Except you.
Whether it’s far from home or just far from comfort, I recognize and honor whatever journey you’re coming home from. My paintings continuously reveal themselves to you each time...
Because you’re never the same person that you were before leaving home.
And boy do I know a thing or two about that!
Sit a spell and I’ll tell you about how risk, a 9000-ton piece of steel, and a hurricane made me a better artist.
But first…
Hey friend, welcome!
I’m Kristin Cronic, a painter from Jacksonville, Florida, wife, mother, and Navy Veteran.
When I’m not adding to my restaurant t-shirt collection, practicing my chocolate-a-day ritual, or thanking the heavens for my husband’s baking obsession (so many praise hand emojis), I can be found hanging out with my two kids or prolifically painting to Camila, Taylor, or the Bachelor.
I’ve been an artist from a very early age. I guess my mother realized this when she discovered I’d been using the carpeting in my room as a sketchbook and occasional paintbrush cleaner.
The marks I made years ago are still there today, waiting to be covered by my kids’ marks at some point.
I adore falling in love and allowing myself to feel obsessed with my subject matter, exploring it with avid curiosity and channeling inspiration’s expression with fervor until everything that needs to be said is said.
Before I know it, a collection arises, the theme reveals itself, and I’m not totally sure if I was really in the studio while it happened.
WITH BRUSHES AND PAINT AS MY INSTRUMENTS, I BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN OUR SOULS AND INSPIRATION.
But it was a long road that brought me here…
CALLED to SERVE
While I hoped to be an artist someday, I had many other dreams as well. When I was graduating high school, I realized one of them was the now or never kind, so I accepted an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Weeks after commissioning as an Ensign, I found myself driving a 9,000 ton warship and with more responsibility than many see in an entire lifetime.
DAYS in the BIG BLUE
I spent long, hard days in the confines of a ship in the middle of oceans around the world, for months at a time. Running on the ship’s treadmill to Taylor Swift became a coping ritual that allowed me to check off another day…
…and another…
…and another.
BEAUTY in STRIFE
My new husband, Caleb, and I spent the majority of our first four years of marriage apart due to the realities of sea duty. We met the first day of the Naval Academy and were rarely seen apart. That first year of back to back deployments was grueling, but just as much as there was hardship and pain, there were unbelievable moments of life-affirming beauty.
I witnessed the stars in all their glory, the nighttime sea glowing with bioluminescence, and wonders of the world that blew my mind. Perhaps the best view of all: the swirling swallows in the sky- symbols that we were close to coming home… and sharing a second first kiss with my husband I wasn’t sure would ever come.
MAKING art WORK
While there was no room for painting on a ship, I carved out time to paint in between deployments and duty days. It made me happy. I saw myself continuing to advance my career in the navy, balancing art on the side. But then I became a mother…
And with my newborn daughter in arms, I knew in an instant that my plans needed to change.
I traded in a full ride to MIT for a new kind of adventure.
LITTLE did I KNOW
Days out of the Navy, and barely pregnant a second time, adversity was just around the corner.
Hurricane Irma struck and devastated our home. My military instincts kicked in at first, but as the effects of the water subdued, the magnitude of everything that had happened in such a short time completely overwhelmed me.
In that dark moment, desperate to breathe, Caleb reminded me how painting brought me joy during our long months of separation
I found peace in front of my easel.
For the first time in months, I was able to calm down, and truly rest in the assurance that God had a plan and that my true security rested in the hope of Christ. Painting was how I slowed down and tuned into what I could truly rely on.
That’s when I realized I couldn’t wait on a career in art any longer. So I started.
My training gave me the discipline and structure needed to kick off my artistic career. However, they don’t teach color theory in Annapolis, and so I had to fend off creative enemy #1…
IMPOSTER syndrome
Again I found myself confined.
Not by a ship at sea, but by the need for permission and validation. However, the discipline and structure I learned from the military and studying under artist Paul Ladnier and Antrese Wood helped me persist and find confidence.
the CURE
I had to quiet the fraudy voices in order to turn that slow burn into a passionate creative flame.
My artistic voice arose from that fire, and with it came a voracious appetite for self-study. I showed up consistently to my creative practice for months on end…
Until finally, after much work and consistency, I embraced myself as an artist.
Gallery Representation
Get my work in person from these fine galleries in the Jacksonville area
All these experiences gave me the ability to seek the light in between the shadows...
to find beauty and growth, where others perhaps see none...
AND TO FIND THE KIND OF HEALING THAT COMES WHEN PAINTBRUSH MEETS CANVAS.
I want my art to help you come home after one of your journeys…
…to be the swallows that signal your homecoming and anchors you to your sacred place…
…because sometimes coming home’s when the real work truly begins.
Want to pick your anchor?
You can also…
Listen to my inteview in the Savvy Painter Podcast
Check out my Navy-Inspired Art Website, Easel on Stribling
Watch my 5-minute BuzzTV interview
Photography by Kristin Cronic, Jenn Hopkins Photography, and Appleseed Photography