I began this blog and website as I was about to turn 65 years old. And, then, life interfered and I almost forgot this website existed. I'm still making collages and still learning more and more about what makes me tick and what I want to create.
For most of us, the last six years or so have been a strange, intense, abnormal, surreal time. I stopped working on this site right before the 2016 elections and only began working on it once more yesterday while watching the vigil over Queen Elizabeth II's casket. I have a fairly vivid imagination but I could never have concocted a situation as complex, mysterious, and frightening as these years of division in the US, the long covid lockdown, the election of 2020, the attack on the Capitol, the war in Ukraine and the neverending news about Trump and his crimes. Today, I am again watching the Queen's long goodbye and pondering the end of a very long era.
My art saved me from despair these last six years. I'm a worrier by nature and prone to panic attacks and depression. Suddenly, like billions of others, I was placed in a situation where leaving m house could kill me. My husband and I (both about to turn 71) have spent most of 2020, all of 2021, and much of 2022 inside our house due to covid. Art became my only escape. Art and the playlist of all the songs I love kept me from totally losing my mind during the lockdown. I understand we will never go back to the ways things were before. We've changed and many of us have used this time to reevaluate our lives and what matters at the core of our souls.
The last few years have taught me to face my biggest enemy...fear. I had to learn to function with full-on fear permeating my system and, in doing so, I began to gain control over the various fears that had populated my mind prior to this great season of weirdness. How has this impacted my art? I'm sure much of my recent works mirror what we all have experienced in these days. I've grown old and I've only now realized that I really am old. That takes a while to wrap your head around. Covid caused all of us to reexamine our view of life and death and of what constitutes a good life and a good end to life.
I have come to grips with the fact that I will forever be an unknown artist who never conquered the art world. And, I am fine with that because I finally realized that art has been a method of therapy for me and it has saved me from despair and heartbreak many times. Art has been a gift in my life and I now realize how art has shaped who I am and how I have shaped my work. The two are inextricable. My art and my life are one and the same.
I have become even more reclusive due to the lockdowns and my own difficulty in dealing with the world. I don't mind being a recluse. It suits me. I don't dislike people but I've never fit into a world of acquaintances and business friends. I have about five cherished friends who mean as much to me as family. I consider myself a fortunate woman to count them as my friends. I guess all this is to say: although my life may not have been easy, it has been fulfilling and it's taught me more than I can ever explain.