When I placed an object onto white paper and added a few doodles for the first time, I couldn’t have imaged what would come of it one day. I had been using Instagram for quite a while, I took photographs of whatever appeared before my iPhone lens, I indulged my inclination towards perfectionism and minimalism and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Instagram, you are the dearest thing, I once wrote on Facebook. And then there was the cinnamon star cookie which my son and I had baked together. Really, it was just a crooked cookie, but a picture formed before my inner eye, an association: The cookie is running. Therefore I drew a line, a tree, placed the cinnamon cookie next to it, and this is how it started.

Spielkind – nursery child, a friend once called me. He was watching me – the way I conquered the world around me with child’s eyes, the way I played with objects and transported them to new worlds. With charm, a twinkle in my eye and plenty of inner sparkle. A sliced tomato on my plate became a butterfly, my piece of lemon cake was nibbled by a cheeky monster, or a pair of scissors sprouted legs and teeth.

I tried different things, drew small stick people holding my son’s hand while they did gymnastics, took buttons and gave them ears, or used one single line to join petals from my garden into a garland. Always on white paper and always combined with black, simple lines. And then, one day, I came to the point where I wrote underneath a photo: I can’t stop with this. Something had been set in motion inside me, a stream of creativity which could not longer be contained. A fantastic feeling.

People often ask me how I come up with my ideas and I can only respond: It just happens. Every object I see, every word I hear, and every topic which interests me at the moment can inspire me. Suddenly pictures appear inside my head and I start playing with them. However, not every idea ends up with a place in my gallery. Quite often I despair of my artistic skills (how does one draw a fairy tale star-taler-girl? or Superman?) or of the lighting, brightness or the limited possibilities of the iPhone. I also tried using a single-lens reflex camera and gave it up again, because it is just not me. I am the one who squats on the floor and holds her breath to try and keep the iPhone as still as possible. I am the one who has a few favorite apps to edit my pictures and the one who daily increases her use of white paper. It is precisely all of that which for me constitutes the charm of my work, with all its pitfalls and difficulties. That’s the way it should be.

By now hardly a day goes by on which I don’t at least publish one of my pictures. #and_draw_something is the hashtag I have set up for my works. For me this means: Draw something, create worlds, and tell stories with your little pictures. Whimsical Drawings is what Instagram called it in their User Feature about me. And @amselcom wrote: @khiesti’s work never seems to forget that wonderful, imaginative world we once had as a little child.

Maybe that is it.

Kerstin Hiestermann
spielkkind.de
instagram.com/khiesti