Who dictates that there’s a deadline for embracing your true calling? There is no such thing as too early or too late when it comes to following your path. Just hear the story of our episode’s guest. Haseena Shaheed-Jackson sits down with Kristi Yapp, a former teacher and counselor who made a significant career transition to fearlessly pursue her passion as an artist. Kristi shares her journey from her early years in art school, her shift towards early childhood education, and her deep belief in the importance of preserving the true essence of childhood. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought about changes in policies regarding young children, Kristi felt compelled to make a change. She left her long-standing job, faced financial uncertainties, and took a position at a daycare center. During this time, she discovered joy in creating art and began posting her work online. A series of unexpected events, including her mother’s illness and passing, led Kristi to a photography class. Embracing leaps of faith and facing unknowns, Kristi perseveres, recognizing that life’s paths can lead to unexpected places and purposes. Tune in and be inspired to pursue your true passion.
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Follow Your Path: Embracing Leaps Of Faith With Kristi Yapp
Kristi, thank you so much for being here with me for our next episode.
It’s so nice of you for having me here. I’m so excited to talk to you.
I am too. You have a powerful story that our readers are going to be inspired by. You transitioned from a 30-year career in teaching and counseling to becoming an artist to follow your true passion. Tell me a little bit about how you started in that direction.
I will go back to a long time ago. When I was eighteen years old, I did go to art school for one year. I went to college. I didn’t stay in art school. I did end up having a child and then having that child got me into early childhood education. Over those years then, I was working in daycare centers and was going to school. I eventually became the director of a daycare center. Then I got my Master’s degree and my teaching certificate. I became a preschool for all teachers, which is a state-funded preschool for all programs. I eventually became a teacher coach. I was very focused on that career for a very long time.
I was very passionate about my career. I’m very passionate about the needs of young children. I do believe children are the future. What we do with them when they are young determines what will happen with our whole society as they get older. It’s the most important time of life. When COVID happened, a lot of policies about how we treat young children started to change. I felt so strongly that things like isolating children keeping them at home and doing their education through computers, to me, seemed to go against what childhood is meant to be. The consequences of that could be very severe. In time we will see what happens with this generation.
It’s something that we still need to think very carefully about what we are doing with our youngest kids. Through COVID, it was a traumatic time for everyone. As adults, we know what life was like without all of that. Young kids are growing up in that fearful environment that has been created by a virus. As I felt so strongly, I ended up a few years ago leaving that job. I had been in the position or at the place where I worked. I had been for 15 of those 30 years. I had worked towards being able to have that position I was in which was training other teachers.
When I left the job, my husband and I didn’t have a solid plan financially. I didn’t know what was going to come next or where my life was going to go. I knew that I couldn’t agree with things that were happening and that I needed to take my passion somewhere else. Very soon after I left the job, I took a job at a small daycare center in Park Forest, Illinois that’s in a church and has a wonderful place.
It’s the place you would want to take your children. They care about kids. They are very kind to the children there. They care about seeing the kids succeed. Being in that environment was so good for me. It was hard work because I’m getting older and crawling around on the floor with two-year-olds is getting more and more difficult, but I found so much joy there.
While I was there, I always have been a person that made things that creates things generally. I make gifts for people. I make all of my Christmas gifts myself for many years of my whole life. I started posting photos of my art online while I was working at the daycare center. I wasn’t making a lot of money, but it was enough for us to make ends meet for our family to be okay, and for us to pay our bills. We had to cut back on a lot of things, but we learned that we didn’t need a lot of those things and that was going to be okay.
Suddenly, my healthy and active mother got sick. She was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer out of the blue. She also was diagnosed at the same time with two other types of cancer. It was what they call a turbo cancer, which means that everything was growing very fast. She went from being extremely vibrant and active, within two weeks couldn’t walk. She was completely debilitated and needed 24-hour daycare.
I suddenly quit that job that I had found. I left the kids, which I still have some guilt about, but I went and took care of my mother because that was what I knew I was supposed to do. Again, for my family, this was then more loss of income, which was another huge leap of faith just trusting in God that we would be okay that this was what I was supposed to do, and that He would make sure that we were okay, and He did.
Trust in God that we would be okay, that things are what you are supposed to do, and that He would make sure we are okay. Share on X
It was very hard, my mother’s illness. She suffered quite a bit, but there were also beautiful times while she was sick. I see that time that I had with her, that I got to know her in ways that I never, in 51 years with my mother, know at all before. I’m forever grateful for that time. She passed. For six months, she was very sick, but she did pass. At her service, an artist from the Union Street Gallery in Chicago Heights was a friend of my mom’s. He came up to me and was talking to me about seeing some of the art that I had been posting online.
The conversation was interrupted. I went home and a few days later, I was thinking about how she had said this to me. I looked up Union Street Gallery online and found that there was a photography class here at the gallery. I thought, “That is something I need. I need photography because I’m trying to put this art online and I’m not that great at the pictures.” Which helped a lot to be a photographer a little bit. I signed up for this photography class and I came out here. I am still grieving, but the photographer, Jada Johnson, started talking about light, about how you create a picture just by using light and showing us how to make things look different with the light, and I suddenly saw things in a different way.
You have named so many things. Let me say this. One is the leap of faith. What does that look like? You said you had the leap of faith. Each time, you hear a voice or something in your spirit.
The way I can explain it only is that I’m doing whatever presents itself to me to do. When I found out my mom was sick, I knew that was what I was supposed to do. It’s a voice. It says, “You are supposed to take care of her,” and I knew that was what I was supposed to do. When I saw this photography class online, it was the exact thing that I knew I needed. I knew that’s what I was supposed to do and I came here and this was where I was supposed to come.
What about facing the unknown and uncertainties? How do you conquer that fear because there’s fear with that?
I’m going to go back to COVID with this. When we were first told about COVID, it was so scary because there was this virus, this invisible enemy that was coming to get us. There was nothing we could do. We couldn’t see it. We couldn’t avoid it. We could try to avoid it and we did try to avoid it. One day, this thought came into my head and I thought, “What is it that we are also scared of?” If it’s death, weren’t we all always going to die? If it’s suffering, weren’t we all always going to suffer? Those thoughts help me let go of the fear of what the future is and look at life as paths that are put in front of me.
It’s almost like saying, “Then what? It’s going to happen. I can’t stop it.”
It might go wrong. It might all fall apart.
You just have to say, “Why not?” instead of, “I have to put the brakes on because of fear telling me I can’t go this way.” You have to say, “Press forward. Press through and keep going.”
You don’t know what you might find. I took the photography class and within weeks of taking that first photography class, I had come to the gallery to show some of the work I had been doing. I was in one of the shows. They encouraged me to rent studio space. I applied for a studio space. Now I’m a studio artist at this gallery, which all of that, I have no idea still where that’s going to take me. I know it’s taking me somewhere forward.
It sounds like what you are saying is if you take the right steps if you take steps, it’s putting you in alignment with your purpose. It sounds like that’s what you are doing. The rest will fall into place. The resources will come into action. The places that you are supposed to be will happen and the mindset will follow. All those things will come into play if you press forward and move ahead.
Look for the light. Look for the things that will put you in the place that you belong, which might not be the place that you want to go but you have to look for the place that you belong. Every one of us was sent here with a purpose, but life is confusing. Life can take you in all different directions and you don’t know why or where it will all go. You never know. Even though you can be safe, you don’t know where it’s all going to go. Look for the things that feel like you belong there. You feel like this is what I’m supposed to do. You will end up where you are supposed to be, I suppose.
I know about your story because we have been friends for a while. You said you were doing regular crocheting and I shouldn’t say regular, but the hats and the scarves. Then the light bulb went off and you start doing pieces of art. How did that come about?
It happened while my mom was sick. People who crochet will understand what I’m talking about, but crochet is a very repetitive thing. You are doing stitches over and over again. It’s like meditation. You have to focus on doing this one thing and you are counting your stitches and you are moving in the same way.
While my mom was sick, I spent a lot of time waiting at doctor’s offices, waiting while she was asleep, and waiting for this treatment to end. I was bringing this with me everywhere. Also, I had more time on my hands than I have had for many years because working gets in the way of those things. I have crocheted since I was a little girl. My grandma taught me when I was little, so I know very well how to do it, but I started thinking of different ways to make shapes and I started testing it out and inventing as I was going.
That’s what I’m still doing now is figuring out how to use the yarn and the hook to make new things. I started making hats. I have always made hats. Some of the sculptures I have made are hats, but they are sculptures at the same time. In the gallery here at Union Street right now, there’s one on display which is the old stump. It is a hat that is crocheted, but it is also a sculpture of a stump. Some of these are behind me. Some of the ones behind me will be at another gallery in Street.
We keep talking about Union Street Gallery. Tell us what Union Street Gallery is so that people will know.
Union Street Gallery is in Chicago Heights, Illinois. A lot of people seem to not know about it, but it’s been in Chicago Heights since 1995. It was originally on Union Street, and now it’s on Otto Boulevard, where it’s been for years. There’s a gallery downstairs. It’s two stories. We have art shows with local artists, national artists, and international artists that display their art here. There are also studios for working artists.
This is the studio that we are in right now. I come here to crochet, to create these things, to sell what I’m making. It’s my office to run my art business to make connections. There are many kinds of artists here. We have several photographers that work here out of Union Street that do all sorts of photography.
Their studios are right here in Chicago Heights, but they also work with designers and their magazines. We have a couple of videographers that are here at Union Street. We have a weaver. We have three pastel artists. We have painters. We have two ceramic potters that do the clay. We have a patch lady who does leather and patches. We have all sorts of artists that are here actively working. People can come in. Those studios are open during our open hours. You can meet the artists. You can see them at work. You can buy work directly from artists that are right here in the community. It’s open to families.
It’s a great educational experience for kids to see, and young adults who would be interested in art as a career could come and meet artists that are doing art as a career and find out how to do that because it’s not that easy to figure out that whole world. It is a great place. I recommend everybody. Every time we have a new show, there’s a free reception with refreshments and wine, and artists that people can talk to. The studios are always open. That’s always a great afternoon for a family or date. All kinds of things going on here.
There are a couple of things that you brought up during our discussions that I want to ask you about because I truly go back to the children and stifling their creativity. It is one of the things you are going to be offering. We could talk about it. You are going to be providing art classes or crochet classes for students and small children.
One of the things that are instrumental is that we have to aid them in the early stages of development by fostering creativity instead of snuffing it out. When we do that, then we hold them back from having those aspirations of wanting to do more and become more, because we are shutting them down to say, “No. What you think and what you want to do is not viable. Instead, you are going to follow this.” Going back to the classes you are going to offer, what made you see this as a bridge to that creativity? What sparked this thought?
This combines my career in education, this career in art, and this wonderful place, which is a wonderful resource for kids all coming together at the same time. I have been concerned about kids. I see so many kids staring at their phones these days. Standing there staring at their phones. If the kids aren’t creating and inventing new things now, they won’t be able to do that in the future, and that’s going to impact humanity.
These are all the types of things that I tend to worry about. When I walked into this place, there was a huge classroom. I saw this as such a great opportunity to provide a safe space where children, young people, and adults can show who they are on the inside through healthy and creative expression. Art is a form of communication. That’s what it does for people.
There was a spark that this could be the place where this could happen. It’s a need now for our communities. All this stuff went away for kids during COVID. They lost all their activities and lost everything like this. It’s time to bring it back and get childhood back to being childhood again and see where they can go with their little minds.
How can a person sign up for the class? Do they go to Union Street?
You can go to the Union Street Gallery website. Signing up for the classes is under the store, or they can email me. It’s MamaEarthDesignShop@Gmail.com, and I can send them the information. Classes will be ongoing.
The other thing that hit me is that we briefly talked about your mom and her death. A lot of times, we allow our pain and grief to place us in the corner, we cower, and we don’t know how to overcome it, but you found a way to overcome it with your art. What made you go in that direction? What pushed you in that direction? Was it a voice? Was it a feeling? How did you know that this is where I’m supposed to go with my pain instead of sitting here and wallowing in it? Instead, use it in a positive way.
When you are a teacher of young children, you can’t let things get you down because you have to be kind, energetic, and engaging no matter what’s happening in the world. That’s something I learned a long time ago to be able to do. I was once in the classroom in Calumet City. Someone was shot outside the back door of our classroom.
We have these kids there. The ambulances came. It was separate from what we were doing, but there was an alley. We have to keep singing songs. We have to keep the kids engaged in what we are doing. We have to make sure that they aren’t in fear of what’s happening around them and can still enjoy their childhood. That’s something that I have done for a long time because of that.
Creating things has always helped me to keep my mind quiet. When you sit and you are creating, you can let your thoughts wander and open your mind up to whatever enters it, whatever voices come in, and wherever they come from. I was crocheting anyway. I was having a lot of emotions and I started pouring my emotions into what I was creating and new things started coming out. I could recognize that. I could feel that this was something new coming out of me and it was coming from pain.
You funneled your pain into a positive place to help you.
Every day while my mom was sick, I prayed for strength and humility. That’s what I did while I crocheted. That’s what I did while I walked my dogs. It’s what I did throughout the day and that’s what was given back to me.
That’s so profound. One of the things that I want to possibly lead people with because it’s not being afraid of transitions. You have had quite a few transitions in the last couple of years starting with COVID, because you were entrenched in a job for years, daycare center, then you transitioned to helping your mom. A lot of times, we don’t want to accept that we need to transition, but you didn’t have that problem. You kept moving. It sounds to me that the voice was saying or whatever your spirit was saying, “You are going in the right way. Follow me.” Is that how you saw it?
Sometimes I think, “Am I crazy? What am I doing here? Why don’t I go get a real job?” The voice keeps saying, “You are doing what you are supposed to do. Keep doing it.” I will say that as far as fear is concerned, I’m now more afraid of not following that voice. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here now. I’m so happy that I’m here now.
If I had not followed that voice and kept doing what I was doing and accepting whatever came with it, that’s where I needed to be. You got to have your job. You have to have that security. You have to have your insurance. I wouldn’t be here now doing this and this is so much more exciting than that was. Wherever it goes, we will be okay.
That’s what you keep saying to yourself that all will be well. Just keep going. Do you want to tell us anything about the art pieces? Do you have a parting thought and comment that you want to leave with the readers as well?
This is my newest piece. We talked a lot about fear and this is called Collective Fear, but what it is about is how the media keeps showing us.
Is that Mickey Mouse part of it?
That’s a mask. It is. If you see the photographs, you would understand that part. It’s a COVID piece. It’s about how all sides of the media. Whatever side you agree with politically, all sides keep showing us things to be afraid of and how that affects your mind. That’s what that piece is about.
That’s your brain up at the top. What are those pieces? Are they supposed to be spikes?
That’s the messages coming down making us afraid and divided from one another because we are so busy fighting with each other about who believes in what. It made us so divided in the past few years. We need to get rid of all that and start talking to each other. That’s my newest piece and that is all crocheting.
If you had a parting piece of advice that you want to leave with our readers because we have talked about fear, transitioning, and a leap of faith. For someone who doesn’t know what to do to take that first step, what can you tell them what to do to take that first step?
My mom, at the end of her life, was in hospice at home. She was only in hospice for ten days and she was in a lot of pain. She was on a lot of very heavy medications. She was in and out of it. A friend of mine came over and was holding my mom’s hand. My mom opened her eyes and said to her, “I have always said that God’s hand is right there. You need to reach out and take it,” and then she went back to sleep. That’s what I would say. He’s right there. If there’s something that you are afraid to do, maybe that’s the thing you are supposed to be doing.
God's hand is right there. You just need to reach out and take it. Share on X
Being an artist is a scary thing. It’s so scary to make something that comes from inside of you because it’s attached to your feelings and your emotions. It’s expressing who you are on the inside and people might reject that. People might not like it. People might not buy it. People might not understand it. If you are in fear of all of those things, you can’t chase your dreams. You have to create what it is that you feel you are supposed to create no matter what happens. No matter how the world reacts, what else can you do?
In place of fear, you have to go, “What?” You are not going to be in control here and you move forward. Thank you for your time. I love that the last thought that your mom had was to take that hand. Thank you for that, Kristi. Thank you for your time.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being my friend.
You will be back.
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What a powerful discussion there with Kristi that we had. She inspired me to know that I can overcome fear. You don’t allow fear to control you. You control it. She left a 30-year career in teaching to pursue her passion of being an artist. She sees that as something that must be pursued because we cannot allow our creativity and our autonomy to be squashed or to be hindered. That’s not to say you can’t work a job and do those things, but when you find that you are hindered in being who you want to be, then you must move on. You can’t compromise the person that you want to become and the things that you want to do.
I applaud her because she used her grief and her pain of the passing of her mom to funnel into her true passion and calling of being not just a knitter of hats, shawls, and scarves to create art. An art that speaks and talks about what is going on in the world and that we can take and apply to our life.
That was very impactful and it helps me know that you can take those steps. As she said, all you have to do is take that step because the hand is out there for you. It’s for you to grab it and believe because we tend to stop and not want to go forward. We say the resources are not there and we don’t have what we need to keep moving in the direction that we want to go. As you saw, at each turn, something was provided. The resource that she needed was provided.
Now she’s working in her studio creating her art pieces. Now she’s offering classes because she’s getting back to still helping the children to be creative. She’s continuing to press forward in the direction that she needs to go, and that’s what it’s all about. Having that tenacity and determination to keep moving, not looking at what’s in front of you, but instead seeing what’s within you. Know that you will get all that you need and that all that you need will be provided. The resources will come.
Do not allow fear to hold you back. Press through that fear and move forward. Embrace those transitions in your life because she transitioned multiple times, but not once does she give up. Do not give up. Believe in who you are and what you can do and make that move. Take that first step and you will be successful. You will achieve what you desire to achieve. If there are obstacles and if you do have roadblocks, know that you will overcome them because that hand is there for you to take, so believe in that hand and grasp it. Talk to you again soon on the next episode.
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About Kristi Yapp
I am Kristi Yapp. I am at a a period in my life where I feel like a child. This is a transformational time- I am 51 years old, the world has changed, the floor has dropped out, everything is chaos- except for my hook and my ball of yarn. I am coming to you with nothing but potential and the desire to learn and grow. I suppose this is an unorthodox route to take towards becoming a studio artist- but here I am.
