Eugene artist Kiki Metzler's full-circle journey

After a life dedicated to creating art, first for fun and then to support herself, 72-year-old Eugene artist Kiki Metzler has come full circle.

The elder Metzler has been surrounded by art her whole life. Her father was surrealist painter Karl Metzler who immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1916 and spent his life in Baltimore, Maryland, and her mother was a poet. Her father dedicated a wall to her and her siblings for them to paint on.

“Brexton Alley is where we played. I would collect chalk to draw on the blacktop [of Brexton Alley] and draw life-size animals,” remembers the elder Metzler, “I’d run up to the art store on Howard Street and buy chalk … They admired my work, and they encouraged it,” she said.

She is back to making art for herself while passing on what she has learned to her daughter Kia Metzler and friend Ila Rose as they navigate the challenges of the professional art world.

"They are doing the work that I don’t have to,” said the elder Metzler.

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Of her mother, Kia Metzler said she does not remember a time that she was not immersed in art.

“Growing up in a creative environment like what my mom helped provide … I did not really understand, everybody wasn't an artist,” said Kia.

Kiki Metzler's History in Eugene.

The elder Metzler moved to Eugene in the 1980s, where she eventually found work as an artist painting murals and working at the Saturday market.

She had triplets in 1985, and in 2001 she discovered that she had mucosal melanoma, a war she would wage until 2015. She had to get ostomy bags after receiving bottom surgery, but her sense of humor persisted.

Her self-described whimsical and colorful style won over the hearts of people at the Saturday Market, something she did for over a decade until she stopped in the late 2010s.

During that time, the Metzler family would draw cartoons shedding light on her bags, with the elder Metzler having a sense of lightness and joy. “Life is made up anyway,” she laughed.

As a child at the Saturday Market, Kia Metzler would be a lot to manage for her mother. She and her siblings were adventurous, getting into places and talking to people Kiki would disapprove of.

Kia would become childhood friends with Eugene artist Ila Rose, a friendship that can only be described as sisterhood. Even Kiki recognizes Rose as another daughter, with the three sharing a bond to that of family.

The passing of the torch.

As an adult 29 years later, Kia sells her art at the Portland Saturday Market and wants to pursue painting murals. Rose has grown into one of Eugene’s most recognized and well-known muralists with work such as the trolley on Willamette Street and the Whitaker Diety.

Even with a similar career path, Kia said she does not feel like she must continue carrying the torch.

“I am a third-generation artist,” she said, “I don’t see any expectation on it… like influences like.”

Kia shares a similar struggle with her mother and Rose, the business side of art. “I've got a little bit creatively blocked because I started having to consider what other people thought of it,” said Kia.

Rose’s struggle is that she wants to do art for fun, not for work. She said she wants to paint for herself and do less for others. “I spend all of my creative energy on other people’s projects and selling how valuable I am to people,” said Rose, “It becomes a commodity rather than something I love.”

Spending time with the elder Metzler is a breath of fresh air, allowing her to find support when she needs it. Rose says that the elder Metzler lives a purely authentic creative lifestyle, and it is something that she looks up to.

“I became so close to Kiki and her whole family has art running through it. Kiki is like another mother to me,” said Rose.

Kiki Metzler's life now.

Looking back on her career, the elder Metzler considers her career as an artist a success, with her distinctive style of murals, galleries and face paintings. Her influence on art around Eugene runs deep and now she can be a mentor for the next generation.

The elder Metzler now has more time to spend working on her garden, watching TV with her dog Willie and working on art at her own pace. She feels like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. “I don’t have to make art, I get to,” she said.

Josiah Pensado is a multimedia reporter for The Register-Guard through the Charles Snowden Program for Excellence in Journalism. You can contact him at jpensado@gannett.com and follow him on Instagram@jpa.photos