Creativity was a way of life for me as a child and young adult, but it wasn't until I took a watercolor class that I actually heard my heart sing. For the next twenty years, I took the occasional class but never succumbed entirely to the call.
Later I managed a law office, wrote grants for the arts, served as a professional fundraiser for a symphony orchestra and 2 universities, apprenticed myself to a graphic designer for 3 years and finally began my own design business, which has kept me busy since 2001 working with artists and art groups.
In 2006, through mere curiosity, I bartered my website services for pastel lessons and have never looked back. Soft pastel affords me a profound freedom to draw and paint at the same time. For me, the medium is a pure and inextricable part of the message, and it has given me the courage at last to be an artist, now exhibiting at the Easy Street Gallery in Carefree, Arizona.
Pastelists often talk about the tactile nature of the medium. I tend to 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. And you are using them as extensions of your fingers, of your forearms even, moving with earnestness to dot an eye with a flick of the wrist, to scumble the full length of the paper with the entire arm. With pastels, you vary the pressure behind each mark to yield different qualities. The marks respond to a light heart or a black mood.
I often start a painting by faithfully drawing the image that has tripped some arty trigger deep within, but almost instantly divert from the lines and color I see in that first sketch. I generally block in shapes with colors darker than I intend to end up with.
I take joy in the results of my art making, but mostly I show up for the experience of making it. And sometimes, I am left with a delicious memento of the experience that others may enjoy as well.
