Kelli Hayes discovered her artistic talent when her gingerbread house won first place in a second-grade competition. It wasn’t until her mother dropped the house on the floor, however, that she discovered her love for producing art.
“I was bawling, I was crying. I was like, ‘Mom, you broke my art piece!’” Hayes said. “And ever since then, I knew I was passionate about it because I cried over a gingerbread house that I made from candy. So from then I’ve always liked painting and creating things with my hands.”
Almost 15 years later, Hayes – now a sophomore guard on the UCLA women’s basketball team – has moved on from gingerbread-house-making to various other artistic pursuits. Whether it’s painting, sculpting or photography, art helps the 20-year-old understand the world around her.
While taking photos in Berkeley a couple summers ago, she noticed the city’s significant homeless population. Rather than walking by the homeless people, she approached them with her Nikon camera.
“I get a lot of my inspiration from struggle from other people or animals or things that people don’t really think of as art,” Hayes said.
By photographing and talking to the homeless people, Hayes gained an appreciation for their stories.
“(I learned that) you can’t assume things about people. When you see people on the street (you can’t assume) ‘Oh he’s a drug addict or he lost it or she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life,’” Hayes said. “They don’t think that they need the social norms of a big house or a cellphone or a big family.”
She found a similar connection during a fall trip to the Getty Museum, where she enjoyed an exhibit of photography of the Japanese after World War II.
“How they struggled, the injuries that happened, the lives lost, that was struggle,” Hayes said. “That was something I was able to connect with because without struggle, there is no life.”
Hayes’ life has certainly not been without struggle. Although she was a high school basketball star, a three-time San Jose Mercury News Player of the Year who led Archbishop Mitty to the state championship as a sophomore, she used to get made fun of for being awkward, “like a giraffe.”
Just as the homeless people’s struggles had sparked her creativity, so too did her own personal struggle. During her senior year of high school, Hayes created a paper mache giraffe head – she said it looked like taxidermy – as a way of owning her awkwardness.
“So that was my idea, to use the giraffe as a symbol for me being awkward, but still really cool because people love giraffes,” Hayes said. “Who doesn’t love a giraffe?”
During the recruiting process, UCLA coach Cori Close found out about Hayes’ personality from Mitty coach Sue Phillips, whom she’d known for around 30 years.
“I remember when we started recruiting Kelli, (Phillips) just says, ‘You have a special person. You are recruiting a special person.’ And (Hayes) really is,” Close said. “I absolutely adore her. My job is more fun and it’s more fun to be in this program because Kelli is in it.”
In Hayes’ two years at UCLA, many teammates, and even Close, have requested pieces of artwork from her. She’s only obliged once, recreating one of her own paintings for a teammate’s birthday last year.
It’s not for a lack of generosity – she simply doesn’t have time to focus on her art as much as she’d like, as evidenced by the slew of unfinished pieces lining her wall.
As for the intersection of art and basketball, Hayes said she tries to keep the two activities separate.
“Basketball, I look at as my job. I have my boss, I have my job I need to do. I have my coworkers, which are my teammates, and I need to work with them to accomplish something,” Hayes said. “Art is something I do as an individual to help relax me and benefit other people. I don’t have to worry about other people’s opinions, it’s what I want.”
But fellow sophomore guard Jordin Canada insists Hayes does bring some of her artistic tendencies to the sport.
“I feel like her artistic expression is exactly how she is on the court,” Canada said. “She’s very funny. She does random things on the court, which is hilarious, and then she’s serious in other moments and that’s exactly like her art.”
And even Hayes will admit basketball can provide a dose of creative expression.
“When it’s played right, it’s art,” she said.