Leslie Frasier is enamored of the Garden Island’s natural beauty and has found a way to infuse her art with the colors, shapes and contours she experiences daily. “The inspiration for my art comes from the landscapes and seascapes of Kaua‘i, though it is a loose interpretation,” according to the artist. To inform her work, she observes “the play of colors in the ocean and on the mountains and how that is ever-changing with the clouds and light and sky.” Each piece stems from her own “joy.” She does not work beforehand with a “set intention” for how she wishes the viewer to interact with her art.

Before moving to Kaua‘i, Leslie taught at a school in Santa Barbara, California, for eleven years, where she began integrating art into her subjects. Her “teaching art” skills developed over time, although her training was not in art. She has not always seen herself as an artist, partly because, as a child, she did not feel like she could draw well while associating being an artist with capable drawing. She recognizes that she “always had a vision for creating something.” The school projects she liked the most as a child required artistic elements.

When she moved to Kaua‘i, she became more immersed in teaching art, eventually establishing herself as the sixth-grade art teacher at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School. Leslie describes the relationship between teaching and making art as “symbiotic,” a two-way flow that increases creativity. She explains to her students that “drawing is only one aspect of being an artist, and there are many other ways to express yourself artistically.” Her teaching, consequently, includes “many different types of art forms.” Leslie thrives on experimenting with different media and varying size scales. A large project came from a fiber arts unit she developed for her students during COVID-19. As classes were halved in size, she could involve her students more directly in a project. Having “long felt that schools are too institutional and need to feel more humanizing and welcoming,” she set her sights on a barren, one-hundred-foot chain link fence fronting the school. To her, it was “just ugly and cage-like.” Her instincts told her, “It needed something soft and colorful to elicit joy.” Drawing on “the concept of yarn-bombing,” she and her students worked to weave fabric strips through the chain links for several weeks, layering vivid and contrasting colors in a striking, elongated visual display. The vibrancy is even more expressive against the background of neutral school buildings. Being outside, working as a group and making something beautiful must have been such an incredible antidote to the monotony and suffering of COVID-19.

Leslie transitioned from an art teacher and artist to more of a craftsman. It was not a breakout moment but a journey that happened over time. She began selling her art at Pu‘uwai Gallery & Boutique, grateful that owner Veronica Groepler was the first to express confidence in her work. She was still not there in terms of defining herself as an artist until she entered the Kaua‘i Society of Artists show in 2022. It was her first, and as a juried show, it was serious. As she experienced the nerves of publicly putting her art out there, Leslie even told some of her friends that she felt a tinge of “imposter syndrome” because her work had been accepted into the show. When she received the award for best in show, she described herself as “flabbergasted.” “To see the faces of my friends in the moment captured in photographs was priceless. I was not the only one that was surprised, to say the least.” When the realization dawned on her that a curator for art in U.S. embassies worldwide had selected hers as the winning piece, it was time to release self-doubt and accept her talent.

The method she uses, printmaking by means of a gel plate, is a very fluid process that sometimes has an intention of its own, aside from the artist’s purposeful work with the materials. It is a dynamic process with an additive phase in which the artist applies the paint; acrylic is Leslie’s choice. The image continues to be created in the subtractive phase in which the artist uses stencils to move the paint around, transforming the original field of color. Even though the method is fluid, the final image is impressively grounded, almost sinking into a state of peace into a serenely blended color field with minimally pronounced details. The gentleness of the color flows yields a subtle tonality, as do the gradual arcs of the mountain and shore contours. In fact, it is all about natural contours, how the ocean frames the shore, the curvaceous lines the mountains yield to the sky, and the perfectly beautiful interplay of all these natural features on Kaua‘i when tinted by changing colors from the play of light. Because drawing is not the medium that produces Leslie’s art, the image that emerges through creative manipulation is almost impressionistic, the absence of detailed forms fully informed by the presence of light, form, and color with an intuitive sense on the part of the artist as to how the elements interact for striking beauty.

Leslie describes her artistic process in creating the piece “Break of Day.” After applying the paints to a gel plate, she works the field to achieve diverse “layers and textures.” The artist stenciled the large mountain, which almost resembles the back of an exotic sea creature, “with a store-bought texture plate.” She gave a different treatment to “the light blue ‘clouds’ in the pink sky,” texturing that surface with a brayer, a hand roller often used as an accessory in printmaking for texturing and to apply paint to stamps. She is very fond of this work because it demonstrates her “use of space, air, and light to tell a story.” She adds, “These elements work together to create a specific mood.” The artist sees this image as “an early morning scene, where the sun is low, and the sky is starting to brighten with shades of pinks and corals, and there is still a lot of shadows on the mountains and sea.” Leslie has an original style with her choice of color. Whereas images of Kaua‘i landscapes are often predominantly green, it is fascinating to see a particular scene portrayed in pinks, browns, corals, and grays. She captures rare moments that might not be as apparent to the non-artist observer, lending to her work an element of surprise.

It is easy to understand how Leslie gained recognition. She presents what might be called the discerning artist’s eye, her unique interpretations that expand the vision of her viewers. Her art's beginning point is her enamorment, and the endpoint is a unique image conveying that love and admiration. Her openness to evolving as an artist is part of savoring the inspiration that occurs between teaching and making art and tapping into the “magic” that has repeatedly presented itself on the journey.

You can discover Leslie’s art at Banana Patch Studio and Aloha Spice Co. in Hanapēpē, Monkey Palm Mercantile and KIKO in Old Town Kapa‘a, and Aspire Furniture in Nāwiliwili Harbor in Līhu‘e.

For new works and artist pop-ups, visit her website at lesliefrasierart.com or follow her on Instagram at @lesliestudio808.