Miniature Conversation with KCAI Admissions Counselor Kendall Bolden
10.01.2024
As a recent hire to the admissions team at the Kansas City Art Institute, Bolden is tasked with meeting prospective students and assessing their portfolios.
She uses that same analysis in her own work - crafting mysterious and dreamlike settings that set up big questions on a tiny scale.
Kendall Bolden has inherited 30 different sets of tweezers. So far.
Using her accumulated tools, Bolden creates her miniatures: tiny settings and scenarios worth close examination. She works quietly. It’s an ambience contrasting with what she witnessed growing up - her father blaring the cooking channel while putting together his model airplanes.
"He's done it forever but while he mostly does airplanes. For me, I do scenes - scenes that have an open-ended narrative," Bolden says. "Kind of like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book."
Bolden - an Admissions Counselor for the Kansas City Art Institute - refers to her inner-Agatha Christie while creating her pieces. That includes one soon-to-appear in an exhibition at the National Museum of Toys & Miniatures.
Local Artists Go Miniature (Oct. 26, 2024 - June 9, 2025) constrains Bolden's work (as well as a number of other featured KCAI alumni) to a 12x12x12" cube of space. Using the minute real estate, she deliberately lays out her details: petite set dressing inviting observers to ask (and perhaps uneasily answer) questions about what happened at that spot.
"For me, I do scenes - scenes that have an open-ended narrative. Kind of like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book."
Kendall Bolden, I muddled your sense so you can't leave
She recalls one of her past pieces that featured a trail of water on the floor with the effect of water created by resin. Tiny footprints led to a backdoor. Notably absent from all of her miniatures are any human figures.
"I integrate a lot of dream and sleep-like qualities in my art. There's many different options of what may be happening," Bolden says. "Miniatures are designed for viewers to get close to it. You're forcing the viewer to look closer and find something."
When it comes to that kind of analysis - it's also a part of her job.
As a recent hire to the admissions team at the Kansas City Art Institute, Bolden is tasked with meeting prospective students and assessing their portfolios. Mainly, she's identifying strengths as well as areas for growth - trying to determine if KCAI is the right place for the student.
"A lot of times I like to see students' sketchbooks - getting to see how their minds work getting from Point A to Point B," she says. "When you find a student who is passionate - the student who not only does the assignments but also wants creative freedom - those are the students who really shine."
Bolden herself got similar feedback before she transferred to KCAI from a community college. Originally, she had plans to pursue a culinary education. That was before she realized how much she disliked cooking for other people.
"A lot of times I like to see students' sketchbooks - getting to see how their minds work getting from Point A to Point B
Kendall Bolden with her art
She made some changes and developed her portfolio. After a positive experience at a National Portfolio Day event, she made the switch into KCAI's Sculpture program.
Now working at the school, she still makes it a priority to set aside time in her home-studio to create her miniatures ("It's important to have a schedule," she says). She never uses hot glue, instead relying on super glue and patience.
"I'm not a perfectionist outside of my artwork," she says. "But as an artist I tell myself 'This has to make sense.'"
"I love being behind the scenes. Like, I would be the stage-hand in a theater show. And now that I'm back at KCAI, I get to go into all the areas that I couldn't as a student," she says, with tweezers to spare.