Art in my Life (part 1)...

This is probably going to be a long, rambling post so you may want to skip reading my blog today. :) oh, and eta, the first 2 photos in this entry are not my work...I copied them off the internet.

Alison had asked me who my favorite artist is...well, for me that is not just a simple question because I admire so many artists. But first about me and my art history so that you will understand my choices.

I have always loved the creating process. I remember sewing together pieces of fabric leftover from my mom's sewing scraps by hand when I was around 5 years old. I didn't create anything worth having, but I remember being amazed that I could actually take all these little pieces and making something new out of them.

Then I had a friend in 6th grade who drew everyday and she drew really well! She taught me how to look at something that someone else had drawn and copy it. I remember all that year taking the Current card catalog and I would copy the drawings of animals that were on the cards. This was a pivotal time for me in my life because this was the year before you had to choose your elective (for life) for the 7th grade. Up until this point, I had always planned on playing the clarinet in the band, but suddenly I had this interest in art and switched gears and chose art as my elective instead.


Let me just interject here and say that I really was never very good at actual art (my parents still have evidence of that hanging on their office wall!?!) I could re-create a resonably facsimile of someone else's art, but for me to sit down and draw myself...not so much! LOL! And I knew that back then too.


In 8th grade, I did a report on gothic architecture and discovered that drawing with a ruler was MUCH easier and so I quickly switched gears to focus my life towards a career in architecture. I took every drafting class available in high school and I will tell you, that is where I can excel. My brain was made for drafting (going along with my love for creating, I am also pretty good in math.)

I went to Texas Tech as an architecture major and quickly discovered that while I can draft all day, architecture still requires you to have a really creative/artistic brain and that I was never going to pass if I continued on this route (I made a "D" on my museum project that I had worked my butt off all semester creating because it wasn't creative enough.) So I went home for Christmas break and scrambled to find a new major for the Spring semester. My requirement for my new major was that it not involve having to take a foreign language (LOL! what a way to decide what you will do for the rest of your life!)

All through high school, I had worked in fabric stores as a part-time job. I also made pretty much everything that I wore so I ended up choosing a degree called Clothing & Textiles which was a cross between merchandising and fashion design. As such, I continued to take art classes all through college in the form of fashion design classes. I never did really get any better at the art aspect, although I did have flashes of brilliance like this piece that was praised for it's realistic looking sequins (created using a paperclip to apply the paint.)

Again I was better at the more linear projects like pattern making. A pattern maker is one of those people that takes the drawing from the fashion designer (that's done the creative work) and drafts a pattern to make the garment. That's what I "planned" to do with my degree, but instead I got married after graduation and moved to a little town called Altus, Oklahoma which is definitely not the mecca of the fashion world. I quickly discovered that most Air Force bases (which is where DH was going to be dragging me for the next 18 years) are in little bitty towns in the middle of nowhere (thus they have good airspace!) so I decided to have babies rather than have a career.

The point of this story so far??? LOL! Sorry to be so long-winded, but the point is that while I have always loved art and tried to become artistic, I am a linear thinker rather than an artistic one. (and I AM NOT fishing for complements here!!! I am aware that I have some creative inklings...otherwise I couldn't do what I do. They just aren't as natural as I would like. *smiles*) As a result, I adore artists that are truly creative, who think outside the box, who can see things where others can't...

Part II coming soon!
smiles,
christi