painting in the attic

Rosie Kearton, an artist in the U.K., upon finding an oil painting she created when she was a young girl was fascinated by the connections that the painting had to her current work. She began to wonder at the connection between the artwork we produce when we are young and our creativity in later life. She sent out an invitation to several artists to see if they could scrounge up some artwork from their childhood and compare it to their current work. She created this site to document this investigation.

I am so glad that Rosie invited me to submit because it forced me to look through what little I still have and this is what I found:

I made this linocut print in 6th grade, so I think I was 11 or 12 years old. I had made it to illustrate a poem I wrote called “Death Sleep”. Nice and uplifting! ha!

It was from a class project that we did with book artist, Margo Klass, where we made handbound books to house our poems and illustrations. So, I think this might be my first handbound book as well.

Around the time that I submitted this print to Rosie, I had just finished this painting:

Measure of Time
encaustic mixed media
sold

I don’t think I even need to say anything about the connections between my 11 year old self and my 36 year old self! But I did write a little something for Rosie to use, which you can view here.

What can I say? I’ve always had a connection to trees. I’d like to thank my dear friend Stephanie Green for the photo of this moss covered tree that she gave me to use in my work. She is such a generous artist and friend. I created this painting back in February of this year in preparation for my March show.

It is really interesting to look back at the work we made as children and see if there are any connections to what we do now. I kind of think that there has to be a connection. Childhood- that time in our life where our sense of self is formed. The time when we are trying to make sense of this strange world we find ourselves in. Of course we change and grow, but that little child is always there within us, I think. I saw a movie several years ago where a 20-something somehow comes face to face with her 12-year-old self, who kind of looks at her very disapprovingly. Hmmm, I wonder what my 12 year old self would think? Probably a mixed bag of approval and disapproval.

If you still have drawings or paintings or any type of made thing buried somewhere, dig it up and see what you find! I believe Rosie is going to keep taking submissions for the site. The submissions of the 13 artists are going to be bound into a book- wish I could fly myself to England to get to look through it. But the site that Rosie created is just as good.