I loved drawing until an unhappy nun in second grade art class gave me a C. Until that time I had been convinced of an awe-inspiring talent. So, sadly, I never took another art class, but I was always very creative: acting in theater productions, sewing my own clothes, writing short stories, designing greeting cards, etc.
In college, I studied English and Communication and waiting tables. Later I plowed through a series of meaningless jobs but defiantly continued to create, albeit hooked rugs and macrame plant holders (de riguer in the '70s). And then I took a watercolor class at an arts center that made my heart sing. For the next twenty years, I took classes when I could but never succumbed entirely to the call.
Later I managed a law office, wrote grants for the arts, raised funds for a symphony orchestra and 2 universities, apprenticed myself to a graphic designer for 3 years and finally began my own graphic design business, which has kept me busy working for artists and arts groups since 2001.
In 2006, I bartered a Web site for pastel lessons and heard my heart sing as never before. Soft pastel affords me the profound freedom to draw and paint and sculpt all at the same time, and it has given me the courage at last to be an artist.
Click here to download my artist resume.
Pastelists always talk about the tactile nature of the medium, and I too think of it as a kind of sculpting in and around shapes and layers. Soft pastel is a sensual delight because you can layer it and blend it, smear it and stroke it, draw with it, rub it ~ grind, sculpt, carve, scumble, abrade, scuff and scrape with pastels. And you are using them as extensions of your fingers, very, very colorful and dusty fingers. For me, the medium is a pure and inextricable part of the message
One of the greatest gifts of becoming an artist has been learning to see. I used to look at the world and now I see it, and that inspires in me a continuous appreciation for life I never had before. I take joy in the results of my art making, but I show up simply for the experience of making it.
Why make art? It's the most challenging, pleasurable thing I can do. Pleasurable in the sense that I love losing myself in it and challenging in that it's intellectually and physically rigorous, engaging all my senses and synapses. And when the process is over, sometimes I have a lovely memento of the experience.
