" The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Fredrich Nietzsche

I am a cocoon....

"It's easier to stay somewhat grounded if I can allow my mind to roam around on it's own most of the time." - Erin Smith

I am an introvert. It's something that I've struggled with all of my life....mainly because it's difficult for other people I think. I've always been accused of ' being in my head' too much. Growing up on a farm in Minnesota was a blessing for me as a child....hours and years of time alone, or usually in the company of a cat or 12, drawing, sifting through generations of artifacts buried in the buildings and groves of trees surrounding our property, imagining and always creating things. As an adult living in LA, life can become overwhelming for me. I've had to learn how to maneuver the world in a much different way, accepting that I can only control my environment a small percentage at a time. Being ' in my head' is the only way that I can function when crowds of people get to be too much. I love to be out in it, but as an observer....to a large degree I am still that little kid standing at the edge of the playground visually taking in information about how people interact. It doesn't bother me to not be in the center of it. I have such a busy inner world that never shuts down and keeps me up nights working through a backlog of creative ideas that flit around like clouds of butterflies. I feel blessed when I hear from anyone who has purchased or received anything I've created. It's a way that I can commune with a world of people whom I am not usually brave enough to just walk up to and start a conversation with. Thank you for appreciating and taking care of my butterflies when I've set them free.

Happy Valentine's Day

" We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

- Dr Seuss

Everything Old is New Again....

I've been considering this Green Artist title I've fairly recently been given. I think it's kind of funny how a really old idea has been given a hip and cool name. I grew up wearing ' hand-me downs' from cousins and sisters, that my mother would often dress up with decorative trims and groovy patches. She sewed terry cloth towels into swimming suit cover up's for us. My grandmother had sewn dresses for her and her sisters using the decorative fabric that flour sacks were made from. Everyone knew how to sew, repair and alter clothing. Very little was discarded. When shirts were too worn for their intended use, their buttons were snipped off and put into jars for future repair on other things ( and for the visual enjoyment of small children ) and the salvageable bits of fabric were sewn together into quilts that have been inherited for generations of use. The idea that you didn't just throw things away, that you salvaged, reused, altered and fixed as many things as possible is the environment that I was raised in. In our current environment of extreme consumerism I am happy that I have been able to instill these older ideas in my children. Sure, many of the pieces that I 'upcycle' are taking those old ideas and putting them on steroids. It's become more of a form of expression....art that you can wear wherever you go. But in my heart, it all began while watching my mom pulling a needle and thread through some one's hand-me-down's.

Struggle

" The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

-Fredrich Nietzsche

Imagination and Resourcefulness

The other day I was considering how, at many points in my life, my artistic mediums have been dictated by the lack of finances and my desperate need to ' make things'. Fashioning a gift for someone out of bits and pieces of whatever I had in the house tested me and forced me to stretch my imagination as well as my skills. Sheer poverty has forged my creative path to the point that it defines what I now CHOOSE to use as my medium....found objects and salvaged materials. For years I had friends who would alert me where all of the ' good stuff' sitting on curbs in their neighborhoods was on garbage day. I became frightfully aware of the amount of waste in the world. It wasn't necessarily a ' groovy' thing to be doing when I was doing this...dumpster diving is not the life my parents had hoped for me. I'll never forget the day, four years ago, when a woman walked into the store where I was working, and asked me if, as a ' Green Artist' , I would be interested in teaching a series of workshops at an environmental event weekend she was planning. I was speechless....all of a sudden I had been elevated from ' Dumpster Diver' to 'Green Artist'. In my mind, they are the same things. But for most people, the term Green Artist is a lot more palatable....funny.

" I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of the telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." - Dr Suess

Criticism

" Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties"

- Erich Fromm

Creative inspiration can come from many places....but a certainty that anything that I create will actually sell isn't my first thought. Don't get me wrong. There are those things that I manufacture for stores that have been known to sell over and over again, that originally came from an inspired place, but have now become production line items that take me a lot of meticulous time to reproduce, but I don't really have to put a lot of creative thought into. The delight that I feel for these pieces is in the knowledge that there will be a pay check at the end of the process that will enable me to continue creating the things that I'm really turned inside out about. I never know what will sell. If I listen too closely to too many people's advice about what I should be creating, I'm usually lead down paths that have me spending valuable time and resources that I regret wasting.....and it usually turns out that they know about as much about what will sell as I do. I'm always hopeful that if I create things that I am passionate about, with enough work, I will also find the people who will enable me to continue on this path by purchasing a piece or two. I encourage people's criticisms, and advice, but I've learned to weigh everything carefully. Over time I've developed a pretty thick skin.....but I contemplate everything.

Sometimes a piece will pretty drastically evolve, based on circumstance or criticism. An example of which is one of my encaustic collages entitled " Alice is Late"...a piece loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Shortly after the original work was completed, I was invited to create an Alice in Wonderland window installation at Mindful Nest, in Burbank, CA, which was to showcase my work. This invitation lead to the creation of the more literal interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, containing more easily recognizable elements from the stories...circumstance. Alice's face in the original " Alice in Wonderland" piece, was the same face as in the " Alice is Late" collage until it was suggested to me that it was an " off putting expression" and the I should switch it out with a more pleasant face....criticism. I weighed the revision and the change lead to the sale of a few prints. But more importantly, the encouragement of those sales lead to the inspiration to print it onto muslin and to creation of my " Alice in Wonderland" fantasy coat....my first published piece.

Thank you to all of you, who have encouraged me with your advice and criticisms over the years. The creative path is a mostly uncharted one and it is nice to know that you are all there to offer directions and hold up signs when I need them...but knowing my nature, I'll most likely head off bumping through the pot holes first!