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The following is the introduction and 3 chapters from my book:

Introduction: Found Objects

Several years ago, in a box of my childhood art projects inherited from my mother, I found a booklet with an elaborately decorated cover made of orange construction paper. The design was as technicolor as 1970s crayons and markers could afford, with a lackluster staple binding and just a few white interior pages. The booklet was ambitiously titled ‘My Stories,’ and featured concentric ripples of loopy, cloud-shaped lines containing the title like the thoughts of a comic book character.

I must have spent a great deal of time on that cover, so much so that lost in the absorbing world of design, I failed to remember to write the stories. The interior pages of the booklet were wholly blank and untouched, so I’ll never know what might have been written in that ill-fated storybook.

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While growing up, I lived with my mother and sister in various houses and apartments, all of which had small kitchens. Even so, one drawer was always set aside exclusively for junk. This was important since I was a kid who adored collecting found objects, and the ever-present junk drawer held my stash of findings collected from the surrounding outdoor realms of yard, parking lot and wooded buffer.

My treasure hunting often resulted in rich booty such as odd plastic curios, bits of rusted metal, lengths of string or rope, and wooden blocks half-clothed in layers of peeling paint. These and other artifacts were rarely used for anything, I just liked collecting them. Possibly I was fascinated by their lost meaning and potential for re-purpose. Sometimes, I simply enjoyed rummaging in the drawer just to see what was there, imagining the stories hidden inside this bent piece of metal or that cracked disc of colored glass.

Like these cast-off things, salvaged by a child for unknown reasons, memory also selects what it will choose to keep or toss back. Based on a process known only to the subconscious, the deepest meaning is often extracted from what appears to be the least significant thing or event. If there’s a lesson to be learned from the infamous junk drawer it’s that nothing is insignificant. Nothing in the universe exists without a story attached to a thousand other stories.

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At a young age, I entertained the fantasy of having a secret artistic ability far beyond the limitations of everyday life. Like a superhero, I imagined brandishing my art power, the world standing in amazement at my exemplary selfhood. Although my creative efforts have occasionally seemed like the product of a child hungry for attention and self-acceptance, I have always been aware of the necessary and healing physicality found within the act of art-making. I believe my life of creativity to be inborn, and due in large part to a high sensitivity that has not always felt like much of an advantage or blessing. Often it seems I feel more, hear more, and see more than is comfortable. Yet, because of the things I feel, hear, and see I am enabled to follow the voice of an aesthetic I cannot comprehend but deeply appreciate.

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The following stories in this collection represent scenes from the formative experiences of my childhood, school years, undergraduate and graduate degrees in Fine Arts, years teaching art to all ages, and a 30-year career in art-making. I see these scenes as collages fashioned from the salvaged artifacts and fossils of memory, stitched together on a non-linear timeline. Like any work of art, these story-collages are dressed in my own voice, specific to each era of my life. They reflect and depict my influences, my formation as an artist, and especially my ever-changing relationship with art and art-making.

What is it essentially that makes me an artist? Why did visual art become the foundation of all my expression, my identity, and my lifeline? As in an excavation, the answers lie deep in the archaeology of my storied past. I rummage in my drawer again to see what’s there, to put things together and make sense of these found objects of experience and memory. I open my rediscovered book of lost stories and those empty pages call to me now across the years.

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Chapter 1

1992 Cincinnati, OH

The Opening

Tonight is the opening, my first official show as a graduate student. Of course, my anxiety is not at all helped by the frustration of driving up and down unfamiliar streets looking for the gallery. I’ve heard it’s an interesting venue, once part of a complex of factories in the industrial capital of the mid-west. These days it is humbled into tenuous survival as a college art gallery and has become something the industrialists of long ago could never have imagined.

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Inside the gallery, I see the artwork of twelve first-year Master’s students lining the ample expanse of its whitewashed walls. Only such a diverse mixture of ages, races, and backgrounds could have produced a collection of work so discordant. I suppose you could say we have just this one thing in common; we are all, each in our own unique way, terrified.

Few of the other students have yet arrived. I scan the room for the comfort of familiar faces but see mostly the cool poise of strangers. I move to the spread of drinks and eats and take a big cookie. Just then, Kitty steps up next to me and pours wine into a plastic cup. Unlike some of the other graduate students, Kitty feels more like a confidant than a competitor.

Her life is very different from mine, and we often disagree, but we look after one another.

I nibble my cookie as Kitty and I step over to look at her work: a three-panel piece painted in a uniquely gestural way. There’s an active physicality in her way of working that impresses me. By comparison, my work feels dwarfish and minimal. I envy how she is not afraid of overworking the surface, and not concerned about muddied paint. Her work appears rather out of balance and intentionally disturbing as if the rules of design I clung to as an undergraduate no longer matter. Although I’m still attached to these rules, I can’t help but admire her carefree disregard for basic aesthetics. I know she’s no beginner; she’s been making art for longer than I have been alive.

I notice that a crowd has started to gather. To calm myself, I focus on the next piece, one I’ve learned to call an Installation. The piece consists of a white shelf mounted over an American flag nailed to the wall. Resting on the shelf is a tidy row of canning jars, containing different tints of pastel-colored liquid reminiscent of easter egg dye. Sealed within the jars are an array of tiny plastic dolls and various forlorn objects such as a rocking horse, a garnished Thanksgiving turkey on its platter, and a mailbox with its tiny red flag standing straight up. The artist’s name is Erik and although his studio is near mine, I barely know him.

Eventually, Kitty and I come to my own grouping of small, dark paper collages. I started these during my first weeks here when black-on-black felt safe somehow. A man stands near the work, engrossed in the details of its surfaces. Although nearly devoid of color, subtle nuances of tone and texture appear to be doing their job of inviting closer examination. I stuff the last bit of cookie into my mouth and chew nervously.

“Can you tell me something about your ideas?” he asks.

This is it, the moment I’ve been dreading. For me, the work has deeply arrayed levels of personal meaning, full of uncharted topographies lit only by the faintest of starlight. But all I can muster is to say they are about my experiences caving and revelations gleaned in underground places. Making this work and recalling those experiences has been a recent comfort to me: the coolness and silence of it calming my fear of failing.

“Is it like how in a dark cave you have to use your other senses, rather than your sight, to find your way?” he postulates.

“Yes, just like that,” I say with evident relief. I’m still learning the craft of talking about my work, so the cooperative effort of a viewer like him helps me know how the images read. I’m pleased he sees my work as a step into the unknown since that is how it feels to me as well.

“May I touch one?” He asks. I nod and he puts a cautious finger against one of the shadowy surfaces.

Without warning a sound as shocking as a car crash erupts violently through the room. As I look toward the source of the clatter I see that Erik’s shelf has spontaneously collapsed, hurtling every one of his glass jars to the stone floor. A moment of suspended time is followed by a stifled scream and the sight of Erik bolting from the room, hands clasped over his mouth, eyes full of panic and shame. I feel an immediate pain for him as I join my voice to the collective gasp in the stunned gathering. Glass shards have been flung across the room in all directions, and I’m amazed no one has been injured. No one, that is, except Erik.

We move in closer to the devastating scene; the irretrievably broken and uncomfortable, the precious violated into crushed remains of an installation become performance, a happening that no one planned but in which everyone is now a part. The shards, the colorful liquids splattered, and the tiny doll things intermingle against the gray concrete floor, already splotched by a century of grease and chemicals. The crowd draws in like bystanders at a murder scene, silence replaced by the shuffling of feet and the crunch of glass underfoot.

It occurs to me just how beautiful it is, this glorious mess seeping into the fault lines of the vintage floor. The sparkling spotlights above refract through the gem-like glass. The dollhouse people and things lay randomly strewn like casualties of a flood and an earthquake.

A man in coveralls begins to work with a mop, and I imagine the ghosts of workers long gone, standing by and watching him swirl the colored liquids into a dishwater-gray soup. I sense an end has taken place, a completion of the performance. And the artist was not here to see it.

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The next morning I stop by Erik’s studio across the hallway from mine, but it’s been completely cleared out. I’d like to tell him what I saw in his piece after it fell, and how I understood it better. But, he is already gone.

In my own small studio space I find unfinished black-on-black textured papers scattered around. I love the velvet-dark reassurance of them; the secluded mystery of pathways through the dark. But then, I feel the urge to open what now looks to me undeniably closed and overly safe. This sudden impulse to evolve and emerge causes me to pick up one of the pieces and tear it in half. When the paper is torn, the insides of the coarse fibers are revealed as white lines, stark like lightning breaking through a cave wall.

I tear another and this deconstructive act may be the most frightening, yet exciting, moment I’ve ever experienced in my art-making. Another loud tear, thunder resonating, glass shattering, a window thrown open to the light. The rules of aesthetics seem to matter less, or have changed into something unrecognizable. In this moment all my ideas of what is beautiful have been converted into the pleasure of this spontaneous, luminous action.

I have to sit down, catch my breath and look at the torn pieces in my hand. Rotating them this way I imagine them reformed into new combinations and I sense that this new level, this unfamiliar potential, is limitless. New direction, braving unknown territory, I see now it’s a glorious and necessary thing. Despite the inherent risk of falling, of breaking, of failing; there’s no backing out now. I keep tearing and don’t look back.

Chapter 2

2009 Carrboro, NC

Red Feelings

“It’s time for class to start, we are doing a special project today!”

My daughter, Bre, is clip-clipping around in her high-heeled shoes and I know what that means. It means school is in and I’m the student. A silky, cheetah-print scarf is tied in a jaunty way over Bre’s shoulders in 1960s airline hostess style. She gestures for me to come closer to the art table she’s carefully prepared. I had my suspicions a teacher was in the house when I was told to keep out of the art room a half hour ago. I resigned myself to patience while she hustled about the house gathering this and that odd thing.

Bre has a clipboard holding crumpled sheets of pastel-colored office paper. She flips through them and I move to my pupil chair obediently.

“Shelly...” she calls out.

“Here,” I say in my most sassy, adolescent voice. I’m the only student in her class, but she takes attendance by the book.

“Is it time for recess, teacher?” asks the mouthy kid with my name. I get a patient half-smile out of Bre. It’s a patience I rarely see in her, except when she is in command of her imaginary classroom.

“No, it’s time for a special art project,” she says with a sideways roll of her eyes that lets on she’s just had an idea. “It’s going to be an art AND writing project.”

I fake a grumpy expression and she points at me with her freshly-sharpened Hello Kitty pencil, threatening to put a frown face next to my name.

She has managed to brush the kinks out of her Saturday morning hair, and now a soft puff of dark brown frizz is gathered into a messy bun on top of her head. She’s small for a 10-year-old but makes a solid authority figure. Adopted by us at age seven, she’s no child of angels. She can’t hide from me the red feelings she keeps tucked away behind that clipboard. All too often, her rage slips through the cracks. But not this morning.

On the table, I see ceramic cereal bowls containing an array of interesting materials. In one bowl there’s glitter and colored sand from a landscape-in-a-jar third-grade art project. In another bowl I find thin shards of broken glass, the remains of a burned-out nightlight bulb. Next to the bowls she has placed a few sheets of colored cardstock, various tubes of acrylic paint with brushes, and a nearly depleted bottle of white glue.

“Now class, you may use any of these materials for your art project,” the teacher instructs.

Bre is a good teacher; she doesn’t hover over me while I’m working; I’m free to follow my whim with this project of few parameters. While she is absorbed in the grading of her imaginary assignments, I pull my chair in close and choose a square of salmon-pink paper; a garish opposition to the autumn colors on parade outside the open window.

Next, choosing a paint color, I look for the most dissonant one that will slap that salmon pink in the face. I select a deep red, not the earthy red on the maples outside, but rather a film noir lipstick red.

I squeeze an inch of the paint onto a styrofoam tray. Using a worn-out paintbrush, I slather four thick lines onto the paper making a diamond shape that runs recklessly off the edges on all sides. Then I paint a second diamond inside the first one.

“Class, when your art project is done, you will write a poem to describe it.” I squeeze an abundance of white glue into the middle of the red diamond and press a dozen or so thin shards of glass into the gluey shape.

Finally, I sprinkle glitter sand over the brush strokes, hoping it will stick to the sticky-wet surface. I carefully lift the warped and wobbly paper, holding it over the trash can to knock off the excess. Surprisingly, the majority of the glitter hangs on firmly to the paper as if when faced with the choice of being art or being trash, it chooses art. I stare at my work. It’s not pretty, this thing created in Ms. Bre’s class.

Bre glances with curiosity at my progress. “Good job,” she says, smiling.

“I’m finished,” I say, handing her my sloshy mess. She daintily pinches it by two corners and lays it over a paper towel on the table. In turn, she hands me a blank sheet of lined composition paper. I place the paper on the paint-smeared table and put the words “Red Feelings” on the top line of the paper. I write my poem all in one go:

Red Feelings

gathered into one place

jagged and broken red lines

angry red

impatient red

frustrated red

surrounded by a diamond heart

that no one comes near

no one comes close

I hide in my red feelings

angry, impatient, frustrated

gathered and broken pieces in a cocoon

safe and angel-guarded fortress

changing now

transforming now

holding them close

transforming red feelings

Red Feelings? Sometimes, when I try to talk to Bre about all her strong emotions, I don’t think she really hears me. But I just want her to know that these feelings are alright. Maybe this little painting and these words are how I’m trying to show her I have red feelings too; that she’s not alone.

It occurs to me suddenly that this little painting is something much more. With its pink and red and glitter, I can see it’s a dissonant valentine; a glittering and perilous message of love for my daughter. I hope that someday she will understand.

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Chapter 4

1973 Lodi, OH

January White

Next to a stack of empty moving boxes in the dining room is a chest of long, wooden drawers. It must be very old because it was here before I was born and that was over five years ago. The top drawers are full of my mother’s kitchen things, and I don’t bother with them. I’m only interested in the bottom drawer, my drawer, where I keep all my art things.

The wooden knobs on my drawer are far apart, but I can just reach them if I use both hands, so I stretch my arms wide and grab hold. I jiggle the drawer a little to get it loose, then bit by bit it slides out, and I lean it down on the mossy-soft carpet.

Right away I find my pile of Highlights magazines, and when I take them out, little shreds of paper fall on my lap. I brush them to the floor and bring out some half-done, lacy-paper valentines. A strand of my tangly, yellow hair gets loose and falls in my face, so I tuck it back and keep digging.

I find a little book I wrote and drew pictures in. The cover is raggedy on one edge like a mouse has been nibbling on it. When I open up the stiff pages, I take in the smell of crayons and glue. I also used my blue-scent marker when I made this book so now it smells like blue candy art.

I dig back into my drawer, past the bag of mangled pipe cleaners, past the yarn balls, and the bag of plastic beads. Under one of my favorite books, the kind you can scratch on and it will smell just like the thing in the picture, I find what I am looking for. I haul the big piece of white poster-paper to the dining room table with some scissors and crayons.

I scoot over the pot of red Christmas flowers to make working room, and when I push on the shiny pot, a big leaf falls onto my paper. The leaf looks so dark and pretty-red on the plain white. I think of when my mother found me stuffing these poison-face leaves into my mouth and I had to go to the hospital emergency room. The color looks so tasty I still want to eat it, but instead I carefully pick up the leaf and take it to the back door. I feel its velvet-soft danger on my fingers as I toss it outside to the wintery porch. The leaf is dark red against white again, but this time it’s the icy-white of snow.

Just then I see Mom’s car crunching snow up our driveway. Skipping back to my work table, I pass the tower of moving boxes but I don’t look at them because they make me feel like I ate those red Christmas leaves all over again.

With a crayon I draw some tall rectangles on the poster-paper and use my scissors to cut them out. I also cut out a pattern of squares along the top edge of the board, then fold it on its two sides to help it stand up. The folded board is easy to carry to the kitchen table. I put it in front of the glass fish bowl mom keeps on the table and slide it back to fit just right around three sides of it. I peek through the window holes and see our orange fish speed up their swimming when they see me make kiss-kiss faces at them.

“You’re welcome,” I say to the fish.

Mom comes in the back door of the kitchen and I can’t help but do a kangaroo hop around the table, clapping my hands.

“I made a surprise!” I cry out.

Mom’s heavy coat has white snowflakes stuck all over it and her cheeks are red from the outside cold. The flakes have frozen patterns in them that melt when I try to touch them. She puts down her purse and sweeps her eyes around the kitchen. When she sees the surprise, a sparkle jumps right into her eyes. She puts her hands on her hips and smiles.

“Look at this!” She says bending over to get a closer look, “You made a castle for the fish, now they’ll feel so special!”

I make hops to the back side of the fish bowl and see her dark blue eyes peek through the castle windows. The fish dart around even faster and Mom tells me they think they’re royal fish now. They will expect to get fed golden fish flakes from now on. I feel a summer breeze inside me red-fire bright even though it’s still a winter white day.

“Do we have to move?” I ask.

She looks at the fish swimming in their water castle. “Yes,” she says giving me a half-way smile, “and we’ll bring our royal fish along too, Ok?”

“Ok,” I say, my surprise-smile gone now.

“Can I bring my art drawer?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says, “Wherever we go, so does everything in your drawer. No matter what.” I go look at the stack of boxes, and take one down that is as big as a monster. It doesn’t frighten me like before, and I set it next to my drawer. All these things, everything I’m working on, all my ideas, they should just about fit.

I repeat Mom’s words in my head, “no matter what…”

I open the stiff box lid, not so much like a monster now, and start filling it up. It goes wherever I go.

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