.png)
MAKINGWAVES
Meet the Artist
KRISTEL STANLEY is a Canadian digital and hand-drawn artist. Kristel started her artistic journey as a youngster, but only recently devoted enough time to her practice to be able to make something of it.
​
She is most well-known for her Cosmic Hug and Death to Life pieces. For these, and indeed her full collection, Kristel incorporates story-telling and life lessons into her art pieces. Kristel has walked a hard road, leaving her Christian faith as a teenager, only to return to a bigger & more personal belief in a Source Creator that LOVES Their Creation/Children. Kristel is still a broken human that battles with herself daily, but she lives in a state of constant self-improvement & reflection. Her artwork is inspired by her continuous growth and journey.
%20(2).png)
How did it all get started?
MAKINGWAVES began in the mind of a 13-year-old girl, Kristel, who watched a movie called “Pay It Forward.” The movie plot centers around a broken home, where each character is just trying to be a better person. One of the main characters starts a radical process by showing a small act of LOVE to someone in his circle, and that act of love gets passed on to another & another and so on, thus Paying it Forward causing a ripple effect in the community around him. What Kristel saw in this movie was a metaphor for life.
As a result, she became fascinated with human behaviour & the natural consequences that come from our actions, whether good or bad.
Kristel's Story
Kristel Stanley was born in a traditional evangelical Christian family. From an early age, she was taught to look for God at every turn. From the outside, her family was a buttoned-up, happy family. But much like other families, behind closed doors, things were a lot tougher. Kristel found that actions in the home rarely supported the words that were being preached and displayed on the outside.
​
As an adult, Kristel realized that most families were the same in this sense. Her parents had been dealing with their own pains and struggles that caused their pain to flow over into the way they choose to parent their children. Kristel never had any doubt that her parents loved her. That was not the issue. No matter how much love is present, damage can still be done. The choices that her parents made played a part in whom Kristel became and whom she continues to grow into.
Kristel is the firstborn who struggled with undiagnosed attention deficit disorder and undiagnosed depression from a very young age. Kristel was a curious and inquisitive child which made her busy and sometimes, a handful. Because of the above-mentioned things, Kristel struggled to feel like she fit in anywhere; at home, school or church.
​
As a child, Kristel remembers feeling like she was in trouble regularly; so much so, that it began to feel like it outweighed the positive times where she was supported, lifted up, encouraged or praised. All through her school years and as she grew and began to work, Kristel still struggled with feeling out of place. It seemed Kristel was painfully aware that everywhere she went, humans struggled to be kind and respectful.
​
These realizations, so early in her life, added to the fact that Kristel had never received treatment for her mental health & learning disabilities. She continued to struggle to find a place where she felt accepted and welcomed. She was consistently wondering why people were so hurtful, which led her to a place where she found herself questioning her will to continue living this life. These are the things, the human behaviours, that caused her to run away from her beliefs and her family as a teenager.
After her teenage rebellion years of constant parties, drunkenness and the like came to an end, Kristel was still left with pain and unanswered questions. She embarked on a journey of growth and healing that lasted into her thirties which culminated in her receiving a diagnosis and treatment for her depression, anxiety and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). With her newfound clarity and support, she relied upon therapy and began to build a supportive community of people she could trust.
And it was during this stage in her life when she began to create ‘monuments’ to her growth and lessons by drawing out her mental images, writing journals and or tattooing them on her body. This ink, on various mediums, reminded Kristel that she was valuable; that life IS worth living and that this universe is complex.
​
And she realized that she wasn't the only one who needed these little monuments as reminders.
​
This is how MAKING WAVES was truly born.
