KEVIN WOODSON, is an Oakland artist, writer, and illustrator. He paints flowers in gardens and greenhouses almost every day, and exhibits in Oakland and around the world. He is incorporating flowers into many illustration projects, including The Language of the Flowers, a book of flowers and poems, a calendar of Kevin's Flowers, and an upcoming deck of healing-focused angel cards. In addition to flowers, many of his paintings and stories reflect the community where he lives. He also paints Lake Merritt’s birds, the Mexican circus, and bike comic books. Kevin is a founding partner in the San Francisco based visual communication company, Visual Ink.

Kevin's Flowers

ONLY WHEN PAINTING FLOWERS, Kevin uses the Japanese rendering of his name, shown to the left. Although phonetically it is not exactly ‘Kevin,’ it can roughly be pronounced ‘ke-jin.’ Kevin is grateful to Oakland floral designer, Matthew Matsuyama, and to GIE, a talented florist in Japan, for collaborating to present him this name. The first character, ke, is a homonym for the word ‘flower.’ The second character, jin, is ‘person.’ The combination of characters results in 'Florid Person.' For Kevin, no name could be better. Kevin is the son of European-descended parents, but he is proud to have an Eastern interpretation of his name. It is a name Kevin signs with respect love for the memory of Matthew, will always be a part of Kevin and of every flower.

 

History

KEVIN WAS BORN on a farm in central Illinois in 1969.  His first drawings were of the sheep, pigs, and other farm animals and birds that surrounded his little house in the country.  His love of artwork inspired him to participate in local art fairs as a caricature artist at the young age of 12.  As he grew, he found journalism to be the ideal combination of storytelling and art.  He started out in Illinois at the Daily Vidette drawing a daily political cartoon.  His work as a cartoonist drew him into the editorial board meetings, and into almost every aspect of the newspaper.  Later, working at the Michigan Daily, he broadened his knowledge of print journalism; editing, writing, illustrating and designing for almost every section of the paper.

First traveling out of the country as an exchange student, Kevin spent six months in Nicaragua studying Spanish, participating in community projects, painting murals and writing his undergraduate dissertation.  Upon graduating, Kevin, and carloads of his friends and fellow graduates headed west to San Francisco.

Unlike many after him, Kevin entirely missed the dot.com explosion.  Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, he began working with West Coast artists who believed that artwork was about communication and storytelling.  With these artists who became known as the ‘Visual Practitioners,’ Kevin created large murals for clients all over the world.  Kevin now travels to meetings from Sacramento to the Swiss Alps with rolls of paper and markers to help companies make sense of complex ideas in an inspiring way.  Kevin is still developing this field and honing his talents as a partner in visual communications company, Visual Ink, LLC.

In addition to maintaining his own clients, Kevin reached out to a group of students in the Bay Area public schools.  At Balboa High School in San Francisco, and Fremont High School in Oakland, Kevin volunteered to teach and manage a group of students who formed their own student-business; URBAN Visionary.  Kevin’s students worked with a wide variety of clients across California, from Poway Unified School District to Bayview Toxics Coalition.

Kevin has developed a distinct style as an artist, exhibiting his work in galleries and museums throughout the Bay Area.  When creating a body of work, whether local bands, birds or circuses, Kevin often develops an intimate relationship with his subjects, following them into marshes, and behind the Big Top. 

Kevin chose to study watercolor as a primary medium in the mid-90s, based on his lifelong dream to illustrate children’s books.  As his watercolor style has matured, Kevin has again mixed writing with his artwork.  His first collection of poems appeared at Coyote Point Museum in 2000 in his solo exhibit, Poems in the Air.  He is currently authoring a number of books about birds, circuses and crazy kings.  Look for them in the near future!

Although Kevin had expected his publishing work and his business would be separate, his first two books, World Café, and Virtuoso Teams were published based on close working relationships Kevin developed with, Juanita Brown, Dr. Andy Boynton, and Dr. Bill Fischer.  Kevin is delighted that his business colleagues have been ‘marquees’ for his dreams.