I am a self-taught silk painter having come to this after many years in the field of public education and in pursuit of other forms of creative expression.
As a child I felt it was my job to be imaginative and have fun. Make-believe was a way of life for me, which later led to my chosing to major in Theatre in college. Creating art always seemed secretive and magical to me. I remember one day, my mother virtually locked me and my two siblings out of the house so she could work on making copper jewelry, which involved soldering hot metals. I desperately wanted to see what she was doing.
Throughout my life I have been surrounded by artists. My mother is a basket maker, as was my older sister, who also majored in commercial art. Somehow I got it in my head that I could not be an artist, sort of like one to a family, in spite of the fact that both of my daughters majored in art.
After graduating from college in 1970, I married and settled down to raise a family thinking that creativity would need to be relegated to those pursuits that fit “that life”: cooking, sewing, and teaching. They were never enough. Soon after I began teaching in 1972, I began writing plays. I was always good about making up stories in my head and at first this just felt like an extension of that. Yet playwriting was always work and it did not give me the joy I remembered from my childhood.
In 1990 I burned out as a public school teacher and began a journey of self-exploration. Believing in the power of the written word, as an educator, English teacher, and writer; I used various books to help guide me, including Women Who Run with the Wolves and The Artist Way.
The Artist Way is a self-guided workbook looking at creativity as a spiritual process. The book promotes journaling and artist dates as two ways to get back in touch with your childlike creative side. An artist date is time I take each week to be with myself in a soul enriching way that feels joyful. One of my artist dates involved buying a child’s scarf painting kit. The first time I painted with dye on the silk, I laughed. I felt totally free. I had never felt quite like that with any other creative outlets. I knew from that moment I’d been given a gift.
That was over a decade ago. Each day is a new adventure for me with my art. I believe strongly in giving part of the gift back and that’s what painting my silks is about. I believe that in order to keep it (the joy of painting), that I must share it. I do this by facilitating The Artist Way 12-week workshops and sharing my art. I believe that in order to release each piece of work I sell I must first love it, and those I don’t love yet, the mistakes, I must keep until I do.
I started with no preconceived ideas of what works. I bring to this art an enormous willingness and a beginner’s mind. I believe in interacting with the process. I love to let the dye and silk create and lead me in the process.
Since I began I have studied with Susan Moyer in Mendocino, CA. Susan is the author of two books on silk painting. She was a master designer in New York and teaches master classes in Hawaii.
The following galleries have carried my work:
The
Mint Museum of Craft and Design Gift Shop in Charlotte, NC
Bellagio in Asheville, NC
Seed in Charlotte, NC
Dream Weaver in Davidson, NC
Red Sky Gallery in Charlotte, NC
Pluff Mudd in Bluffton, SC
Beth Friedman Jewery in Tucson, AZ
Beet at NoDa in Charlotte, NC
Kathy
Goodson
