Five incredibly talented local female artists have come together to transform original Designed For Joy leather bags into stunning works of art. Each artist has put their creative touch on each bag. As part of our Evening of Giving, these one-of-a-kind works of art will be auctioned off to benefit Designed For Joy’s mission of providing immediate, living wage work for women in crisis. In addition to painting a bag to be auctioned, Kyndall Owens will be working on a live painting at the event to be auctioned off. Meet the artists and see the bags in person at our largest fundraiser of the year.
Our Evening of Giving on September 14, 7-10pm at the CAM Contemporary Art Museum. Join us in celebrating 6 years of serving over 100 women with over $400,000 in living wages earned and enjoy an evening of live music, artisan success stories, food, drinks, shopping, and more.
The online/silent auction will be live a week before on September 7 and will close at 9:15 pm on September 14.
Evening of Giving tickets, sponsorships, and auction information can be found here.
Read more about each artist below.
Kyndall Owens is a visual artist born and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In 2013, She moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where she currently resides. Art has always been a passion of Kyndall's. She started off doodling on the walls at home to doodling in class and church, which led to her basically bringing her sketchbook everywhere she went. She would give out drawings to random people, and she always enjoyed the smiles and reactions she got from sharing my art.
Seeing the joy her art has brought to others is the reason she started seriously pursuing her deep passion for creating. While Kyndall is a “self-taught” artist, she would prefer to call herself a God-taught artist. She believes God put this gift in her to create pieces with the purpose of bringing joy and happiness to others when they encounter her work. Over the years, she has had experiences with numerous mediums of art, but she has found that acrylic and oil pieces are her niche. She paints various pieces ranging from portraits to sceneries to abstracts to animals... You name it!
2017 is the year she decided to start taking her art seriously, and since then, she has gotten tons of exposure. Kyndall’s art has been featured in calendars, news articles, the Marbles Museum, the Black Friday Market, the Museum Barbershop, Good Trip Gallery, and more. Also, she has been recognized by celebrities, including Mo' Nique, Jhene Aiko, Dwayne Wade, Toosii, Swae Lee, D.K. Metcalf, Tamela Mann, Russ, and Lil Baby, and she prays for many more to come! She also does custom work, hosts paint classes & live paintings, and much more.
Tiffany Wilson is from Bowie, MD but currently resides in Raleigh, NC as of 2018. She is a self-taught artist who started off with drawing comic strip characters from the Sunday Washington Post and moved on to TV show characters. After mastering illustrations using markers, her talents have expanded to other mediums. Her current medium since 2018 is acrylic painting.
Being heavily influenced by late artists like Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol alongside current artists like Nina Abney, Kehinde Wiley, Hebru Brantley, and Miya Bailey, she’s pushed her work into the pop art realm. She enjoys exploring new color palettes and pushing them onto 80/90s cartoon shows like Hanna Barbera and Cartoon Network. Her work has been featured in a few shows such as Black Girl Art Show and Pancake and Booze along with publications in Voyage Raleigh, ATL and TrapxArt Digital Magazine. She wants her work to continue to inspire those that drawing cartoons is still okay and brings nostalgia to her viewers. Her love for cartoons will never go away. The world can use a black female pop artist.
Mali B. is a North Carolina based artist who works in mainly resin artwork and fluid art often described as acrylic pouring. Mali has always been interested in fine art so she taught herself the different techniques when she started creating since 2017.
Mali uses her art as an emotional outlet. When it’s difficult to form words she pours her heart out onto a canvas and creates using different variations of techniques. She finds inspiration from nature of time and current events from around the world expressing these elements through her fine art. Working with acrylic pouring and resin can be a very challenging medium but it’s also a perfect reflection for the often uncontrollable world around us.
Previously, Mali’s style of work has been described as vibrant, intense, reflective & a bit edgy. However, she’s broadened her spectrum now to working on a line that reflects women and animals. She looks forward to where this new direction will take her.
Betsy Matthews is a visual artist, graphic designer, dance teacher, and choreographer. Her work is driven by a vision to highlight the effects of semantic satiation, not just alphabetically, but also through the power of imagery and the subtle elements that pervade our surroundings. She often infuses her work with metaphors, puzzles, symbolism, and paradoxical situations. She hopes that each look inspires fresh discoveries for the observer. These added layers provide depth and fascination, encouraging viewers to unravel hidden meanings, explore intricate narratives, and connect symbolic elements. A favorite aspect of sharing her work are conversations with patrons, which often result in them providing her with new insight about the subject. She hopes to continue creating work that sparks curiosity, invites introspection, and fosters dynamic interactions between the audience and the artwork.
