Elaine Kessler
Elaine creates work that inspires connection, perspective, and promise. It is her mission “to creatively and collaboratively co-create a world that works for all; a world where boldness, compassion, and possibility are alive and vigorously pursued; a world where grace and generosity live and endure.” Elaine is a graduate of the Master’s in Creative Enterprise and Cultural Leadership Program at Arizona State University. She also completed graduate work in Southeast Asian Studies and Performance Studies. She owns and operates Elaine Kessler Photography, a studio based in Gilbert. In addition to being a commercial photographer, Elaine produces interactive art exhibits and teaches art, design, and business strategy in higher education.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth, Conversations with Community Leaders in this podcast will explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. Yeah, yeah. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and rocket Space, an event and meeting venue in the heart of the East Valley with a full service for person podcast studio. All right, sara. So here we go.
What do you got going on this morning? So today kicks off Gilbert Leadership Class 30 which I am super excited about. An amazing program. Your graduate 25 all the way. It is amazing to me how this class gets better every year. This program gets better every year. It's an amazing program. Who do we got today. So today we have a Gilbert Leadership graduate. I know we do. She is a thought leader and advocate an academic and an artist and has made a career out of bringing out the best in others.
Today we have a Lien kessler. Yeah, there we go. Welcome Elaine. Hi, hi, thanks for joining us today. Hey, so we're so excited for you to be on the show. This is going to be a lot of fun. We're going to talk a little bit about you. Okay, a lot about you and we hope that those that don't know who Lynn Kessler is. We'll come away from this conversation day with a great understanding of amazing woman that's in the community that's been doing some amazing things and uh, let's dig into it, shall we?
That sounds great. Okay, so we start off the show with what we call rapid fire around rapid fire around. Okay, so we're gonna get you some questions. These are kind of single word questions or answer questions rather. Um, let's go. First Morning Beverage of Choice Coffee, name one Thing. You can't live without adhesive. Star wars or star trek. Star wars, what song do you sing on karaoke night, jewels? Life, uncommon. Oh, okay. Favorite color black. Most annoying sound in the world. I don't have an annoying sound.
Could it be her voice? No word. No. Oh yeah, I don't care for the word now. When are you most productive? Morning, noon or night for I am favorite holiday. My birthday, favorite sports team. No. Okay. Town of Gilbert or city of Gilbert town. Are you a spender or saver? I'm such a spender in my camp. All right, bobby of choice eating, followed by drinking camping or glamping glamping. Neither actually I have a bed last half full or half empty. Oh, it depends on what's in the glass.
I love that. This is why I'm excited to talk to you today. The year, perspective on life is so unique. I can't wait to hear all about you. Thank you to phoenix Mesa gateway airport for their support with nonstop service to 60 plus cities. Gateway airport makes traveling just plain easy visit. Gateway airport dot com for more information, let's dig into it. That was fun. I liked the rapid fire questions because it gives us a quick chance of learning about you and these little moments. Um and interesting stuff.
You have a bed, I do have a bed in the house, I don't need to sleep on the ground. You've done this camping thing before. Didn't go well. Okay, so no camping as a kid. I did, we did camp as a kid. Yeah, camped in college. I've camped you know, as an adult and I think it's no, no fond memories. Well, I am actually really interested in digging into your childhood a little bit because you have a very unique story. So a household with dual religion, dual language.
Tell us a little bit about your unique upbringing. Yeah. So um I am biracial and bicultural. My mother is from Thailand and my father is of german descent. He was raised in pennsylvania, so he's white. My parents met during the Vietnam war. My dad was stationed in Thailand and my grandmother was his made in his barracks and she was like, I'm going to introduce you to my daughter and then they were, She was 17, he was 18, they got married when they were 18 and 19 in Thailand And um he promised the military, the air force, 20 years if they let him stay in Thailand and um he had plans to go to college become an architect, you know the whole thing but he ended up serving in the air force for 20 years, married my mom for 25 and she speaks thai he speaks english.
Ty in America you speak english, that's what I was raised. English english english. Yeah, that's what she spoke. She tried to speak, she tried to teach me tie and my father said that in America we speak english. So it's very difficult because she had 1/4 grade education. So even her tie was limited. Um And so in the states it was really difficult trying to navigate the two parental influences. My dad is christian, my mom is buddhist, we went to church on occasion and we went to the temple also on the weekends.
My dad did not go to the temple. My mom did not go to church. It was very interesting and I would go to both. Yeah and as an adult I've chosen not to um subscribe to anything in particular. Um And yeah, so what else? My mother, it has dual citizenship and she got her GED finally when she was 53 uh so that was pretty remarkable and they're both entrepreneurs. They're both amazing people, they're both creatives at heart. Um But yeah, growing up in a household like that, you are not like your mom and you're not like your dad.
So you actually have to create a path of your own because you don't look like your mom and you don't look like your dad, You don't sound like your mom, You don't sound like your dad. You don't do the things, you know, you don't resemble either of them. Um, my brother was born 11 years after I was, so there were 11 years of my life where I was alone with my parents. And then when he came along, I found my best friend and ally and to this day we marco Polo on a weekly basis.
We talked frequently. He sends me cupcakes. He's an amazing, amazing friend and partner in crime, awesome. My house. What you just described, I was thinking about that. I like, yeah, pretty much most my kids were hatched. I think so. I think I can relate to what you're suggesting as far as like this separation because everybody's unique and I say that jokingly, of course, right? Only smiling. But I'm making a joke here. But the idea of having this independence between the two, I mean really, that's how we all are right.
Like no, there is no other lane kessler. There is no other Sarah Watts. Um, so we're all unique in that regard. But rewind for a minute because religion has a big impact on so many people's lives and their decisions and stuff and you had a duel when you think about what you've been doing in your career and in life any influences come from that, that you can remember like does any of that stuff impact you as you think about how you kind of developed into lane today.
So as far as spiritual or religious influences, I mean I probably subscribe more to buddhism than I do to Christianity and that's in large part because of how I think Christianity is practiced in our society. So when I was in college I did study Geneva literature, I read ST Augustine and I was like, oh if only christians could do Christianity. Like ST Augustine says to do Christianity, which is that is that it is ineffable. You cannot speak about God or Christianity with words, you act, you enact the practice of the christian.
Um, but what I like about buddhism is that there is this element of detachment and um um I'm not clinging to and I love that I love this notion of not taking things personally. Um you know, being at one with the universe, however you might look at it and what I with, with my line of work as an artist, everything I put out into the world. Um, it's critical and I have to detach from what I think people think of my work and remember that, you know, I'm all about putting out good stuff and if they don't like it, then there's a, there's like some navigating to do, but this, this ability to detach it's really, really important.
I think me continuing to produce good work, artists are always thick skinned and so you have to be there. Not very much so actually I was going to say that's something that I admire so much about you because you are very vulnerable and very, um, just really true in the challenges that you face. You talk about them and you um, share them with others. And I think that that's really brave. It's something that has to be uncomfortable and you're okay with being uncomfortable, which is something that I really have admired about you.
And I would think that as an artist that is a challenge that you face on a regular basis. It's interesting that you bring up the word uncomfortable because I do think that and then you may be right. Everybody may grow up this way to some extent, but I think that there was never comfort in my home because there was never, um, an alignment with one parent or the other or one parent's views or beliefs or politics or religion, you know? So like if you sided with mom, then dad was feeling, you know, whatever vice versa.
Um, so that I'm used to being uncomfortable. I've been uncomfortable in my whole life. How does that translate to your family and the way you parent, your beautiful girls. I was going to go there. Yes, they're uncomfortable to now this has been a tough week for my 15 and 12 year old. Um, you know, I, I believed as a parent when I started going into down the parenting, right? Because when my partner, my husband, I got married, we weren't gonna have kids. There were too many kids on the planet.
If we wanted one would buy one, this whole thing. Um, and then we said, let's um, let's let's not, not try and um we got pregnant right away and when I thought about parenting, I realized that I'm going to mess them up. There are more creative, colorful words I can use for that. I'm going to mess them up, we're going to mess them up. So we started a fund um, right at the outset for counseling. So, so all good parents and they're both, they're both in therapy, which I think is really important.
We're all in therapy because I think it's important to learn to communicate and to learn to navigate the world as we don't know it, we don't understand what's coming next. We've never been parents of teenagers before, they've never been teenagers before. And so this whole, um, this whole pursuit that we have in life is really important to do with other people. And so we do look for experts to guide us. I wonder when they sit here On this podcast 20 years from now, what did they say about their childhood?
It's interesting because both of the Children, one of the things I always ask for. I don't ask for gifts. I don't, I don't, I'm not a big fan of gifts, I love letters. So I always ask for something written. It can be a post. It it can be a letter. It can be an email. I don't care. It can be a facebook post. It doesn't matter to me but acknowledge if you want to give me something to do an acknowledgement through writing. And both of the girls have written that they have really great childhoods and like that's the biggest affirmation as a parent that I can get that in the moment.
They're saying that their childhoods are great. I don't think I would have been able to say that when I was a kid. But we're very very open transparent people. There's no secrets. Um Even if though we might need there to be and there should be some more boundaries. They might say that we need more boundaries. They could say that let's talk about your successes that you've had a little bit one professional side. Um Photography is what I know you as the most. But there's more to you on that.
Give us a real quick flavor from people that don't know your background a bit on on the scope of what you've been able to accomplish and where you are today professionally. Oh gosh! Well I started out in the professional sphere as a faculty associate at a S. U. I taught intercultural communication and asian pacific american studies and then I got pregnant. I did that for six years and then I got pregnant and I thought I'm going to go back to teaching after I have these kids that I want to have.
And where do you think that came from the teaching? Sorry to interrupt you. But I'm really curious about that part because you got into teaching. What drove you into that? Like Was there an influence in your life that brought you into the education world? No there wasn't a specific like faculty member or a teacher that inspired me to take on teaching. It was teaching for me is part service and part performance and so I love to perform. I've always been a performer. I started performing when I was 10 and then I performed all through undergrad all through graduate school.
And I saw teaching as an opportunity to serve but also to get to do a little song and dance in front of the classroom and really do like meaningful stuff. So in graduate school the first time I did a performance Studies and Southeast asian Studies and I was working to convey the stories of people who survived the Cambodian genocide. And so that active service I saw possible in teaching. So that's how I got into teaching. And then um got pregnant discovered digital photography and started to do a little bit more work around business and started the business in 2010.
Then I went back to teaching in 2018 after my 2nd masters which is in creative enterprise and cultural leadership. And now I teach at three universities to teach at park. I teach at A. S. U. And I teach at the U. Of A. Um I teach humanities the business of entertainment. I also teach introduction to visual arts and I teach strategy for creative enterprise and cultural leadership students. And then I do trigger exhibits as well. So I produce art exhibits around specific topics that are intended to produce results and conversations around specific topics like poverty, success, education voting in the american dream that sort of thing.
Yeah so most times in education I would in my both my parents are teachers so that's why I'm interested in this mostly. Um My parents my dad was an art teacher and wrestling coach. My mom was an english teacher and those are very academic arts similar to what you're in. Right? So that's why I'm going with this. The motivation for what you teach in those industries or the services you teach. Where do you find that? Because there's not a lot of books parts that you can have in some of these things.
I mean there's some technical things and there's certainly history and others but it's evolving. It's always changing. It's very subjective. Right? So are you finding that inspiration? How do you? Yes because some of these things like culture arts and things like that. It's not something you can just like say hey scientifically this is the equation for that. I mean, it's not different education, It's not received the same by each individual, right? Whereas, you know, something along the lines of math, the answer is the answer. And what you teach a lot of times has to do with their journey before they got to your classroom. Yes. Yes.
So we do in each of the classes, in all the classes that I teach, starting from when I was teaching asian american studies, intercultural communication, we always did social identity work. It's really, really important, I think for people to understand their privilege, it's important for people to understand where they come from, how they developed the worldview that they have and then how they apply that worldview to the works of art that they see or to the people that they meet. Um, so I think that that's also part of the whole idea of detaching a little bit.
So, if you understand where you come from, you get uh that your perspective is the way your perspective is towards something or someone else. And it's not personal to that other person. There's the whole element of like blaming or ascribing some kind of responsibility to someone else. It's always back on us. How do you dive into detachment? I mean, how do you even begin that conversation? Well, so one of the things that we do in all of the classes as we look at social identities. So we go through and everybody identifies for themselves, their, their age, their race, their ethnicity, their nationality, their marital status, their education, their class status, their sexuality, sexual orientation, all these things.
We look at all of these different things. And if people are comfortable talking about them, then we can have a great conversation. But a lot of times people are not comfortable talking about their different identities, early spending time looking at them. So I break them up into the groups and then they explore how they're similar and then they explore how they're different. And then we come back to the classroom and we apply those different social identities to maybe a work of art. What are you bringing to this particular work of art?
So you see, so one of the works of art I show in all my classes is a work by a local, not local artist, but a new artist ricardo Chucky and it is a young black woman who's crying and she has a mask over. So it's very salient has a mask over her mouth. But the mask is made out of white hands and then she's wearing rainbow earrings and then there's an american flag behind her. And so I asked them, what does this mean to you based on your social identities?
What do you see? And what does this mean to you? And it's fascinating to see how people dissect and pick out the things that apply and resonate with them based on their privilege and their social identities. So, I mean, it's on the court, everything is on the court. It's a it's a privilege to do this work activism. When I think of you, I think of activism, I think of photography and then I think of an activist because you really do stand behind your passions and you try to bring to light some really important topics in our community and encourage dialogue even at a community level.
Can you share a little bit about some of the work that you've done in that space? Sure. I've done quite a few trigger exhibits in Gilbert and it's always fascinating to me to see who shows up who engages, who speaks out. And I've done stuff for Gilbert leadership. I've done stuff, you know, different venues at the chamber at what was Park University before it became Park University at in collaboration with the Police Department. So we've done all kinds of different types of exhibits. And the goal with the exhibit is to get people to talk to other people that they normally wouldn't talk to.
So I love, love, love, love seeing people who have, you know, you know, there are die hard conservative or they're a die hard liberal and then they come together over a work of art because all of the trigger exhibits involved art come together over a work of art and then they're having this rich, amazing conversation. It's really juicy, um where they're seen, they're seeing in the art, their point of view, but it's not about politics or it's not about religion, it's about who they are and what they want to represent in the world and it becomes something completely different.
So I think a lot of times when we talk, we talk from these perspectives that are very binary and it doesn't have to be that way. And I think art is really great catalyst to driving meaningful, open ended conversations that can generate great results for communities. You know, in our research on you mentioned something in here about a song, I think it's on my own. Tell me about that song. Oh gosh, I love lamb is such a tragic story. I don't know if you've ever read it.
So limits by victor Hugo. He wrote the novel and then broadway made the musical so slim is rob and then we have the musical um Apennine, she's in love with Marius and she can't be with him because he loves cassette and they're all tragic characters and she sings this song in the middle of the night on my own. And it's heartbreaking. And I can relate to that feeling of wanting something or wanting someone are one in the specific outcome and like feeling as if you're all alone trying to attain it.
You don't have any support, you don't have any guidance, but there's something really strangely uplifting about remembering, oh my gosh, you know, I am on my own, but I am still here. Like I am still able to do something. So I've sung this song many, many times in pageants in talent shows. Um I'm trying to work with, I sang it actually at a talent show for staff when I was at A. S. U. If you like some some years ago. Um And it's just it's I don't know, it's a dramatic interpretation of this song from the MS Your jam.
It is my jam. Yeah, I would sing that at karaoke if it wasn't such a downer. A meaning of it changed to you over the years. So I relate now more to the character of Fantine who is the mother of Cosette. So opening is in this song on my own. She's a she's a teenager and she's in love and or maybe she's maybe a little bit older than that but I think she's a teenager. But then Fantine who gave up her daughter so that her daughter could have a better life.
So now as a parent, I relate more to Fantine and she sings a song called I dreamed a dream and that song is so tragic but it's beautiful. I like sad stuff going with the sad stuff something here. Um I'm at peace with my life with almost all the people in it. Often tell myself that I could die today and that I am at peace about that. This for me is success. Tell me interpret that for me a bit unwind that unpack that. Mm I don't know.
It's pretty straightforward. I didn't expect to live as long as I've lived. I thought that I wouldn't make it past like 25. There are so many opportunities to have um, stopped living in my life. Um, either because I was feeling a certain way about myself or because you know, it was nearly kidnapped was chased by the KKK. I've been in a car accident. I was run over by a car. Like all these things like why didn't I die? And so I don't ever think I had a long term projection of all my life and now that I'm 44, I believe that every day has to be lived in such a way that at the end of it, if you don't feel like you could not wake up, you need to get everything cleaned up.
You need to get all the things resolved and cleaned up so that you can go to bed and be ready to pass. Um, and I've been thinking a lot lately. It's just, I don't know this has been on my mind. I've been thinking about how we have an opportunity to make a bigger impact on life or maybe our life would have more meaning if we died young. Like I'm thinking about when we age something deteriorate in the meaning of our legacies. And I think about, I mean any time anyone dies when they're not supposed to, it's tragic.
But yeah, I've just been mulling over how gosh, when, when we grow old, how do we continue to make our lives have meaning and relevance as we get old? Like that's, that's the goal. But then you think most people who live to be, 80, 85 90 years old. they're, they're past their prime. They're not making the difference that they made when they were in their 40s or 50s. And so I don't know, maybe their difference just looks different to us. I mean, so I would say that the older generation probably contributes more to the personal relationship that they carry maybe with their family.
Um great skin sappy on us. I want to know what live in the hyphen means to you. Oh, so live in the hyphen is being asian, american being biracial, being bipolar. So living in that space between this and that. Um, I don't often see myself being republican or democrat or brown or white. Um, I don't live in the duality. I live in between. So that's what living in life. Okay. You think most people live in the hyphen unfortunately now I think more people should live on the heaven.
I think that the fact that we have all these binary setups that you need to be. I mean we could get into all kinds of stuff here, you have to be monogamous or not, like there's all kinds of stuff that we put ourselves into these boxes. That's really unnecessary and irrelevant to the success and happiness of our lives. We choose a lot of times to pigeonhole ourselves because we think it's what makes sense. But I don't think that that is what makes us most happy. We get been a hard time about the number of Children.
He has, he not My fault Actually is I think about 50% your fault. I'm like Elaine, we weren't going to have any kids at all in the beginning and look at nine. Okay, keep going. If you want to poke fun, just pointing out that you're in the hyphen and that I'm in the exclamation mark. When you talk about all my exclamation marks, I like to talk about legacy. Um what if you could design and project your legacy? What would that look like for you? What would you think that would look like?
So saying I'd die at 50 or to die at 90. Let's go with the '90. That sounds more fun. Okay, does it doesn't sound fun because I mean, body will be great then. Yeah. So the legacy I'd like to leave behind is one of creativity. If I can inspire at least one student in each of my classes. If I can inspire both my Children to go out and take responsibility for their own creativity in the world. That would be very meaningful for me. I'd like to think that the work that I get to produce in the community in terms of art exhibits and photography is a way of inspiring people to initiate and take on their own creativity.
You know, my motto is capturing your present, creating your future. Because I believe if we talk about what we want, we can create that now and kinda work backwards and then have what we want and that's what I try to do in the photography. So yeah, I mean, the legacy don't spend a lot of time thinking about what what mark I'm going to leave behind, but I can inspire people to be creative and take responsibility for their creativity. I think that'd be pretty cool. You're willing to share some trade secrets.
Maybe photography, where do you find your motivation? What's your perspective on that? Everybody looks through a different lens. I know what's your lens. So I believe that everybody is beautiful. I actually do believe that and maybe they even become more beautiful when they're in front of me with a camera. And I also think that I fell in love with people when I look at them. Like that's it's I think that's actually how we should be. Um and I actually think that might be what happens for people, but then their worldviews or their whatever they think is happening gets in the way.
And so I try to be as present and raw and real with people when I'm photographing them and then I think when they get to see themselves through my work, they actually fell in love with themselves as well. I like that. I will say when you are photographing people, you make them feel very comfortable, which is for many people, it's not a comfortable space to be in. It is a vulnerable space and us, I know that I become very self conscious and you're very good at reminding me of my turtleneck neck, turtle, turtle, turtle your neck out.
Yes, she's good. She tells you to wipe your nose to everyone's well, sometimes there's a bat in the cave. I'll let him know. Yeah, I used to just anybody. Okay. Oh no, you are very talented at what you do. Thank you. What's next to lane where you had next? Like do you have a road map? You have an idea where you want to challenge into next. So the next thing. So I am motivated by milestones and there is a really big milestone that I want to create for myself.
There's an award at a so called the Sun Devil circle. There's actually a few people in the chamber that I've received it and it's very hard for solo preneurs to get it and I'm still trying to figure out how can I get it. So that's what I'm trying to figure out, that what, you know, trying to figure out how to attain that and in order to attain it, you have to have generated $250,000 of revenue for three years in a row and you know it's just me but I'm pretty motivated so um yeah, I think it's kind of cool.
I want to be in the circle 100 why is that important to you? Because I see other people doing it and I'm like they have staff, why can't a one woman show get this? And you know, I think I'm a pretty interesting one woman show. So I think would be really cool to be like, I don't know to get it and then show other people solar preneurs and entrepreneurs or one woman show can do it. Yeah, So I don't know just, it's a goal. So if you were to talk to yourself from maybe let's go back and you have a conversation with yourself from 20 years ago What would you tell yourself 20 years ago, 20 years ago I would have told myself hang on, take a breath, it'll all be okay 20 years ago.
It was not, it was not a good, it was not a good space for me and yeah, I would, I would remind myself that you have a future, it's coming. Just let it let it come and yeah, taking a breath that's as I've gotten older that's become more and more important. Um I find I don't know how anybody else reacts to stress, but when I react to stress, I dry heave like I will dry heave and it's very visceral. But now I remind myself and I meditate and I take a breath and I listened to my breath and it's like, wow, I have it all right here inside of me.
Like I can control how the world is right here inside of me. And so I would try to remind myself 20 years ago that that power was still there. Let's go the other direction. 20 years from now, what's important to Elaine? Oh gosh, well my kids will be so much older. I'm hoping that my kids are well and healthy. I'm hoping that my partner is well and healthy. I'm hoping that I'm well and healthy. Oh yeah, 20 years from now, I'm going to have hiked to the Grand Canyon renter.
I'm like three times. So I gotta, that's going to create that future. You go, yeah, and you'll be in the circle of 100. I will. This has been amazing. I've learned a lot from you today. I really appreciate you opening up with us sharing a little bit about Elaine kessler, the person, I really actually don't know that well. We've been bumping, bumping into each other quite a bit. We never know each other. I mean, I don't mean just you and me. I mean in general and that's another thing that I think is fascinating is that we only ever get fragments even of your partner, of your Children.
Uh, and frank's father said that he never knew she was a writer and he said we never truly know our Children and I'm like, wow, we never truly know anyone which is, you know, I've shared and now we're wrapping up, but I do have to share um we went to see Hamilton again this weekend and we had seen it obviously pre Covid means something totally different now going through the last two years that we've gone through. But it hit me in the whole concept of telling your story and not having control over that.
That that really is the root of insecurity, is that someone else is going to get a hold of your story until in a way that you didn't intend them to tell it. And I do believe it's true that we don't totally understand other people's stories, We see it through a lens that may not have been intended. So when people think that Hamilton is about Hamilton, but it's actually I we had a very uh important conversation on the way home about who's this story actually about history. Has its eyes on us?
Yeah, thank you, Thank you for sharing with us today. Thanks for being here, appreciate it. Thank you, guiding growth conversations with community leaders. Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast? This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us.
So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you, reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection mm
