Kelly Hartigan Goldstein
Cutting Through the Noise: The Art of Collage, Found Poetry, and Daily Reflection
For Kelly Hartigan Goldstein, creativity is both a birthright and a battle. She grew up surrounded by brilliant, offbeat thinkers—a family where artistry, intelligence, and humor intertwined. Her great-grandfather was a marble artist from Italy, his brother an actor forever cast as a villain, and her grandmother a force of nature who devoured books at a relentless pace. Her father—a two-time Olympian turned advertising writer—demonstrated that creative success was possible with the right mix of dedication and positivity.
From the moment she could hold a crayon, Goldstein was making art—sometimes quite literally on the walls of her home. Even as a child, she was obsessed with color, texture, and meaning, captivated by the names on Crayola 64 boxes. By high school, she had earned the title of “Class Artist”, taking on odd creative jobs like dyeing shoes for proms and painting ice cream shop menus.
She pursued a BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art, concentrating in photography while pushing for an independent study in emerging digital tools. Today, people often mistake her analog cut-paper collages for digital creations, but her work remains completely handmade—a process of selection, deconstruction, and reconstruction.
Collage as Conversation: Merging Headlines, Imagery, and Social Commentary
Goldstein’s artistic practice is driven by an obsession with language and structure. She constructs her collages using fragments of newspaper headlines, pulling together poetry, humor, and critique from the relentless news cycle.
Recurring motifs in her work include:
Bananas – Because life is absurd, and if you can’t see the humor in it, good luck.
Freeways – A symbol of movement, potential, and the strange stillness of being between destinations.
Diagonal Lines – A visual philosophy: where we look is where we go.
Birds – Random yet reliable sources of everyday joy—and an artistic trick for establishing scale.
Her approach to collage and found poetry is intuitive yet meticulous. She spreads newspapers across the floor, scanning for words and phrases that spark meaning. Sometimes, she finds them by accident. Other times, they seem to find her.
"The application evolves with each piece, and I am excited to see what will be revealed next."
The current political climate and media landscape provide her with an endless source of material. She constructs her work as a kind of visual rumination—merging personal reflection with the broader cultural noise.
The Process: A Controlled Chaos of Words and Images
Goldstein resists routine, though she acknowledges its power. Instead of strict structure, she leans into rituals of creative immersion.
Listening to one album or artist on repeat – A Pavlovian response that instantly pulls her into a creative zone.
Writing and sketching in a notebook – Capturing fleeting phrases or visual ideas for when she returns to the studio.
Spreading newspapers across the floor – Letting words and images come together through a process of organized chaos.
She often loses herself in her work until hunger reminds her to step away. Her pug, sensing the need for intervention, will occasionally snuffle through the papers, demanding a break.
When inspiration stalls, she shifts gears—cleaning her studio, finishing a menial task, or stepping outside. Sometimes, she leans fully into creative frustration, stomping like a toddler for two minutes before pushing forward.
"If you can allow yourself a moment to sit in the pity party, feel lousy, and stomp—it can be a real game changer."
Her recent challenge was completing a collage series responding to Roe v. Wade’s repeal. She found herself emotionally overwhelmed, struggling to push forward. In response, she sought out community—joining the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art and creating a piece for their “6000 Circles” exhibition.
The experience reaffirmed the power of collective creativity and dialogue.
Themes of Contemplation and Urgency
Goldstein’s work often asks the viewer to pause, reflect, and engage with complexity. She is fascinated by the way people move through the world—absorbing information, forming opinions, and often speaking louder than they listen.
Her collages juxtapose personal, political, and cultural narratives, prompting questions rather than providing answers.
"Slow down and sit with it. Be detailed in your curiosity. Allow awe."
She is particularly drawn to the idea that we are all part of the same chaotic conversation—existing in the same world, yet experiencing it in vastly different ways.
"We need to get over ourselves. Entitlement, hypocrisy, and narrow-mindedness are exhausting. I want to believe we can be brave, accountable, and collaborative for the common good."
This desire—to push beyond personal bias and into deeper contemplation—drives both the humor and the gravity of her work.
Defining Success: Evolution Over External Validation
For Goldstein, success is not a fixed point—it is an ever-shifting, deeply personal metric.
In her 20s, success was about identity.
In her 30s, it was about purpose.
In her 40s, it was about recognition.
Now, she questions how much of it depends on external validation.
She resonates with Morgan Housel’s definition of success:
"The freedom to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want—that is priceless."
Her aspirations are straightforward but ambitious:
To create an explosion of work for a dynamic, interactive solo show.
To have her pieces enter museum collections, sparking conversations with wider audiences.
To keep making art, surfing, and being in the studio for as long as physically possible.
She also recognizes that age changes perspective. The urgency of time and energy has reshaped her focus, filtering out distractions.
"At 3:30 AM, existential fear wakes me up like clockwork. It’s a reminder that time is not unlimited. So I work."
Looking Ahead: A Future of Art, Writing, and Community
Goldstein is currently experimenting with smaller, faster pieces, weaving poetry more deliberately into her collages. Sometimes, her writing is fragmented—partially lost in the layering process—but she believes the meaning remains, embedded in the image itself.
She is also considering collaborative projects—though she admits she is hesitant about compromising too much and becoming an inadvertent assistant. However, she is drawn to interactive, large-scale works that invite community participation.
As she moves forward, she keeps a mantra close:
“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.” – Orson Welles
For Goldstein, constraints—whether of time, material, or circumstance—force creativity to emerge in its most powerful form.
Final Thoughts: The Advice She Gives, and the Advice She Takes
For aspiring artists and writers, she offers this:
Truth, honesty, and endurance.
"Any creative endeavor is a long slog. The trick is to be truthful with yourself, honest in your work, and to take the right things seriously."
She shares this journey with her daughter, a musical theatre performer in New York, who faces constant rejection in her field. They commiserate over the artistic struggle, knowing that for every 75 “no’s,” there is one hard-won “yes.”
For Goldstein, the work continues.
