Meet Aleyshia Czarnecki | Mixed Media Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aleyshia Czarnecki and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aleyshia, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I didn’t necessarily mean to at first. At first I was just trying to make art for myself and my own home. I have a degree in art history, and after I finished school I realized that there aren’t a lot of people making home decor using the art that I studied. It’s easy to find art by the ‘masters’ – art that everyone has heard of. I’ve seen the same few paintings on a thousand different coffee mugs for years. But there is so much other great art that isn’t explored outside of a museum setting. My focus in school was on Late-Medieval and Early Renaissance art, but none of the art that I spent hours learning about for my classes was being made for home display. So I took it upon myself, and I just didn’t want to stop. I also started to fall in love with the ‘process’ of making, so it only made sense to make more than one piece at a time. Eventually, I ended up with too much for my own walls, and so Twin Goats was born. It became an opportunity to share my knowledge and passion for this art, as well as a space for me to make more. Half the fun for me is learning about new art (and the meaning and stories behind it) so when I create art it makes me feel like, in some way, I’m preserving that history in a way that everyone can enjoy.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I use historical art to make modern home decor. That means I take primarily 15th and 16th century art, a lot of which isn’t even on display in museums, and put it onto something that you can hang in your home. Each piece is something I know the history of, and I like to include some of that with my decor. I just finished a recreation of a 15th century Florentine Tarot deck, each block was hand carved and pressed onto paper just as it would have been when it was originally created. It was a test of my patience, and took me almost a year, but I’m proud of myself for sticking to my commitment to historical accuracy. It’s also my first piece that is multi-functional. The art on each card is beautiful, and while it can absolutely be used as a modern tarot deck, I take the opportunity to show it can simultaneously be used for the exact same purpose that it was created for – to play card games. I think it’s fun to play with that duality, and how the things we interact with can change in function and meaning over time. I’m still navigating what it means to be a ‘professional’ in my field, since I would be doing what I’m doing regardless. I feel very lucky that I have found an audience, and that there are people out there that appreciate what I’m doing enough to support it financially. I’ve learned a lot about patience doing this, and I try to take everything one step at a time so that I don’t overwhelm myself with projects. I want to use Twin Goats to teach the people that like what I make how to learn from art, and how to connect with and appreciate all the art that surrounds us in a more meaningful way.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
As a barista myself, coffee and fun little drinks are a pretty big deal. Grand Rapids is a beverage city and for coffee I go to Morning Ritual. It’s the place the person who makes you coffee goes to when they want coffee. You can often find an art market going on there too, so it’s a great opportunity to shop from local artists. For really cool vintage oddities you have to go to Black Cat Bodega in the Creston neighborhood. Part of what makes this place special to me is the historical religious artifacts they have that are difficult to find elsewhere. We’d also have to go to Zabház to visit Jan and Jin for some of the best vintage shopping in town. Not only will you find a new outfit, maybe a new style, but you’ll also find a wonderful place with wonderful people that cultivate community care and joy. For lunch we are getting One Stop Coney on Fulton. It’s the best hot dogs in the world, you can tell how much love go into each one of those puppies.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My family has always been a huge support. I owe a lot of who I am to my late grandmother, Mimie, who helped raise me, and encouraged creativity and art making my whole life. She also instilled a deep love of history in me and my brother and always emphasized the importance of constantly learning and trying new things no matter how old you get. I spent a lot of days as a kid doing crafts on her coffee table while watching the History channel. In fact it’s that very coffee table that I still make all my art on to this day. My partner Kim, the gemini to my capricorn (the Twin to my Goat so to speak), has also been a huge help for me. She encouraged me to go for it, and has been there for me every step of the way. She helps me stain wood, find spots in the house to let prints dry, and makes me go to sleep at a decent hour when I get too focused on a project.

Website: https://twingoatsmercantile.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twin.goats/