From Fashion to Fine Art: Kimberli Esther’s Artistic Journey

Although Kimberli Esther spent most of her career in the New York City fashion industry, she left that world behind.

In this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories., Kimberli shares how she now uses art to express and share her love for Jesus Christ.

Discover how art can be a powerful tool for evangelism and worship in the second episode of our series, “Creating for the Creator.”

Read more of Kimberli’s journey and view her art on her website, KimberliEstherArt.com, and her blog, SimplyMomvelous.com.

Connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or on Billy Graham Radio on Facebook.

Transcript

Kimberli Esther:
00:00:00 The fashion industry can be rough. I've had friends have staplers thrown at their heads, like three-hole punch, like not the little three-hole punch, but the giant one.

MUSIC STARTS

Jim Kirkland: Kimberli Esther worked in the relentless fashion industry in New York City. It was like living in a real-life version of the movie, The Devil Wears Prada.

Kimberli:
00:00:22 You were judged on your outfits even though you were in design and you were creating the fashion. If you didn't wear the right thing or have your hair the right way or wear the most in-style boots, you were judged. It was almost like a mark against your quality of work if you weren't properly coiffed.

Jim: This is the second episode of our five-part series, “Creating for the Creator.” You’re going to hear how Kimberli Esther traded fashion for fine art and how she uses it as a medium to express her love for God. I’m Jim Kirkland.

Michael Shurbutt: And I’m Michael Shurbutt. This is GPS: God. People. Stories., an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Jim: Kimberli paints to show the hope of Jesus Christ to our world. Billy Graham often talked about how much the world needs the hope Christ brings.

Billy Graham: 00:01:17 Ours seems to be a hopeless world. You read your newspapers or read the news magazines this week, watch the television. It's almost hopeless in some parts of the world.

Michael: You’ll hear more from Billy Graham later on. If you’re looking for hope right now, you can find answers on our website, FindPeaceWithGod.net. It’s a safe place to ask questions about Christianity, hope, and meaning. That’s at FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Jim: And a quick reminder. Make sure you don’t miss out on the rest of the episodes in this series; subscribe to GPS on your favorite podcasting app. Just search for GPS, the full name: GPS: God. People. Stories., and click “subscribe.”

 Intro: GPS: God. People. Stories.

Kimberli:
00:02:07 My name is Kimberli Spolar, and I am a wife, a mother, artist. For my painting name, I use Kimberli Esther. My parents didn't give me a middle name, and my children were incensed that I didn't have a middle name, so they decided to give me one. And they look at their mommy as an Esther making an impact for the kingdom of God. I look at myself a little more like a Martha mixed with a Sarah. [laugh] A little impatient, a little busy, but I went with Esther, so I sign my paintings as Kimberli Esther.

Jim: Kimberli Esther spent a great deal of her childhood in and around New York City.

Kimberli:
00:02:57 I grew up in New Jersey—most of my growing up time was spent in New Jersey. It was, I guess, your typical suburban experience. We lived about 45 minutes outside of New York City. I had one sister; we were very close, 15 months apart. We danced competitively, so we were in New York City for master classes and studying under famous dancers. But it was pretty typical: We had a dog [chuckle]—mom, dad, two children, dog [laugh].

 Michael: Kimberli’s upbringing gave her a lot of exposure to the arts. And while her sister was excelling in gifted academic programs, Kimberli found a way to develop her own passion for creativity.

Kimberli:
00:03:48 They pulled my sister out for everything gifted, including art. And I desired greatly to be in that art class, but they never chose me. My sister would have art supplies in her room. I would sneak in and take them and do art, but no one really knew. And so I grew up with that art and loving it, and then being a dancer, just really like exploring a lot of the arts. So that gave me a love for all art.

Michael: There was one artistic activity in particular that made an especially strong impression on Kimberli.

Kimberli:
00:04:28 I had fashion plates. I don't know if you remember what those are. Like, they're these little sort of molds where you take a colored pencil and you run it over the mold and it makes this little fashion figure. So I loved fashion plates. I thought those were amazing.

Jim: Kimberli’s dad remembered her love for fashion when she was about to graduate high school.

Kimberli:
00:04:53 At that time I wanted to be on radio or to be a newscaster, so I was thinking I would study communications. And he sort of said, I think that you should go into fashion design because it's easier to make a living [laugh], and suggested a school in New York.

Jim: While she was in high school, Kimberli was drawn to the local Young Life group and attended meetings of the FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) at her school.

Michael: And this was her only real exposure to Christianity, because there wasn’t a lot of religious conversation happening at home.

Kimberli:
00:05:35 My father was an atheist. My mother was a non-practicing Baptist. So they had decided together to raise us with no religion, and when I was going to Young Life and FCA, that's when I prayed to receive Christ. I was baptized on my 18th birthday right before I went to New York. I have a friend, who's a pastor now, and he said, “You are going to go to New York City and put out Hell with a garden hose.” [laugh]

Michael: It wasn’t easy for Kimberli to keep her faith in college. Surrounded by the culture of the city and her art school, she struggled for a while.

Kimberli:
00:06:16 After two years of kind of trying to live without the Lord, one day I just—we were in drawing class­­—I put my head on my easel, and I just was like, “Oh, I gotta go back to church,” because I was just so worn out from running hard after culture and running hard after everything that culture promised. And it so happened the girl at the easel next to me says, “Me too.”

Jim: Right when and where she needed, Kimberli was able to connect with a community of believers through a local church and Bible study. 

Kimberli: 00:06:54 We had a great Bible study community group. So, I did a lot of church and my faith was really refined there in the refiner’s fire [laugh], which was absolutely New York and the fashion industry, but I found a sweet, sweet Christian community that I still adore and love, and I'm still in contact with a lot of them.

Jim: Faith wasn’t the only thing Kimberli struggled with in college. As it turns out, art school was pretty pricey and she needed to bring in some extra income.

Kimberli:
00:07:31 Because I needed to pay for school, I decided to take my sophomore year off and worked as a paid intern for Liz Claiborne. And they had me immediately in their collection in knitwear. I knew nothing about knitwear. Basically anything I did in the fashion industry went towards my supplies, my books, my paints, my fabric, my tuition, all of that.

Michael: Even taking time off school and working on the side, Kimberli was living the life of a “starving artist.”

Kimberli:
00:08:06 I used to scramble, go through my purses and my pockets for $1.10, and that would buy me a bagel and a cup of coffee, because I spent so much on fabric, thread, needles, and paints, and paper, and canvases, and all of—because you had to do it all. So I, for at least a solid two years, maybe three, I survived on two bagels and two cups of coffee a day. And then I would have dinner at the house where I was nannying.

Michael: But Kimberli’s hard work paid off. When she graduated, she had great job offers lined up—from some very notable companies.

Kimberli:
00:08:47 Once I was through with school, I wanted to go a little bigger and I could be a designer. I had a lot of offers. I had an offer from Nike. I had an offer from The Limited. I had tons of offers for a real design position because I had done all that while I was in school. And so, I went to work for Isaac Mizrahi, and that was eye-opening. [laugh]

Jim: Isaac Mizrahi  is a high-end, or couture, fashion designer who’s also known more recently from his appearance as a judge on the TV show “Project Runway.”

Michael: Eventually, Kimberli became a freelance fashion designer. That gave her the opportunity to work for a number of major companies. 

Jim: As it turns out, the way the fashion industry is characterized in TV and movies is not too far removed from reality.

Kimberli:
00:09:39 I've had friends have staplers thrown at their heads, like three-hole punch, like not the little three-hole punch, but the giant one, like hoisted over their head, and luckily in the wall behind them. The fashion industry can be rough. You were judged on your outfits even though you were in design and you were creating the fashion. If you didn't wear the right thing or have your hair the right way or wear the most in-style boots, you were judged. It was almost like a mark against your quality of work if you weren't properly coiffed.

Jim: Kimberli worked freelance for a number of years and, during that time, met her husband-to-be in church.

Michael: Her journey to the painted world is a long and winding path … and it began on September 11, 2001.

Kimberli:
00:10:38 My husband and I were both in New York, and I was on the subway, but a woman got on and everybody thought she was crazy—cuz crazy people get on the subway all the time in New York, all the time—and so she gets on and says, a helicopter hit the Trade Center and if you're going down near there, you need to get off now. And I looked around and people were clearly like, she's crazy. She's just lost it. Cuz no one knew at this point what it even was. And so I thought, and I prayed, and I was like, “OK, if there's even like an inkling of truth in that I'm getting off.” And so I got off at that stop and walked the rest of the way to work. I was on 7th Avenue, so it wasn't really close, but my train was that on that line that went down.

Michael: Kimberli was out of harm’s way that day, but as news of what was happening spread, she became terrified for her husband.

 Kimberli:
00:11:35 My husband was due in New York at any minute. He was on a plane flying in. I had only been married three months.

 Jim: Thankfully, her husband arrived safely on that tragic day. 

 Michael: They were shaken from the event and decided it was time to move away from New York City. 

 Jim: The place they chose to settle down was a cottage home Kimberli bought before their marriage; it was close to Washington, D.C.

Kimberli:
00:11:59 We thought D.C. would be a big change. Like I was commuting from D.C. to New York. I was staying in my country house during the week, our country house at that point, and I would commute into the city and then on weekends, I would go to D.C. and that was just too much.

Jim: So, Kimberli made the decision to leave the fashion industry to work closer to home. It meant she and her husband could start a family.

Kimberli:
00:12:22 And from the moment my daughter was born, I was trying to go back to work, [laugh] and 17 years later, I still haven't had an actual job, job [laugh]. So, having a paycheck was validation and having people love your work was validation. So, scraping goo off the highchair [laugh] was not validation. So, I was seeking something for validation.

Michael: She was torn between her career and motherhood, and spent the next few years experimenting in a number of different entrepreneurial ventures. Her family would move again to where they currently live near Charlotte, North Carolina.

Kimberli:
00:13:14 And to fund my entrepreneurial addiction, [laugh] I decided to have a—like one of those estate sale, people come in and look at my family heirlooms and things like that.

Michael: A woman at the estate sale saw something in Kimberli’s home that caught her eye. It wasn’t one of those family heirlooms Kimberli mentioned, but a painting she recently made at a local class with some friends.

Kimberli:
00:13:46 The estate sale woman said, “What about that?” And pointed to my picture on the wall, and she told me I should think about painting. And, I really was like, “Ha ha ha ha­—painting. I haven't painted; I haven't done fine arts since my freshman year in college. I can't paint. I'm not an artist, I'm a designer.”

Jim: Despite her initial hesitation and disbelief that she could be an artist, Kimberli became convinced otherwise, through a hurricane in Charlotte and a sale at the art supply store, Michael's.

Kimberli:
00:14:23 I still don't really know why I was always trying to run from that, but there was something about it that I just didn't see myself in that way. So when the estate sale woman said, you should consider that, I was like, “Hmm, no, [laugh] no.” And then we had a hurricane in Charlotte and it was supposed to be this major hurricane. So, I was like, well—I looked and saw that Michaels had a sale on canvases and paint. So in our hurricane prep, I sent my husband to Michaels [laugh] to grab some canvases and some paint.

Jim: Hunkered down for Hurricane Florence with paint and canvases at the ready, Kimberli got to painting.

Kimberli:
00:15:07 I had a picture that I had taken in a farmer's market of some mushrooms and, like the most, I thought, just gorgeous colors and shadows, and to me it was a beautiful picture. So I decided to paint these mushrooms, and my husband immediately, he saw my first painting, he was like, “Wow, you're talented.” [laugh] “You should make a business of this.”

Michael: Kimberli casually posted her mushroom painting online to show to friends and family. Soon, it wasn’t just her husband encouraging her to go into business with her paintings.

Kimberli:
00:15:45 I posted the picture of the mushrooms, I immediately got people saying, “I wanna buy those.” Next thing you know, I'm finding how to make an art contract, and how do you register a painting and is there a registry?

Michael: And so, Kimberli Spolar’s career as an artist began under the name Kimberli Esther.

Jim: Today, she gathers inspiration from all over nature—not just mushrooms. 

Kimberli:
00:16:12 I do a lot of live oaks in, sort of, South Carolina. Those, for some reason, I feel so drawn to live oaks and I don't know what it is because they're sort of creepy looking, but I just love them. So I do a lot of live oaks, a lot of trees and flowers. But I also love, like light, when light hits something a certain way, I just feel like it's all, sort of, nature, and it’s God's little gifts to us to see things in a different way. I believe that God absolutely—His glory is proclaimed through nature, and that He's the Creator and He is the ultimate Artist.

Jim: Kimberli also draws inspiration from Christian music and from Scripture.

Kimberli:
00:17:06 I have some Scriptures that when I read them, I think, I have to paint this. And so Psalm 1, I did a ginormous tree planted by the water. Ephesians 6, the full armor of God. I've done a full armor of God that actually sits in my kitchen right now. And I've written out the Scripture under the canvas and painted over it. There's certain Scriptures that I feel like I have to paint—and that's a lot of my abstracts will come out of, like, I'll be listening to Christian music and I will just feel like I need to paint.

Michael: Nature, Scriptures, music—all glorifying God. There’s an inherent light to the things that point us to God—and a darkness in the things that don’t. 

Kimberli:
00:17:57 I saw this a lot in the fashion industry as well. Darkness is revered. It's almost­—depression is glorified. Getting into that “dark artist space” in your mind and in what you create is very much like, thought of as the ultimate of being an artist. And I don't think this is what God wants. I don't think that He wants me to dwell in darkness. So I do see sometimes artists—that their paintings are beautiful, stunning, they have tons of talent, but I'll notice certain shadows or certain colors they use or a certain like icon in our culture, and it's supposed to be painted as like, cool and edgy, but I'll literally look at it and feel that darkness.

Michael: That’s not what Kimberli wants people to feel when they look at her art.

Kimberli:
00:19:06 We're creating art to draw people to the Lord, or draw people to the Scriptures, or draw people into a place where they can explore the Scriptures or can see the Lord more. And so, our creation of art is for the eternal reality, rather than something that's just going to be here. And that the conventional, not conventional artist, but non-Christian artist would be, “I can make a mark in this world that stays forever.” So it's that idea of building your kingdom here and your kingdom that will last forever here, that they think it will last forever, than building something in a Person that will live on for eternity—and that's our hope, that the Lord would use us for that, because that's the most important, is that someone would be drawn to the Lord because of what we do.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: Kimberli Esther is inspired and driven to create works of art that glorify God and point people to His goodness. This isn’t because it just makes for pretty artwork—it does, but it’s because she lives a life changed and impacted by the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

Michael: If you’d like to know more about Jesus, we hope you’ll visit our website, FindPeaceWithGod.net, today. It’s a safe space to ask spiritual questions and find out how knowing Jesus can change your life. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. 

Jim: You’re about to hear a quick word from Billy Graham, and then Kimberli will be back with what she believes is the most important part of pursuing art as a believer in Jesus.

Voiceover: You’re listening to GPS: God. People. Stories., a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

MUSIC STARTS

Billy Graham:
00:21:15 The whole world is looking for hope. Ours seems to be a hopeless world.
Voiceover: Billy Graham …

Billy Graham:
00:21:24 You read your newspapers or read the news magazines this week, watch the television. It's almost hopeless in some parts of the world. It's ironic that in our frenzied attempts to achieve happiness, people are finding everything but happiness. Our hope centers in a Person. The New Testament is full of hope and expectancy: “For our hope is in Heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” There's nothing hopeless about our future if we're in Christ. There's nothing but joy and gladness and encouragement and excitement as we look to the future. Do you have that hope? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.”

Jim: If you find yourself feeling hopeless, let’s end that today. Will you call us, please? We have a 24-hour prayer line that’s available to you anytime, including right now: 855-255-PRAY. That’s 855-255-7729. 855-255-7729.

Michael: You’ve been hearing from Kimberli Esther, a Christian painter who uses her artwork to glorify God and point people to His goodness. If Kimberli’s story has inspired you to create some artwork of your own, she has some advice.

Kimberli:
00:22:49 I think that going into art as a Christian, it is like anything in the arts, any artistic pursuit­, it can be hard. For the new Christian artist, pray, pray, pray, be in the Scriptures, but prayer is the, I think, the most essential. And, really like taking that time to sit back, listen to the Holy Spirit. I think if we're not praying in step with the Lord, then how do we know if it's us or if it's Him?

Michael: You can find more about Kimberli and see her work by visiting her website at KimberliEstherArt.com, and that’s Kimberli with an “i.” We’ll also provide a link to the site in the show notes. 

Jim: We’d like to thank Kimberli Esther for sharing her story with us. And, a reminder, we have three more episodes coming up this month in our series, “Creating for the Creator.” To make sure you don’t miss any of them, subscribe to GPS: God. People. Stories. on your favorite podcasting app. I’m Jim Kirkland.

MUSIC STARTS

Michael: And I’m Michael Shurbutt. This is GPS. God. People. Stories. It’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—Always Good News.

CLOSING MUSIC

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