In Another Life...

Widow's Creek 4 - 6x6 - w/c
(not yet comfortable with new photo editing options...)

If I were not me, who would I be? Many artists talk so passionately about their art, their process, their yearnings from toddlerhood to be an artist, their need to make art till their last day... ummm. Never quite identified with all that. Not to say I don't have deep feeling about what I do, and pride in what I've done, that's all very true. But funny... I'm one who is always wondering if I'm on exactly the right road... if I'm taking the right path to get where I need to go ('need' being an unknown factor.)

Maps.google.com does not exist in real life and I've never found an interstate highway for my career. But that's a good thing because we all know that the country roads, though slower, are much more diverse and interesting. A few quick fast lane jaunts have helped transport me along the way but I'm quickly distracted by side roads that have lead to but dead-ended in some fascinating adventures... serigraphy, encaustics, monoprints, various imagery that had to be tried on for size, then dismissed... or, voila! adapted.

So much for life's analogies... what I meant to mention was my lifelong love/passion for gardening... for digging in the dirt... for arranging and rearranging nature (and OMG it is some gorgeous right now!) Have often said that in another life I would be a landscape architect. As an Earth Sculptor, I've personally moved tons of dirt and a forest of small trees with their fragile dirt balls... there always seems to be a better arrangement with just a little more work. Still do a little of it but mostly enjoy the efforts of others... like this following NYTimes article about Maya Lin, complete with a must-see video:

ART
Once Inspired by a War, Now by the Land
By CAROL KINO
The designer of the Vietnam memorial is finding that her three career strands are related.