Kaylee Fair Is Learning How to Sell Her Art

New Anderson Artists Guild member Kaylee Fair grew up living half the time in Missouri and half in South Dakota as she traveled between her divorced parents’ homes. One steady inspiration was watching her grandmother, a professional artist, paint. Fair’s own creative urges expressed themselves in woodworking. “I made dressers, chairs, anything that intrigued me,” she said.

She applied to art colleges. “But then I got too scared,” she said. Instead, she attended Northern Arizona University for a degree in hotel and restaurant management. She worked in that field for several years before switching to property management. These days, she works from home as an inventory analyst. This involves looking at clients’ paperwork, analyzing their real property inventory, and comparing it to what they have on paper so they can pass an audit. “It’s a lot of data analytics,” she said. “It’s not my cup of tea, but it pays the bills.”

She has also co-written two fantasy novels that she self-published and has been writing children’s books in her free time that she hopes to self-publish this year, as well.

She and her husband, who’s in the military, have lived in many places, most recently South Korea, which was a favorite station that allowed for lots of travel. They came to South Carolina for his position teaching ROTC at Clemson University and plan to settle here when he retires next year. The two had their first child in May 2024, an adventurous little girl.

Fair’s dream is to support herself as an artist. She paints in acrylic and watercolor in a style she calls abstract realism. Her subjects range from landscapes to florals to cartoon characters.

And she is learning all she can about the business side of art. She plans to sell her art at a booth on First Fridays in Greenville, to establish an online presence, to enter juried shows, and to apply to galleries. “Right now I’m just a sponge for information,” she said.