Who has passion in my life? What questions could I ask her about her story?
Were you always involved with art? What were your beginnings like? / How did you do it… / What was your first public show?
I always ‘did art’ for myself, my home, my kids. I always honored my creativity and worked it into my life as it would fit. When my youngest child turned 2, in 1992 (I was 37) I made a concious decision to BECOME an artist. To be real, and honor what I had and declare it. I had no clue how to go about it. I had never hung out in artist circles, didn’t go to galleries, none of that. So, I had to figure out how this all worked. I paid attention to the world around me… if I saw an artist’s works in an empty store window I would inquire how did that art come to be there … etc. I asked alot of questions, I started looking in the paper for art related things, I started going to gallery openings and observing. Then I submitted a piece for a call for entry for a show at a small gallery and was accepted.
What was your first sale like? How did it come about? How did you feel?
I was doing wearable art pieces, I sold a piece at the first show… that gave me the cofidence to continue, so i did more and more and got to know the community, and form friendships with other artists. I eventually moved from wearable art pieces, to found object assemblage sculpture, to jewelry…. and then to clay in 1995. I had an immediate bond with the medium, I entered a major clay exhibition with my clay work, I had only been working in clay for 4 months. I was accepted into the show and sold all but one of my 9 pieces.
After your first experience with clay what steps did you take or what was your process to realizing your studio dream?
I was immediately in love and in sync with the medium of clay. Everything else took a back seat as far as other mediums for my art. I worked constantly, whenever I could steal moments away from my family. I worked in the house – on the coffee table in the living room for 6 years. I created whatever I needed to do there… some pieces that I made on the coffee table were over 3′ tall. So don’t think it can’t be done because you don’t have a “proper space to work” the proper space is any space you can make for it. I have known potters that emptied out the linen closet and put a wheel in there to throw pots! I think it is B.S. when an artist says they can’t make art because they don’t have a proper studio.
I actually rented a small space in the back of a bead shop when my daugter ws 6 and my son 11. It ended up being storage because it was so difficult to figure out how to get there to work. It was too small to have the kids with me and it was too hard to figure out how to be away from them. So I worked in the place that I was needed, my home with my kids.
In 1999 we built me an outside studio… we used a prefab shed and insulated, put in sky lights, but ran out of money before we could do electric. So I worked out there in the summer and back to the coffee table in the winter. I had no kiln, so all my work had to be transported to a local art center to be fired. I did this till October of 2006. By now my son had moved away from home and my daughter was 16. I could start to have my life take some priority… I began to look for an off-site space to have my studio believing I could pay the rent through teaching. I have been successful at doing this for 3 years now, and I love it!!
What were your thought paths or desires, what did you want to accomplish that lead you to creating evbstudiohome, womens Work magazine and womens Work Ning?
For a year or so I had been wanting to try to do something in a teaching way online. I had not had a model for it, but knew it could be done. I ran across .ning – then suzi blu, seeing that this was a good format to teach through I opened my evbstudioHOME.ning in January of 09. I love to be able to reach out and make introductions of this beautiful medium [clay] to others. It excites me to see people fall in love with it, to use their creativity. In all honesty, teaching feeds me as much if not more sometimes than I think it can my students. Seeing someone approach the clay and their ideas and make it so is such a thrill and I am honored to be a part of it!
I would like to add another word or two regarding your question about my first sale and how it made me feel.
Sales – acceptance – compliments: they are good, great even, BUT they do NOT validate our art or ourselves as an artist.
NO Sales – rejection – silence: don’t feel good, BUT they do not invalidate our art or ourselves as an artist.
Our art — if true and coming from our hearts is the ONLY validation that is important.
That was on my studio site: www.evbstudio.com
