In her Revive Artistry studio on Chestnut Street, Kit Alvarado surveys vintage items she has acquired from thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales, and auctions to determine how best to upcycle the pieces into jewelry and other artwork. Displayed on her desk are numerous necklaces she has created. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Artist Kit Alvarado makes it her mission to meld disparate items into harmonious works of art. Here, she has fashioned the image of an eye, using a slide carousel from an old projector, vintage vinyl fabric and lace, yarn, and a polished agate (representing a tear). (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Kit Alvarado shows off the results of one of her recent mixed-media projects, influenced, she says, by her ‘very romantic heart.’ (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
‘I love anything that transports you back to a romantic period of time…pearls and lace and doilies,’ says artist Kit Alvarado. At the heart of this piece is a vintage postcard portraying a young woman pining for her lover who is off at war. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
This statement necklace, created by Kit Alvarado, features cording and elongated beads the artist made from vintage fabric. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
The painting on the left and the earrings displayed on the right are the work of Kit Alvarado. Her Revive Artistry studio is in the Arts Council of Wayne County’s Mount Olive location on Chestnut Street. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
When it comes to materials for her mixed-media artwork, almost nothing is off limits to Kit Alvarado. Scouring thrift stores, yard sales, estate sales and auctions, she is drawn to any- and everything vintage, which is why, on any given day, the desk in her Revive Artistry studio is likely to be strewn with a hodgepodge of doorknobs, slide carousels, fly fishing lures, padlocks and keys, lace, postcards, fabric, religious medallions — even piano keys.
“What I do is vintage upcycling,” explains the 32-year-old artist, who delights in finding “the beauty that is in unassuming places.
“I take vintage pieces that I find from around North Carolina — I try to keep it pretty local — and I take those pieces and I revive them and bring new life into them to get them out of the old, dusty boxes or garages and put them into art and jewelry, something that we can use today.”
Alvarado’s studio is in the Arts Council of Wayne County’s Mount Olive location (easily identifiable by the multi-colored Hippie pig sculpture out front), which is in the First Baptist Church’s education building on Chestnut Street. She divides her time between her studio (where she spends about 10 to 15 hours a week), Goldsboro (where she lives with her six-year-old son), and Clayton (where she works as a licensed massage therapist). “I’m on the road a lot,” she notes.
The limited number of hours she spends in her studio do not reflect how much time she actually spends doing artwork. “I’m always working on something,” she says, noting that it’s not unusual for her to work on a piece while in bed, fall asleep, then wake up and continue where she left off.
While an immediate connection between massage therapy and artwork may not be apparent to everyone, Alvarado insists that, at least for her, it exists. “I am a massage therapist, so I’m very sensitive to energy,” she explains, “and whenever I find a piece, there’s an energetic connection that I have with the piece. Whenever I have it in my hand, I can kind of sense a little bit of its history; I get messages from pieces…And then when I’m creating my pieces, I take that information…and then I bring that into the way that I kind of update it.”
One of the most eye-catching (pun intended) pieces on display in Alvarado’s studio — and one of her personal favorites — is a giant eye, which perfectly exemplifies the joy she gets from “taking things that don’t belong together and finding a way to make harmony with them.” A slide carousel from an old projector forms the pupil and iris, vintage vinyl fabric and lace make up the eyelid and folds around the eye, and strands of yarn stand in for eyelashes. A small, polished agate dangles from one corner representing, according to Alvarado, a tear “to show some emotion, some depth to it.”
Alvarado concentrates many of her endeavors into making jewelry, with some pieces being modest and simple, while others are more elaborate and dramatic, such as a statement necklace she fashioned from cording and elongated beads that she made from vintage fabric and then embellished with pre-made beads. Gesturing toward the various parts of the necklace, she says, “Somehow, they just end up going perfectly together,” before adding, “I allow the pieces to show me what they want to be created into.”
Her art is often influenced by her “very romantic heart. I love anything that just transports you back to a romantic period of time…pearls and lace and doilies.” She conveys this sense of romanticism in a heart-shaped piece, frilly with a collection of numerous vintage laces and faux-pearl adornments. The heart of the piece (yes, another pun!) is an old postcard showing an image of a young woman standing at a window, pining for her lover who is off at war.
Alvarado’s art training has mostly been informal, learning from her mother and grandmother, and, she says, “just tinkering on my own.”
She continues, “Honestly, if I tracked it back, I’ve been doing it since I was a little girl in New Mexico, and I would tie a magnet to the end of a string and walk around the junkyard and just collect all the pieces and just make stuff. It’s always kind of been a passion of mine.”
When describing what conditions she finds most conducive to getting the creative juices flowing, she doesn’t hesitate: “I love loud music and all kinds of music. I think there’s something about just the vibration of music that really uplifts my energy and my spirit when I’m working…I really like some of that groovy stuff, I like EDM [electronic dance music], I like Christian and praise music sometimes, too. It depends on what I’m feeling that day.” She also finds that scents (from incense, for example) “help send me into that space, as well.”
For Alvarado, art is part of a three-prong “layering effect” — that also includes yoga and meditation — that she finds essential to her self-care. “Art helps me feel happy. It helps me have purpose. It helps me feel fulfilled.”
This summer, she is offering a number of classes for teens, ages 13 to 17, on the following dates: June 17 and 19, and July 1, 3, 29, and 31. Classes offered include: mixed media, paper mache, clay sculpture, recycling, and drawing anime. She stresses that her classes will provide “a safe, inclusive space” for all teens, including those in the LGBTQ+ community.
Her goal in working with teens is to help them find their authentic voices. “A piece that I was missing growing up was having somebody to help me be confident in my own voice,” she notes. With teens, she says, “My biggest thing is I want them to know that art comes authentically from you.”
Anyone interested in information about Alvarado’s artwork or classes is encouraged to contact her on Instagram at revive_artistrystudio or by email at jessicaalvarado1991@gmail.com.
