I was brought up in a multigenerational household for most of my life. When my dad got transferred to Illinois with the NAVY that changed.
I remember going to Christian Day School through fifth grade. My grandmother drove me most mornings and she and my two great aunts that lived with us, my parents and me, supplied the best treats at least once a week. The cookies, cupcakes and homemade candies were not the best things my grandmother shared with my class.
It was the fabric samples.
My grandmother would take a day off from working every once in a while to do art with my class. She taught us how to use the fabric as a kind of mosaic to make pictures. She taught us how to show simple pillows. She even showed us how to braid and weave strips of the fabric into bracelets and patches.
It was all about taking what we had and looking at it in a different way, and that philosophy was reinforced for me at home. I was forever, taking fabric, magazines, colored paper, flowers, leaves, bottle caps, basically anything in the house I could, and making it into something else.
I think that’s part of why I still love using fabric samples and upcycled material in my work. I can remember being very happy and safe while I was making art back then. It gives me the same happy and safe feeling when I make art now.
Not everyone will understand what my art represents to me that’s OK. That just means that the art you were looking at wasn’t made for you. But… When you find YOUR artist and YOUR art you will know.
My art style changes with the wind, but I keep going back to those days in my mind when my grandmother, Aunt Anne, and Mimi (my great aunt Marion) would be working their kitchen magic, and I was sitting at my little table off to the side, working on some great masterpiece. Cutting out pieces of fabric and paper gluing it to the back of a piece of cardboard box. (Yes, I do think my upcycling tendencies came from my great aunts encouragement as well.)
I was happy, loved, safe and encouraged to be as creative as I could be. I believe that is one of the reasons I want to create a place that is safe to share and ideas, a place that people can say, “ That’s cool. Your thing you made reminds me of something,“ or “that makes me feel happy.“ Without feeling like they are going to be criticized. It should also be a place where if you don’t have something nice to say, please just let it go.
For the record, I will protect this place from negativity with everything I have. This is my safe place too. You’re welcome to sit and stay as well, get to know us and learn about who we are and what we do. You are not welcome to be hurtful or mean.
This is my fantasy domain.
I am not afraid to fight the goals and the banshees to keep it safe.
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