My name is Kyle Layne Martin, I’m a 32 year old artist and I live in Mason Texas.

I primarily paint, but often pursue found-object sculpture and digital graphics to seek the beauty and form I desire. Although I’m fairly new to the life of a dedicated artist, I completed my first portrait over 20 years ago. I now seek to find inspiration in the simple setting of a small town, and create not only unique works of art but a unique life.

Way back when….

I completed my first portrait when I was twelve. Art classes were only available from 5^th to 6^th grade, as an alternative to band. Throughout junior high my parents were able to get me private art lessons, and even managed to bring an art teacher to town to teach classes for both kids and adults. From elementary school through the end of high school, I entered every art show and competition from county to state levels and won them all. (I even had some adults complain when I entered work in the “non-professional” division against adults and won.) Although I enjoyed creating the work, I was never really aware that my skills in reproducing an image were rapidly outgrowing my abilities to creatively interpret the subject matter. Nevertheless, I had an impressive enough portfolio at the end of high school to get me into the Rice University School of Architecture.

What was I good at?

From the very first assignment in architecture school, I leaned heavily on my drawing skills. But fortunately, architecture assignments come as a defined problem and I had about 25 other completely confused cohorts to help. Because high school is about regurgitation and circling the right answer, my instinct was to simply ask the professors what they were looking for and give it to them. I asked my freshman professor, Danny Samuels, “..but what’s the right answer, what do you want to see?!” And of course, he laughed at me, before telling me that there was no right answer just many different solutions – some better than others. Which at the time I thought was total B.S. So I began to lean on my analytical side, crunching numbers, worrying about adjacencies, finding efficiencies, and throwing in a good drawing whenever I could. All this time I was also working toward a double major in art, but because the architecture program is so much more engrossing and engaging, my art always ended up on the back burner.

Halfway through college, almost simultaneously, I was seduced by the computer and thrown into a painting studio. The computer was a new fluid medium for exploring multiple spacial ideas very quickly and very accurately finding better ways of doing things was simply a matter of copying, pasting, and tweaking – no mess, infinite undo. Painting studio was completely the opposite in every way. Everything seemed permanent, nothing was justifiable, and there were no rules. I felt like I had been dropped in the middle of the ocean for swimming lessons. Using my figurative skills and the b.s. that architecture school had taught me, I made it to shore. So I jumped back in again. And repeatedly tryied to artistically drown myself til graduation. It took four years for me to build up enough confidence in architecture to say that I owned a design of my own creation, to flow freely inside the rules and willingly break them based on my own judgment. For some reason, with my art education, I never found that same confidence or dedication. But the desire to do so was always there.

Out in the real world

Using my artistic skills to put together a fairly elaborate portfolio, I was fortunate enough to get a summer internship at Overland Partners in San Antonio. Although there was a huge difference between the aesthetic accepted at school compared to this office, there was an overt appreciation of artists, artwork, and the contribution an artistic mind can make to an architectural project. I also served a year working for the architectural mega-firm Gensler in London before returning to school for a year, and them back to Overland as a full time employee. Fortunately, both firms respected designers because their artistic impulses were valued in creating works of multi-million dollar functional sculpture. Unfortunately, as I began to feel compelled by ideas of my own, I began to desire the creative control necessary in making those visions a reality, and for a time held out hope that it could be that simple and was attainable.

Because I came to the working world with not only a love of computers, but a graphic eye, I frequently found myself on jobs honing my presentation skills rather than building on construction related architectural skills. As an artist, this was a good thing. As a designer, it was a good thing. As someone who deeply desires to create something new and beautiful and lasting in the real world, it was infuriating. This pattern could have benefited both the company and the employee, had the employee been less contrary than me. I needed to create. I needed to make a difference. I needed to pursue my own visions and my own failures.

And time for something new…

For various personal and professional reasons, I began to travel through the Texas Hill Country in the fall of 2007 looking for an affordable building that might work both as a residence and a studio. Although I had compiled a list of ten or more buildings west of San Antonio, the preferred structure sat on the town square in Mason, Tx. The building’s completely empty second floor was divided into two sides, one containing only plumbing stub-ups, and the other surrounded by large windows on three sides. In exchange for rent, I installed a bathroom. All other “improvements” to the building for living or working are temporary structures and will be disassembled and taken away when I leave.

Life as a work of art.

Living in an unconditioned 125 year old building located at the only busy intersection in a “Mayberry-esque” town has a tendency to realign one’s perspective on life. At this point I consider my greatest work of art to be the physical, emotional, and financial adjustments I’ve made to that have allowed me to sculpt the life I lead, in the way I do, where I do, and amongst people I now call friends. Today, life is good.

KLM