I grew up in a house with a younger brother and a sister, a mom and a dad, and everybody seemed to be making things. I thought everybody in the world lived that way. It wasn’t until I got to be an adult that I realized that this was rather unusual because my mother and my dad had other jobs to do. And so they would make things in their spare time.
And they understood that I was interested in art and so they made a bargain with me. They said they would put up a folding table for me to work on. As long as I kept working I could keep my mess on this table and I wouldn’t have to clean up every time I wanted to make something. So I grew up getting art supplies from both of them. My dad was a woodworker. My mom was a seamstress. So I had the most beautiful fabric, wonderful colors, and a lot of textural things from my dad like nails and wire and wood.
And so I think I started out doing collage without even realizing it or knowing how to spell the word, in fact. But I realized later on that this was not your average family.
But when I speak to children, I always say, “If you are interested in art or writing — any of the creative arts — please find a spot for yourself where you can leave your supplies and you can go there when you have an idea, because if you don’t you will waste time finding paper, pencil, and other art supplies. By the time you get to do it your idea probably will vanish.” I furthered this idea in the book called Hands. And so that book really is about me growing up in a creative family.
