Heather (Kaiser) Kent
Heather (Kaiser) Kent grew up in an environment where making and creating were encouraged from an early age. Her parents supported her curiosity, and childhood experiences with piano, drawing, painting, and poetry laid the groundwork for a lifelong engagement with art and writing. Early interests ranged from chalk pastels and crafts to poetry, particularly haiku, which she began writing in elementary school and has continued throughout her life. She was also deeply influenced by visual puzzles and optical systems, with artists like M. C. Escher shaping her early fascination with structure, pattern, and perception.
Although art was a constant presence, Kent’s path to becoming a practicing artist was nonlinear. After joining the military, she explored numerous media while remaining intellectually engaged with art and writing. A turning point came in 2017, near the end of her military career, when she volunteered as a historic interpreter at Bedford Village in Pennsylvania. There, she worked closely with potter Bob Zabrosky, spending long weekends apprenticing in the pottery shop. The experience was immersive and demanding, requiring travel, physical labor, and sustained attention, but it proved transformative. Under Zabrosky’s mentorship, she developed technical confidence and conceptual clarity, ultimately deciding to apply to art school.
Kent began formal art studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2018, initially intending to become an art teacher. She soon shifted into a Master of Arts program in Sculpture, graduating in 2019. Formal education provided her with tools to shape meaning from lived experience and to develop ideas through craft, research, and material exploration. Scholarships and specialized programs at institutions such as Penland, Peters Valley School of Craft, and the Pittsburgh Glass Center further expanded her material knowledge, reinforcing her belief that sculptural practice requires fluency across multiple media.
Her work consistently engages three broad and enduring subject areas: warfare, God and creation, and humanity. These themes are approached through research, reflection, and iterative making, often involving repetition and constraint. Kent values handmade objects and original materials, preferring to work directly with substances that carry meaning rather than symbolic substitutes. Faith plays a central role in her practice, informing recurring references to Biblical concepts such as agape and the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Kent’s recent body of work has been significantly shaped by the writings of Joe Allen, particularly Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity. His ideas prompted a renewed commitment to human mark-making and a deliberate rejection of artificial intelligence within her creative process. Her work emphasizes low-tech, tactile approaches, using handwriting, drawing, and small-scale materials to foreground human agency and intentionality. She draws a clear distinction between what she considers sacred and profane, positioning art as an act of devotion and responsibility.
Her creative routine is adaptive, shaped by family life and practical constraints. Early morning hours, often beginning before dawn, are reserved for writing and making in quiet focus. Kent values consistency over speed, returning to ideas repeatedly through writing, drawing, and reworking until they reach clarity. Pauses and periods of reduced output are treated as part of the process rather than failure, a perspective shaped by a three-year hiatus during the pandemic when access to tools and time was limited.
Kent measures success by the clarity and integrity of communication rather than recognition or trend alignment. She is committed to craft, honesty, and personal agency, and openly advocates for artists to opt out of using artificial intelligence in creative work. Her current project, A Love Letter to Humanity, is a long-form written piece that continues her exploration of faith, humanity, and resistance to technological encroachment. Across disciplines, her practice remains grounded in patience, humility, and a sustained commitment to making work that reflects deeply held values.
