the best and most stressful part is putting it all together. Once exams are done and my priority is no longer my school work, I have a few weeks to make this really happen. And imagine, too, I can't paint it over and over, back to back. I do a run, wait for it to dry, paint it basic again, wait for it to dry, then I can finally do another run. This gives me time to carefully assess how to improve each time but also consumes a lot of time (and paint).

Then I perform and deliver.

I mentioned the people that I work with a little bit in that last section, but I want to emphasize the importance of the circle of people I am surrounded by who truly push me to the standard I hold myself to today.

I'm thankful for the connections I've made that have allowed me to push myself further and further each year. Teachers from high school have turned into some of my best friends and continue to encourage me and throw new ideas my way. Current professors and faculty in the art school at KU express interest in what I'm doing, going as far to help me build whole crazy easels. My local directors are a vital support system - my ultimate cheerleaders the entire way. My brother is my best and worst critique, telling me sometimes what I already know but I really need to hear, giving me the cold hard truth, but also giving out high fives when awesome things happen. Several other mentors and friends have given me their time and thoughts all with the supportive nod that they support what I do and what I stand for.

As I embark through Miss Kansas week and get ready to present the next big speed painting performance in just a handful of days, I can't tell you how excited I am. I can say in complete certainty that I have loved this year's journey, but I am SO excited about the destination and the performance that you all will see. It's been so hard to contain myself the past week as major improvements and realizations have been made, but it will all come to fruition June 7th, and hopefully again on June 11th, on the Miss Kansas stage. I hope to see you there.

- Annika Wooton
Artist and Speed Painter
Miss Wooded Hills 2016

Tickets for Miss Kansas available at the following link:
http://misskansas.org/miss/miss-kansas/ticket-sales.html

Four States in Six Days

A couple weeks ago I was even busier than my normal schedule. I touched ground in four states in six days.

Early Friday morning I got on a plane to head to Plant City, Florida with a pit-stop in North Carolina to be with Plant City's First Baptist Church for Holy Weekend. As I landed around noon in Florida, the expected sunshine was missing and instead there was a torrential downpour. But it was still way warmer than the 32 degree climate that I had left behind in Kansas!

The worship pastor and friend of mine, Ken, picked me up at the airport with his son, Ashton. I was immediately welcomed into the Plant City community and made to feel at home. Throughout the weekend, I did a live painting Friday night for the Good Friday service, as well as paintings for Easter services Saturday evening and Sunday morning before hopping on a plane back home to Kansas.

When I do live painting gigs, I get to meet new people and communities. The people in Plant City embraced me with open arms. I so enjoyed talking to the different families and people who I was performing with onstage, riding in their car as they volunteered to drive me to the church, or those who came up after the service to meet me and talk further about my art. I truly had so many connections and meaningful conversations, it's hard to believe I was only down there for less than three days!

One of my favorite things after I do live paintings is hearing what people see in the paintings before the reveal or how my art had an impact on them. The congregation was so receptive of my addition of live painting to the worship service and many had stories to tell of their experience with the arts.

I came back from Florida feeling refreshed and full of joy and love. Then I had less than 24 hours - which happened to be my birthday - to finish and turn in two projects and sit through critiques before I turned around and drove out to St. Louis for ShutterFest 2016.

As I arrived to the hotel room that already had four people scattered about on Monday night, I had no idea what I should expect for the following two days.

ShutterFest is an UN-Conference that is "about growing as an artist and being around like-minded people who share the same love and passion" for photography. With Union Station as the stomping grounds, there were classes and sessions with peers and leading professional photographers and educators as well as spontaneous and scheduled shoots of all kinds.

I was there as a model and was chosen to model for two classes on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. One was a fashion hacks class and the other was Dark Arts - both taught by photographer, Sarah Clements. I was styled for the first class in a red curtain for a dress, poinsettia flowers in my hair, and makeup completely done with just a tube of lipstick. For the Dark Arts class, I got to levitate. For both classes, a group of maybe 30 photographers were there to learn from Sarah and make cool pictures.

Aside from the two classes, I popped in and out of the hotel room that was cluttered with wardrobe, wigs and makeup, changing outfits and went back and forth to Union Station to connect with photographers. From morning till night, I networked and met so many creatives and made tons cool pictures on the fly.

It was energizing too be completely surrounded by likeminded creative people in this surreal hub; To be creating and improvising and not knowing who you were working with next was truly invigorating.  I made genuine connections with photographers from California, Missouri, New York, Virginia, Colorado, and probably more that I'm not even aware of. I made new friends. And I made some killer photos with really talented people.

Part of me was sad when I returned to Lawrence only to go right back to work at the dining hall in my hairnet and scrubs, but most of me was so thankful for those 6 days where I was reminded in Florida of the innate impact art can have on people and where I was fully immersed in the creative soul in St. Louis.

Looking forward to my next creative adventure,

Annika Wooton

Miss Wooded Hills 2016

Creative Sprint

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to listen to a guest artist speak of a group of us from the Design School at KU. His name is Noah Scalin, and he challenged me to do a creative sprint.

Noah pioneered a 365 day challenge for himself where he made a skull per day out of anything he could think of and get his hands on. This creative practice went viral. From his experiences in the art world and after completing a year of making a unique skull every single day, he has issued the #CreativeSprint art game challenge to anyone who is willing to accept.

So what is it? It's literally a global art game for anyone to join in on. "It engages a diverse group of individuals, businesses, schools and community organizations in 30 consecutive days of making and sharing," as it says on the website - creativesprint.co .

I've chosen the theme of circles to explore for my creative sprint.

To me, circles are pretty magical.

There's the thing where it's a never ending line representing infinity... or how people say, "if you love someone, put their name in a circle, not a heart, because hearts break and circles go on forever."... or circles of learning and circles of influence and the circle of communities that we are inevitably a part of.

That last thing - community - is a circle I am very fond of. I recognize very thoroughly that my success and progress in any field I am involved in is directly attributed to the communities who have invested in me and my passions. Equally, I made the active decision many times to engage with those who were investing in me so that I could learn as much as possible and also gain friends, mentors, and collaborators. I continually remind myself how thankful I am for the people I choose to surround myself with and think of ways I can use my talents to give back to them as well.

I am determined to be a life long learner and creator and to keep expanding my circles and the circle of influence I have among those I come in contact with.

Back to the Creative Sprint - I challenged myself to photograph circles that are innately around us in nature, architecture, design...anything. The circle as a tool of design is influential in its own right. So while I open my eyes to absorb and share the circles I find as I go through these 30 days, they will serve as reminders and thought provokers on how I can expand and utilize the circles and communities I am a part of through innovation, creativity, and fellowship.

Follow my art Instagram page to keep up with my Creative Sprint and follow the #CreativeSprint hashtag on different social medias to see what other people are doing. If you want to start your own sprint, sign up and join us on their website!

- Annika 

Miss Wooded Hills