Creativity was a way of life for me as a child, and I was drawn to art until an unhappy nun assigned a C to my owl drawing in second grade. Until that time I had been convinced of an awe-inspiring talent. So sadly I never had an art class in school, but I acted in theater productions, sewed my own clothes, wrote creatively, designed my own greeting cards, etc.
In college, I studied English and Communication and waiting tables. After college and throughout my 20's I plowed through a series of meaningless jobs, but I continued to create, making hooked rugs and macrame hanging 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 the occasional class 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 since 2001. Eventually, I found my niche working with artists and art groups.
In 2006, through mere curiosity, I bartered my Web site services for pastel lessons from Phoenix artist Jane Nassano and heard my heart sing as never before. Soft pastel affords me a profound freedom to draw and paint and rub all 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. 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, 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.
I generally begin with a photograph that has tripped some arty trigger deep within. I often start out by faithfully drawing the image but almost instantly divert from the lines and color I see in that first sketch. I generally block in shapes with darker colors than I intend to end up with.
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.
