Taking the leap: Showing my art to the world

​Art, with a capital "A," is a scary word. So is "Artist." "Art" isn't created by ordinary people; "Artists" aren't ordinary people. That perception scares off a lot of people. I know, because I'm one of them. 

​If you're a self-taught artist, you might recognize my story. Especially if you still have a little trouble using the term "artist" for yourself. And even more especially if you're heading into your "senior" years and have only recently begun to explore your art. 

I've always made things. My mother -- an expert seamstress -- taught me to sew when I was 12 years old. I've quilted, knitted, crocheted, done carpentry and woodworking, played with block printing and silk-screening, and made countless Christmas cards and presents of paper, metal, fabric, wood, and other materials. Here are just a few of the things I've made over the years:

One of a series of trivets I made from pine, connected with threaded rod and nuts, woodburned, stained, and finished with satin polyurethane

Three of the dozens of vases I made from recycled yarn cones

Handbag. I dyed and painted the red fabric and sewed the bag, using the hand-painted fabric and black cotton twill.

​Then I discovered silk painting, which was exciting. Brilliant colors, fascinating visual textures, and endless pattern possibilities, all on a wonderfully soft fabric with a beautiful sheen. "The Complete Book of Silk Painting," by Jan Janas and Diane Tuckman, was a major inspiration for me. (It might be out of print, but I was still able to find it on Amazon today at the link above. The authors have several other wonderful books on related subjects, too.) Then I was lucky enough to be able to attend a workshop given by Jan Janas near my home in the foothills of North Carolina. That was great fun and even more inspirational.

I spent decades exploring silk painting in my spare time, primarily by creating literally hundreds of hand-painted silk scarves and selling them at various galleries and shows. Here are a few of those scarves:

​Of course, while I was painting scarves, I also worked at regular jobs. Those jobs gave me skills in using software tools for designing printed materials. And working with those tools, especially Photoshop, gave me other ideas. But those ideas weren't really decorative in nature. They were images with no practical purpose, no purpose at all other than to express some emotion or thought. I shoved those ideas aside for years, because they made me uncomfortable -- they seemed presumptuous. They seemed like "Art."

My turning point toward art, although I didn't realize it at the time, was when I found a book called ​"Digital Art Studio: Techniques for Combining Inkjet Printing with Traditional Art Materials," by Karin Schminke, Dorothy Simpson Krause, and Bonny Pierce Lhotka. It was a revelation. These women were creating amazing art using Photoshop and other digital tools in addition to traditional art techniques. And they gave detailed instructions, too.

​Because I was used to working with textiles, my first ideas were focused on printing on fabric. With the printer I had (and any printer I could actually afford), the results would not be washable, which meant scarves and tea towels and pillows and any other decorative items were pretty much eliminated. And anyway, most of the ideas I was having weren't really decorative in nature. Images expressing the emotions of dementia on a pillow? No.

But the ideas wouldn't go away. So that left -- guess what? -- art.

In my next post, I'll tell you about the excitement and frustrations of my first efforts to combine digital and traditional art techniques. I plan to post something new every week, about what I'm doing, techniques and tools, other people's work I want to share, and whatever else interesting comes along. I hope you'll keep checking in!

This image (from my dementia series) on a pillow? I don't think so.