I recall, for many of my younger years, wanting to run away via hopping a circus train, if only to cure myself of acrophobia, by being a star tightrope walker. Instead, to appease this:I took up writing.
I would say that the first writing bite happened in fifth grade. There was a Young Authors program that I had begrudgingly entered the year before, and it was only after I found out that they were giving away certificates to the winners that I took it seriously. I was simple. Or perhaps just easily pleased. My childhood was not rich, though never lacking in adventure, thanks in great part to my older brother and his shenanigans. I just needed that external validation and winning the Young Authors award three years in a row gave me that. In eighth grade, I was chosen out of the entire middle school I attended to be a part of an artist's retreat in Port Townsend, WA at Fort Warden's Centrum. That week long adventure was a tailspin into my I have to do this! I have to keep writing! chapter of my life. As well as several very bad vampire tales which I still have on very aged notebook paper.
Other than the Young Authors program, I was never in a hurry to show my writing to any other living soul. Ever. Under any circumstances. The Y.A. gig was only an exception because it was like an assignment and therefore required. This all changed for me in my sophomore year of high school when I happened to be working on a tale about some bad "good" kids and some good "bad" kids from the 1950's. A slight influence from my then favorite author and distant cousin S.E. Hinton and her book The Outsiders. I believe a television version was running at the time as well and my best friend and I were very into it. In a nutshell: a notebook I'd been working in had been dropped, it looked like more than the usual English assignment and my friend begged to read it. And so it began...
Later that school year, I advanced to slightly smutty content, and never having had any experience other than what I saw in movies or read in mildly tame romance novels, I had to really work my imagination. According to a few girl friends at the time--I was quite convincing. This style and genre lasted several years and occassionally I dip my pen into the historical romances of days and nights of long ago...
Some time during my teenage-hood, my father suggested to me that I write of my experiences. Of things in my life. Certainly every teenager thinks at one point that their life is nothing to write about and I was no exception. It wasn't until the teachings of one David Detroit Layton (tenth grade English) really began to sink in and echo into my brain pan that I really figured out the true meaning of this advice. Mister Layton (as I even to this day call him, nearly 20 years later) really tapped into that abstract realm in my mind, and caused an unleashing of absurd ideas that I relish abusing today.
My sewing days began when I was in elementary school. Most of what I did was doll clothing and accoutrements by hand. My study in historical clothing began when I was 11 and I used to write down the names of garments and their definitions on one side of an index card and then draw them on the other sides. Little did I know that while attending Mercyhurst College's History of Costume and Dress course, I would be doing the same thing though far more extensively. I had a fantastic instructor for that class and though it was a crash course of the beginning of human adornment to the present given in only ten weeks, it was the most informative, intriguing and Fun class I have ever attended. I learned and brought away more from that class than my classmates--because I brought my heart to pack it all in. Thank you, Sally Linebach for that!
I began painting in the summer of 2001. I went through a very intense period of this, no classes and self-educated on art history. I found my favorite artists, favorite styles and tried my hand (or fingers, rather) at what I enjoyed most. Unfortunately, I have found that my muse for painting is fueled by depression and though I turned out a heap of work, it is not a feast I care to visit. For this reason, my paintings are limited to those done between 2001 and 2006.
I do feel honored to mention that many people have come and gone in my life, that have influenced or even appeared in my art. Some of these people, I am still lucky enough to see or speak to regularly, but to those whom have gone--my thanks to you are boundless.