“I did not want to leave this world without having spoken my truth.”
Why do you create art? I believe that we are all artists in our own lives. Everyone has the ability to create. Most of us have been inoculated with a bunch of rules that actually stifle that creativity. My work is leading a process to strip those rules away. To use that process for my self and my students to see just a little bit differently. To change the focus from judgements to telling the truth. What emerges for myself and most of my students is a freedom to be creative. A freedom to tell the truth. That truth emerges on the page and …a whole new creative vista emerges. I show up and tell the truth on the page every day. For me, the next step is finding my style, creating my voice, curating my truth.
Tell us about your journey to become an artist? I have no formal training in the arts. I think I took one art class in college. When I was 34, my twin sister gave me a set of watercolors for Christmas. I was horrible with watercolors lol. But there was something about the way it made me feel, something about creating that I knew was for me. It was a clarity of expression that I had not really known until then. I haven’t looked back once since that day.
Tell us about your journey to claim the title artist? What is it about making art that stirs your soul? I am all about discovering beauty in unusual places. For me, those places are usually about the grief and anger and so called “dark” emotions that we all have and for the most part are afraid to explore. There is such beauty in just “being”. In having your own emotions and not prettying them up. There is beauty in a child’s scribble for me because they are free to just do what they want. In the physical world there is beauty for me in the well loved things, and also the trash. That frayed piece of cardboard with all the layers showing thru, that piece of tape on the telephone pole that has picked up the layers of wood and paint underneath, those rusted pieces of metal bits in an old shed.
There is a guy that lives down the street from me…and he has had an upholstered chair outside under a maple tree for a year. When I drive by…sometimes there is nothing in the chair. The other day there was a stuffed cat. (at least I hope it was a stuffed cat because it never moved). I don’t know this guy…but I make up stories about that dang chair. What’s it for? Is it performance art? No one ever sits in it but day after day it’s out there rotting and I assume gathering bugs. It wasn’t as interesting in the first few weeks as it is now. It’s a container for my imagination, sitting out there rotting. I consider it to be some sort of metaphor now. It’s a perfect example of the Down Deep for me. I’m not sure what that says about me though.
Behind the Seams
What does your creative Practice look like? I sit down with my journal , every day, and ask “what is my truth today”?. Then I let that go and just create. I don’t do well from a blank page…so I work on page backgrounds when I’m needing to be mindless. I start each journal with all of the pages already filled. That way I can just pick a background that calls to me and jump in.
What sort of creative walls do you hit? I hit walls like everyone. Usually my wall is about making myself sit down to work rather than being blocked. I think because I don’t judge the end result the walls aren’t there as often. Having said that I tend to create furiously for long periods of time and then have to just rest lol. I’m what I call a serial creator. One thing after another shows up when I am in the flow. So I have learned to live with those cycles and not judge them. I DO create every single day no matter what. I think it’s important to keep my hand moving.
What do you do to move through them? I sit down no matter what. I think there is validity in the journey and not just the end product. If we can let go of the attachement that every single thing we create needs to be beautiful…we are much more authentic in our art. I work hard at moving away from judging my art…and in place of that…ask myself if I told my truth. We live in a society that judges everything and it’s my belief that it’s a wasted exercise of the ego. What happens if we like a piece of art? Nothing. What happens if we hate a piece of art? Nothing. The art is still the same. The art itself hasn’t changed. If we can realize that our judgements are NOT the truth….but a way to keep from telling the truth….then we begin the process of discovering WHAT our truth is and putting THAT on the page. I believe that the truth heals and the message to the viewer will resonate with that healing
How has your process evolved? I know most artists will be able to relate to this statement. In the beginning I wanted every new tool, gadget and gizmo. I was 34 before I ever created a piece of art. So… I practiced and practiced and grabbed all the new stuff and I do believe that better tools give you a better result. These days though, I’ve realized that sometimes, for me, all that stuff is a way not to begin my art. So I use old books repurposed as a journal or canvas or cardboard. I cannot live without gesso, gel matte medium and neocolors. If I were going to be stranded I would want those three things. And while I still fall prey to the latest shiny thing sometimes…for me my process has been distilled over the years by limiting my supplies.
“what is my truth?”
