Meet the Artist...
Kendra was born in Virginia and raised in the Roanoke Valley, surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. Through her childhood you could find her making mud-pies on her deck, or sitting in her room drawing, but she always wanted a camera. When she finally got to borrow her mom's camera, she never put it down. What really got her attention was an enrichment program in fifth grade. It was a pinhole camera project. The class was able to watch the development of their pinhole camera pictures in a make-shift darkroom in the school's janitor's closet. From that moment she saw that image appear on the sheet, it was like magic and she was hooked. She never imagined that playing in the mud and carrying around a camera would indeed be the stepping stones for her higher education.
She traded those mountain views for corn fields while she attended Indiana Wesleyan University where she studied numerous studio arts. Kendra excelled in ceramics, wheel throwing, and photography. She was captivated with photography and it's process and chose it as her main emphasis during college. After finishing college she found that motherhood would take precedence in her life and her artistic endeavors would have to wait.
She has worked in retail for several years until life's "curve ball" hit. She was diadnosed with stage IIb colorectal cancer at age 32. She found that the only way to get through it was to write and document it. Kendra creatively blogged and photographed her cancer Journey on My Crazy Cancer Journey blog. She found it to be her art therapy. Today, as a cancer-free survivor, Kendra feels she has been given a second chance at life and to fullfill her passion for photography again. Not just to make a captivating image but also to bring more, in a sense of awareness about her type of cancer through photography. Since then she has emerged as a photographic artist.
Kendra has since then exhibitied in her local city, with her self-portait, and was part of a collaborative wall installation, taken part in Lynchburg's, Academy of Fine Arts, National Juried Photography Exhibit, to Roanoke's Annual City Art Show.
Kendra resides in Roanoke, Virginia with her husband Chad and their two sons, Chad and Nicholas.
She traded those mountain views for corn fields while she attended Indiana Wesleyan University where she studied numerous studio arts. Kendra excelled in ceramics, wheel throwing, and photography. She was captivated with photography and it's process and chose it as her main emphasis during college. After finishing college she found that motherhood would take precedence in her life and her artistic endeavors would have to wait.
She has worked in retail for several years until life's "curve ball" hit. She was diadnosed with stage IIb colorectal cancer at age 32. She found that the only way to get through it was to write and document it. Kendra creatively blogged and photographed her cancer Journey on My Crazy Cancer Journey blog. She found it to be her art therapy. Today, as a cancer-free survivor, Kendra feels she has been given a second chance at life and to fullfill her passion for photography again. Not just to make a captivating image but also to bring more, in a sense of awareness about her type of cancer through photography. Since then she has emerged as a photographic artist.
Kendra has since then exhibitied in her local city, with her self-portait, and was part of a collaborative wall installation, taken part in Lynchburg's, Academy of Fine Arts, National Juried Photography Exhibit, to Roanoke's Annual City Art Show.
Kendra resides in Roanoke, Virginia with her husband Chad and their two sons, Chad and Nicholas.