Creativity and Curiosity

I don’t remember a time in my life before making things. Any time when creativity and curiosity weren’t running the show.

A four year old’s wall drawing. Early Play-Doh projects (in which I always sorted the colors back out again carefully). Modeling clay creations. Fashion Plates combinations. Spin art. Chalkboard drawings. Solar Graphics experiments with objects on photo sensitive paper. I guess I just didn’t stop.

I earned a BFA from @alfreduniversity with a concentration in painting. I did a lot of figure painting with oils in those years, but also printmaking, ceramics, bookmaking, sound and video. After art school I found ways to adapt my style, my work, my content. Without access to large studio spaces or models. I stopped and started experiments over and over trying to figure out what it was for me to be an artist and maker.

All along, I was reading and thinking and writing. I started keeping a journal as a child, then sketchbooks, then something that combined the two. I still read and write and think every day. I spent over a decade as a professional problem-solver, analyst, process-designer, and manager. I loved it. I *love* information. I love reading. I love asking questions. I love thinking. I love finding connections between things. I love systems. That’s the me who comes to the studio when I create.

And then there’s this: I live with #chronicfatiguesyndrome. It is unpredictable. It can flatten me. It has left me energetically impaired every single day for five years. It has become a lens through which every part of my life is processed. And it was the unexpected launchpad that pushed me into a different relationship with my art – deciding to make art to share with others, instead of just art for myself. It allows me to show up every day exactly as I am. And send something out in the world that is beautiful, that gives a moment of pause, that provides a space to get lost in, that brings joy or contemplation.