Title: The One and Only

Gender: Female

“Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don't know…” Edward Kleban's lyrics come to mind every time I must write about me. Perhaps I am too far inside my own head for that question. I mean, it isn't meant to get existential, right?

I guess that if I am defined by my relationships as well as by my activities, then I am a mother, a wife, and an artist And though my identities as mother and wife are the most important things in my life, they are radically influenced by my art which is a spiritual expression whether it be as celebration, meditation, or communication. I am an individual who sees a blank space and wishes to fill it with a message making use of color, line, texture, sound, etc. I love to manipulate a medium to produce something new and unique. In this way, I am an artist.

I guess that I am avant garde in that I truly believe that art should be beautiful which is contrary to a lot of contemporary art. I feel that bringing beauty and celebration into this world is more important than sharing the ugly. I see ugly every day and it doesn't inspire me at all. I know pain (heck, after four spinal surgeries, I think I definitely know pain!) and yet I prefer to share beauty… It offends me when I am judged for not focusing on “issues” or whatever. The thing is that everyone has different issues so no one issue takes precedence. So why burden others with my issues?

But, the whole idea behind art is that it is a nonverbal communication between the artist & viewer. If you could put that into words, you would, right?

I am always inspired by the human form, brilliant colors, and ruins…. Hard to tie that all together into a coherent argument about what I want to say, huh? But, basically, the bottom line is that I am inspired by timeless beauty and I want to spread the joy that I feel to the viewer.

This is not to say that I don't appreciate those who paint their pain. My uncle had a good friend who was an artist who always painted scenes from the Holocaust, of which he was a survivor. His work was incredible; however, it hurt me to look at it. So his passion and his message had to do with sharing his experiences and memories of a living hell. My friend's brother has AIDS and has seen many friends die. His artwork is both an exploration of the pain of his loss and a celebration of survival against the odds. I respect both artists and their work tremendously even though their artistic path diverges from mine. Their paintings have great meaning because their pain is real and not the work of immature angst. I just am not a fan of promoting negativity for the shock value.

So, basically, I am a southern artist who lives with my wonderful husband, our beautiful and talented daughter, and our wacky dog.

My art career has definitely had its ups and downs. After a childhood where everything centered around art & dance, in college, I had several experiences which disenchanted me, turning me away from fine art as my career until about the time my daughter was born. At that point, a wonderful artist friend of mine took me under her wing and got me back into the world which I love so much. I had painted in acrylics off & on for years just for fun until Deb suggested that I attend the first class she taught “for moral support”… Turned out to be my moral support more than hers!

Anyway, though I sketched constantly as a child up through college, I had abandoned it almost totally for over a decade. It wasn't until about 2001 when some severe spinal problems in my neck kept me from painting, when I picked up the pencil again and started sketching in earnest. That is when my husband caught sight of what I was doing and went nuts. He began buying out the art stores to keep me stocked in graphite, charcoal, and colored pencils. I dont know if he has any idea what his excitement did for my self-esteem.

A short time later, I completed the first portrait that I had done since college and gave it to my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. She promptly went nuts and bought me a table at a local arts & crafts show . Since then, I have had commissions out the wazoo and not enough time & energy to complete them. Portraiture is the most intense of the visual arts for me and the act of creating a likeness wears me out!

One thing has been missing though. I am a nut for nature, for old barns, for grist mills, for streams dancing over moss laden stones. I love to be surrounded by trees and feel at peace when I am in the mountains. As an angst-ridden teenager, I used to make my escape to Stone Mtn. where I would sketch, take pictures, and just enjoy the trees. I haven't actually painted plein aire in a long time; however, I want to be able to combine two of my passions.

Ah well… enough running off at the keyboard! Hope I haven't bored you stiff with this diatribe!

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