I have wanted to be artist for as long as I can remember. There is something in the colors and textures that just…..bring me joy. As a kid, I would dress up in the oddest of clothes, much to my mother’s dismay, because I loved the look and the feel of the fabrics. I didn’t care if others thought it was “weird”; the clothes were just so beautiful! Looking back, I think they were probably hideous but I just didn’t care. The world was always beautiful to me!
Growing up, even as young as nine or ten, I would sneak off to art and sewing classes offered on Saturdays in the Philadelphia public schools. I even went on a trip to New York to see art museums. I think I was about twelve. I forged my mother’s signature on the permission slip and hopped on the bus by myself….. it was wonderful!
In high school, my art teacher, Ms Fontaine was my savior. As you can imagine, high school was not really for me. But her classroom was a haven. It was the one place I could go and be me and do the things I loved.
When it came time to pick a college and a college major, my mother tried to get me to do something that would be useful or practical. She insisted that I go to a big school (not an art school), so that I would have options other than art when I “came to my senses”. So I went to Penn State… and thankfully I never came to my senses, majoring in and graduating with a degree in Fine Art.
My mother was right about one thing…it’s tough making a living selling paintings. But since college, every job I ever had – the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, the Boston Public Library Print Department, the Museum of American Textile History – was connected with art.
Eventually, I went back to school for my teaching degree and wound up teaching art in Loudoun County, Virginia. I tried to make my classroom a place where kids could go and be themselves, to make mistakes (“The Beautiful Oops!” was one of my favorite books to read to the kids), to get away from some of the classroom conformity, to have some fun, to learn about who they were, and to do a little art along the way.
Now having moved on from teaching, I have returned to my artistic roots. I have two primary studios on Chincoteague Island. My “Shudio” is where I go to draw and paint and generally get lost in the colors. My textile studio is where I go to create unique, colorful, and (I hope) beautiful art that can be used every day.