On days that Kent Paulette starts a new painting, he rises early in the morning in his home-studio at Powder Horn Mountain in Watauga County. No matter the weather, he walks down to a fast-flowing creek. Some days, the sun’s already filtering through the leaves, which, on this warm October morning, are ablaze with autumn colors.

Barefoot, Paulette enters the water — another frequent practice, no matter the weather. He wades in, knee-deep; he feels the mud between his toes. Then he bends to put his face into the cold stream. Doing so helps him feel connected with the elements around him, with the mountain landscape that has shaped his life, and which now offers daily artistic inspiration.

Kent Paulette photograph by David Uttley

After communing with the surrounding trees and plants and birds, he sometime visits Corky Wok Rock — a boulder he named in honor of his longtime canine companion, a Yorkshire terrier. Paulette then fills bottles with water that he’ll haul back up to the house to use in his paintings. He likes how transparent “creek washes” — creek water mixed with paint — blend and bleed over dried patches of thick paint that he applies for texture. How this process can take a work-in-progress in surprising new directions. And how his beloved creek becomes a part of the finished product.

Energetic, playful, uninhibited — these words are often used to describe Paulette’s paintings and could also be used to describe the artist as he works. There’s lots of music and movement involved, along with a range of expressive brushstrokes that calls Kisses, Screams, Jellyfish, and Ninja Splats, to name just a few. In keeping with his inclination to be present and embrace the unexpected, Paulette paints decisively, avoiding hesitation or any inclination to try to control the outcome.

Paulette describes the process behind his large bear painting, on display at the Wilson Center for Nature Discovery at Grandfather Mountain, as “a collaboration between rain and wind.” Photography courtesy of Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation

“A collaboration between rain and wind” is how he describes the process behind a massive 7½-by-10-foot canvas of a bear — painted in vivid blues, with a flaming orange sky in the background. It now hangs permanently in Grandfather Mountain’s Wilson Center for Nature Discovery. Paulette worked on that piece — the largest he’d done to date, too large to fit in his house at Powder Horn — on a deck outside his bedroom during a week of torrential downpours. The rain helped the canvas stay damp, which allowed the colors to flow into each other as he applied his creek washes, blending them with water he’d also gathered from falls on Grandfather Mountain. At one point, wind whipped his tarp up against the canvas, depositing paint from one section onto another. Curious animals stopped by to visit. A mouse even stored seeds in one section of the work-in-progress. All this delighted Paulette, who welcomes the unforeseen as part of his practice.

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Growing up in Hickory — about an hour away from Powder Horn Mountain, which sits in Deep Gap’s Triplett Valley — Paulette spent a mostly idyllic childhood with his parents and older brother, Tate. He worked as a paperboy, and even showed his art at the local museum — a painting called Backwards Dalmatian. “I accidentally painted it black with white spots,” he says. He never imagined that he’d someday make a living as an artist.

Now 43, Paulette is still extremely close with his family. His parents live with him in the house at Powder Horn Mountain, and he credits their unwavering all-around support as having been instrumental to his trajectory. Conversations with his brother on topics ranging from philosophy and botany to cognitive science continue to inspire and influence his work.

Paulette captures the vibrancy and depth of color of familiar mountain scenes through an artist’s lens, such as a cardinal at sunset in Price Lake. painting by Kent Paulette

Paulette is soft-spoken, smiles frequently, and has an easy laugh. His wavy brown hair hangs loose past his shoulders, and he is often clad in flannel shirts and corduroys or shorts — never shoes, if he can help it. He’s grown accustomed to a quiet life here, with its serene rhythms and routines. Besides daily walks with his parents, he tries to focus on art and limit interactions with others.

He spent nearly 10 years doing the opposite — painting before live crowds in downtown Banner Elk, sometimes on the sidewalk or at an open studio. He often painted inside restaurants, either Sorrento’s Italian Bistro or Chef’s Table at Sorrento’s, where the owner invited him to both display his work on the walls and paint as patrons dined.

This was all part of Paulette’s ongoing interest in taking artistic risks. But it also felt like “collisions of the heart” — a phrase that became a painting of the same name — were happening in terms of the influence that curious bystanders had on him. “I was putting myself out there,” he says, “and everything everyone said affected me in some way. They’re all in those paintings.”

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While grateful for the exposure and the experience he got in Banner Elk, Paulette relishes quiet now — the ability to paint what he wants, when he wants, with only the birds (and squirrels, and snakes, and occasional bobcats or bears) as company. He’s entering a new phase with his work, he says, though he’s not quite sure how to describe it yet. He’s a bit out of the habit of putting his process into words, partly due to still-lingering effects of pandemic isolation, partly due to his current focus on contemplative ritual and solitude. He likens his habits these days to the wrens outside his window. “The sound that comes out of them,” he says “It’s just something that they have to do. Uncontrollable, you know? I think I’m at that place right now with my painting.”

Paulette depicts the fiery changing colors of the Linn Cove Viaduct in Blue Ridge Parkway. painting by Kent Paulette

He’s still eager to take risks and explore new directions. And he is as productive as ever — shipping paintings around the world, with delivery assistants who drive them to locations around the Southeast, as well as ongoing exhibitions in Banner Elk, Boone, Hickory, Asheville, Morganton, and elsewhere.

“There’s a lot of hard work that goes into being successful,” Paulette says, “but there’s a lot of luck, too.” He’s glad to be in a position in which he can give back and help others. The Grandfather Mountain Bear painting was a donation inspired by his love for the place and its wildlife. Other paintings he’s donated in recent years have raised more than $30,000 for Dream On 3 in Charlotte, which supports sports-related programs for kids with life-altering conditions. And during the pandemic, he gave away more than 600 signed canvas prints to essential workers, including firefighters, teachers, and nurses.

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Paulette’s influence extends far beyond North Carolina, at this point. In the spring of 2024, an art teacher at a primary school in Southampton, England, contacted Paulette about a class she was teaching on him and his art. It would culminate in individual student projects. Paulette responded to students’ questions, provided supplementary information, and then had the idea that they should create something together.

Students chose the gray wolf as a subject. So he painted one — or the beginning of one, with plenty of blank space on which the students could contribute. Then he rolled up the work-in-progress and shipped it overseas. Thus began his first-ever collaboration — with 58 British fourth-graders.

British fourth-grade students showcase their creativity and techniques in the collaborative project with Paulette. Photography courtesy of Kent Paulette

It was an experiment, of course. A risk, an exercise in uncertainty — in other words, right in Paulette’s wheelhouse. He was curious about what such a large group endeavor might produce, unconcerned with whether the final product would be a “success” or not. That wasn’t the point.

Though a unique experience, this was hardly the first time Paulette had supported budding artists. A few years ago, a second grader in Washington state created paintings inspired by Paulette’s work, also for a school project. In an email, the student, who suffered from anxiety and OCD, asked him, Are you ever worried you might mess up? To this, Paulette replied that he tried not to think of an end goal when making art. In fact, he told the student, “Happy accidents and ‘mistakes’ have always led to my biggest breakthroughs.”

Paulette’s vibrant style is hard to look away from, as Visions, his portrait of a Native American, demonstrates. painting by Kent Paulette

Later, the child’s mother thanked him for being a role model who helped her son see his struggles in a new light. And when the kids in England finished the wolf painting, their teacher wrote to tell him that a lot of them said the project was the highlight of their school year, and that, per his suggestion, “the children were allowed to express themselves onto the canvas … strokes and shapes, whatever and wherever they felt was right. Sadly, no wolf howls, but plenty of exclamations of joy and happy faces.”

For those who experience Paulette’s paintings — their vitality, their dynamism — words aren’t always sufficient, or necessary. So the self-taught painter, from the sanctuary of his mountain studio, goes forth, sharing bits of the wisdom he’s gleaned — not just about how to make art, but also about how to live in the world, with all its mystery and wonder and happy accidents.

For more about Kent Paulette’s work, visit kentpaulette.com.