Welcome
Create with Us
Viewfinder is focused on finding your own unique VIEW! Our goal is to provide a much needed creative outlet for the community
About Kenzie
My name is Kenzie Whittal and I am a local artist and the owner of Viewfinder Art Studio in New Hamburg.
You can typically find me in my studio sporting a messy bun and covered in paint and clay! So my story... as a proud introverted artist, I am not the best at talking about myself...
“Artists are people driven by the tension
between the desire to communicate
and the desire to hide.”
But that is why I am Viewfinder. And each young artist that finds creative comfort in the studio is Viewfinder. My family is Viewfinder. Together we have created a safe
space to express ourselves through art and spread the importance of art!
With incredible family support and by securing loans, one of which with Futurpreneurs Canada I was able to make my dream a reality and opened the studio nearly 5 years ago now. It continues to be a challenge, but so worth the journey everyday.
I set out to break the stigma around art and it’s importance of being considered equal to every other extra curricular out there. It makes me smile knowing many Wilmot children have art as ‘their thing’, something I so badly needed when I was younger. Art is SO important for self awareness and expression.
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
-Thomas Merton
Personally for me I can’t say this enough. I know art keeps my anxious mind at bay and if I stray from it I can feel the anxiety creeping in. I’m my best self when
I’m absorbed in a million projects because I’m able to express myself through creativity and help kids do the same. I’ve met so many kids that I know need the
very same outlet as I do and there is nothing better then knowing we all come together in our creative escape and make friendships with other likeminded artists.
Since opening the studio my personal art has also grown with it. While still teaching children I am also establishing myself as a growing professional artist. I am focusing
on building my own fine art portfolio with acrylic painting, photography and pottery. I enjoy shooting manual photography with my DSLR and turning these images into my own take of an acrylic painting.
In March 2020 our journey started a very hard season that ultimately led to the closure of our brick and mortar space of five years due to COVID-19 in August 2020.
While our brick and mortar aspect of the business now may be closed that does not mean that Viewfinder or I, Kenzie are going anywhere. I am grateful to have been able to create a home studio to operate out of. Pottery and material kits are available for contactless porch pick up at my home studio in New Hamburg. In the future Viewfinder plans to be mobile throughout the community and will continue to run virtual classes until we are able to be together again.
This business and art are my whole heart and I can’t thank you enough to anyone who has supported Viewfinder.