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About April

Using the term loosely, I consider myself to be an outsider artist. Strictly speaking, outsider art was defined as being produced by institutionalized mentally ill, those who are geographically isolated, or don't consider themselves to be artists. The modern interpretation of this term can include those outside mainstream society, untrained artists, and those who create art purely from the desire to do so- not to show or sell. I am more the two latter definitions, and hadn't been willing to call myself an artist until last year. I've always created assemblages and mixed media sculptures because I want to. I can't remember when I started. It's a compulsion-I have to. There's an innate desire to bring what I see in my head into reality. There is nothing like the satisfaction and peace I feel in creating something small and detailed after having to figure out how. It's meditative. I've had consistently positive feedback from friends and acquaintances, so I'd decided to show my creations to the public.

 

Painting is rather new for me; I picked up a brush just a few years ago. I took one class at a community college and was disappointed to learn nothing of technique or style. What I've learned about painting is through is through trial and error, observing other artist's processes, figuring out how an effect was created by closely studying other's work. Monthly gallery openings at First Thursday are exciting and intense study sessions; the variety of styles and techniques is vast.

 

Collage is the newest form of expression I've tried. I completed my first in January of 2008. The execution was inspired by an article on collage in The Artist's Magazine (Click to read). I sent a letter to the editor in thanks for the article, along with a photo of the collage. The magazine not only printed my letter- they published the image of my collage in the May 2008 issue. At the time
of this writing I've completed three more and I'm gathering items for five additional pieces. I hope to have a series of 12. Each focuses on many small details of an idea. Subjects include remodeling our old house, manufacturing, bicycles, mental lists, ballet, birds, fish, travel, and a second remodeling piece. Each canvas is/will be between 20x30" and 30x40" and materials include paper, metal, acrylic paint and media, found objects, photographs, plastic, rubber, ink, and fabric.

 

I have a morbid fascination with postmortem recognition. I want to be successful while I'm here to enjoy it, but being (re)discovered after one had died is the ultimate "told you so." I hold a secret
acorn of hope that someone someday might be excited to find some of my work- a sketch or a journal- that might shed some light on a shadowy figure from the past. I love the idea of being a mystery.

 

Fruit tree, fruit tree
No-one knows you but the rain and the air
Don’t you worry
They’ll stand and stare when you’re gone

 

Fruit tree, fruit tree
Open your eyes to another year
They’ll all know
That you were here when you’re gone

-Nick Drake

 

Outside of art, I'm an avid bike commuter and distance rider, cuisine loving “foodie” and cook, wine and beer aficionado, and care taking human to two cats and three chickens. I love humor, particularly in dry, sarcastic, ironic and pun form; I get mental exercise from logic challenges, riddles and crossword puzzles. A random list of my favorite things includes Halloween, purple, tattoos, spring, Tom Robbins and Thomas Spanbauer novels, iced tea, sleeping in, objects atop buildings, photography, plants, and tacos.I also like striped socks!

 

I'm also collecting favorite quotes (or, at least ones appropriate for a professional site) that can go in nooks in crannies.

 

~April