The Ever-Exuberant Artist

April 2025, by Diane Sulg

If you want to meet an indominable artist, look no further than Kimberly Dawn Crowder. She is exuberant, loving, and extremely devoted to her art — practicing it every single day. 

Kimberly’s grandfather was a renowned designer whose furniture was featured in the Sunsphere at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a small child, she loved visiting his studio and sketched with him there and on trips to the beach. 

While crediting her grandfather’s influence, Kimberly notes she is not as patient with her art. She loves to paint big, in bright colors, and with expansive brush strokes. 

As a young mother, she sold paintings on scrap wood, so she could take her daughter to Walt Disney World. Luckily, she also met Howard Finster. The late Baptist minister and folk artist took Kimberly under his wings. 

She began showing her work at his events at Paradise Gardens. There she met a community of like-minded folk artists who lived simply but oh, so creatively. 

As an untrained folk artist living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Kimberly painted scenes from her everyday life. So, there were many beach scenes, young children, and everyday objects like cars and nature. 

She said yes to a lot of things. She was a dancer and a gymnast and would paint live at Coastal Carolina music concerts. 

Kimberly painted with monkeys at their habitat on Morgan Island. She covered a large Volkswagen bus from top to toe with bright colored artwork and painted a small VW bug with bright flowers. 

And it was not always about painting for Kimberly. She made sculptures from all sorts of found objects like the one I own — a full-size dress she made from old candy wrappers! 

Saving was a way of life for her, so she made tons of art incorporating old jewelry, fabric scraps, and assorted papers — collaged to make one-of-a-kind artwork. When a board member of the House of Blues in Chicago bought 13 of her paintings to display there, Kimberly realized she had a career. 

She began selling her work at art fairs throughout the South and became sought after by galleries, shops, and restaurants. Always game for a new experience, Kimberly has had sponsors who flew her to places like Hawaii to paint its renowned surfers. 

Kimberly reminiscences that for about 30 years, she painted her own stories in a quest to find herself. In the last 10 years, she has been soulfully searching to blend aspects of her own life, such as her yoga practice, meditation, art, and travel into a single cohesive expression. 

She begins every day with meditation and says clearing her mind makes creating easy, so she paints without limitations. She has developed a keen sense of fun, and her paintings often capture the absurd like a chameleon climbing out of a martini glass. Her work can be found at Jeanine Taylor Folk Art (jtfolkart.com/kimberly-dawn-crowder). 

Kimberly travels to faraway places like Rio de Janeiro, where she painted contemporary city scenes. At the Eiffel Tower in Paris, she did performance art before an audience and painted with hot molten glass on ceramic paper. 

Words have become extremely important to Kimberly and are incorporated into much of her present-day art. She wants to encourage others to make art by discovering what is most real and important to them. 

She finds that when you paint a part of yourself, it resonates with someone else. And in the end, that is what both sells your art and truly makes you a meaningful, real artist. 

Diane Sulg is executive director of CRAFT and founder & co-chair of American Craft Week (ACW). She is a handmade advocate who provides valuable information in her one-day seminars at wholesale shows throughout the United States. She can be reached at dianesulg@gmail.com.