I am an artist.

It took awhile for me to believe that. I was certainly a mother, a wife, a daughter, friend… there was proof of these things. But, in spite of being a participant in the arts for as long as I could remember, there was no current proof I was an “artist.”

After receiving a degree in graphic design from the Univeristy of South Carolina School of Art in1993, I stumbled into a job with a landscape design firm because I was interested in pursuing a Masters degree in environmental desgn. Sadly, my application was lost in transit. Instead, marriage, a move to Greenville, SC, and becoming a mother of two boys were the paths I was to take. By 2008, I realized I needed a creative outlet.

On a whim, I took a ceramics workshop and quickly fell in love with clay. I was able to intern with a local potter, and soon opened a studio of my own. For the next five years I ran a successful ceramics business called Crave Studio, through which I sold housewares to the public and the trade. It was a wonderful time; I learned a lot about my craft, and much more about myself. Retail was not where I wanted to stay.

In 2015 I opened a private studio at Art & Light gallery where I explored a persistent desire to make conceptual mixed-media sculptures. I stalled out, however, after my first show. It was much harder to encourage myself to work when the work served no perceived purpose. Who would want to look at it? This question plagued me, so I closed the studio, and avoided any notion of being an artist. For three years.

By the Fall of 2018 I’d had enough, and again on a whim, tried something new by taking a metalsmithing workshop at Penland School of Craft. The immersive experience of Penland changed me. I realized I had much within me to say, I wanted to communicate that through form, and it didn’t matter who wanted to see it. I must be an artist.

2020 was a turning point year for me. I had previously approached Art & Light asking for a solo show in their main gallery. I had little idea what I was going to make, but I knew I had to make it, and in November, The Solilloquy Project was born. Since then, I have worked happily in my home studio in my pjs, and have made work of which I am really proud.

I am an artist.