the accidental artist: 20 years of art-making

I came to the startling realization this week that it's kind of the 20th anniversary of my very first art- making endeavors. That is visual arts, not necessarily the arts in general, which boast a much longer history of writing and then some theater. I was one of those kids who both hated art class and loved it. Loved it because it was a creative break between boring things like math and social studies, but also hated it because I wasn't very good. Or maybe I was really good at thinking and conceptualizing cool projects, but my hands and eyes were not necessarily up to my brain's endeavors. My pinch pots were lopsided, and my wire sculptures hilariously crooked. Don't even ask me to paint or glue things because even the best results would be ruined by my clumsiness and just general difficulty with being patient and working slowly.  While writing was not something I grew up around, art was not entirely unfamiliar since my mom was a longtime painter of bisque figurines as a hobby. She never let us touch her supplies, though both my sister and I watched her and longed to get our hands on them. Wisely, she never let us. My sister later studied art for a while before switching to classics, and still occasionally makes things. I, however, went in another direction entirely.  

A couple things happened in 2003 and early 2004 that had me wander down a different path. For one, I was working in the library of an arts college and surrounded by visual arts people.  When our newish library director suggested we start a library art series featuring staff, I didn't think, however, that I had much to offer. I was just beginning to see the fruits of a budding poetry career. Within a year or two I would continue publishing, win some awards, put together my first book. I would start doing regular readings and enroll in an MFA program that fall. But I had not a clue in the world how to make that a visual thing. To translate writing through a visual medium. Later I would become more acquainted with the installation and book arts, but that spring of 2003, I was stumped. 

What my contribution to one of those early exhibits was actually kind of terrible and wonderful. Terrible because it was sloppy, ill-conceived, and just not all that clever. Basically, I wrote out by hand several poems on a roll of wax paper, melted two sheets together with an iron, and strung a continuing role of words around the first floor of the library, up the stairs (admittedly this part was kind of cool, though its amazing I did not fall to my death) and into the 3rd-floor gallery space. It took forever both to do and to install..and I only remember that I was doing it around my birthday. I considered abandoning it halfway through, especially as I was balanced on precarious ladders at various points, but I stuck it out. I think there is maybe one photo somewhere of a segment, but as far as I know, no others.  But it was a beginning. If you want to know what melting wax paper and sharpie ink smells like when heated, trust me, it's not good and possibly caused me some brain damage.

Fast forward to 2004 and I was already in my MFA program, and probably at that moment, unhappily. I took a small press publishing class over in the Fiction Writing Dept. and ended up making not only a print issue of Wicked Alice, which I'd been curating online for a couple years at that point, but a chap of my own. With the logistics in hand, I decided to start the press, basically with some cheap supplies and some writers willing to let me issue their work.  Those books, of course, needed covers. Some I was able to get artwork from kind visual artists. Some I designed myself.   Becuase I wanted to learn more and had some extra cash available from a local writing prize, in the summer of 2004, I took a brief summer weekend workshop down at Columbia's tragically closed Book & Paper Center, which I have long suspected would have been a better alternative for MFA study but I was already in to far to switch those gears. I learned some cool techniques I still occasionally use. I made my very first official collages, one of which hangs on the wall above me even now.

from THE BOOK OF RED

At the same time, I continued with my strange library experiments. One, a series of tea-stained muslin banners with poems written on them in a continuous stream (see above). Next, a series of library card catalog pieces on recycled cards strung from the ceiling. Based on these, a very kind new friend, Lauren Levato Coyne, who I'd met in the poetry community and who was also an artist, invited me to be part of a show she was putting together at WomanMade Gallery about sacred spaces in early 2005. The result of that was an artist book of collages and poems fashioned crudely from a blank book I think I'd bought at Borders, the fairytale-inspired The Book of Red (the poem portions of which you can actually find in my FEIGN chapbook from NMP a couple years later.)  By 2005, while I wouldn't have called myself an artist if you asked, things were happening there that were delightful and unexpected, particularly as the internet as a means of sharing work were burgeoning, especially in the blog world. I made some cool things like this box for a vis-po assignment in a poetry class, these collages, an initial one-off version of errata that featured a cool corset-bound cover.  I continued to design up a storm on covers and actually got pretty decent at digital design, even using very inexpensive platforms and software. (ie. not the  Adobe suite.) Lauren and I issued at the hotel andromeda in 2007, which was a mix of poems and postcards and ephemera in honor of Joseph Cornell, with whom we were both obsessed. 

Then came Etsy.  I was actually a shopper first, for about a year, before I opened a shop myself and still managed to spend a not inconsiderable amount of money on postcards, paper goods, art prints, tote bags, and ephemera packets for collage. When I launched the shop that spring of 2007, it was mostly to sell chapbooks, which offered me a better storefront than the individual Paypal buttons I had been using. The fall of 2007, however, was a weird time.  I had finished my MFA that spring and was asking what next? I decided to rent the studio space in the Fine Arts with the last dregs of that student loan money I am still paying back, but was hoping not only for a space to expand the press and the shop, but also host events and workshops. (which we did the first year, but the shop and press sort of ate the studios' event space pretty quickly.)It was a leap of faith and I knew I had to expand the shop offerings to pay the rent.

Etsy Shadowbox

Under the wire to find ways to bring in additional income, I tapped into the burgeoning Etsy market of artists and soon, I was making so many things. Not just collages, but shadow boxes and other little art things. This led to other art shows and exhibits and boutique invitations. And what was crazy and amazing was that I was selling originals and prints regularly from the shop. Not just a little, but a lot. along with notecards and postcards, and eventually things like jewelry and handmade soap. I also was selling vintage and thrifted things for extra money, which really didn't feel like work but more like shopping. It was a crazy couple years, during which Etsy was on a growth spurt that would eventually make it less lucrative and more competitive for everyone, especially artists and vintage sellers (and why I would eventually leave for greener pastures.)  I realized at some point I spent a lot of time making things, but less time on the things I had initially wanted to make. Time that I wanted to spend amping up the chapbook offerings and making zines and artist books was spent running a brisk business in any amount of spare time I was not working my day job.  

By around 2011, I wanted to get a little closer back to my intentions, was kind of on the Etsy downswing, and decided to set up my own independent storefront, which was mostly books and more zines, but also still some art things I continue to offer, though not as much jewelry and I mostly stopped selling vintage. I never quite got back to the income heights after that, but I had more time to enjoy making the things I wanted--zines, chapbooks, collages not necessarily for sale, and also writing, which I was finally returning back to after that post-MFA slump. Eventually, things ramped up a little as people found me outside the internal traffic of Etsy. 

I continued to make collages, exhibiting them regularly, both in the library and elsewhere. I also started learning how to do other things...esp. watercolor (both paints and pencils) which I took to well. Also printmaking and monotype prints. Then digital collage work, mostly as a result of designing so many book covers. Later,  I got to teach some workshops on things I was already doing, like nature prints, book sculptures, and thrifted/assemblage art. One of the nice things of this past year of self-employment is it has, in the off times, I am not writing for money or doing press business or writing poems, the chance to play with visual things again, and also to do things like format new postcard sets and now, awesome new journals for the shop. To just have a bit more clarity and intention when it comes to making things in general, but esp. visual art, which sometimes got the shaft in recent years. Video, which I am still getting a handle on, is another medium that offers great possibility to bring visuals and writing together in the same way zines do. (and admittedly, I might as well do something creative with it with all the wasted time I spend on Instagram reels.)

It was a long time before I was willing to claim "artist" as part of my title, and still sometimes imposter syndrome is a beast. Far moreso than in writing poems, which I generally feel pretty comfortable and confident about. Maybe because I have a bonafide history of getting past gatekeepers. Or have college and grad school degree-age to back me up. Even though if you look at it from a "professional" financial standpoint, I've easily made 20 times the money on art as I have on poetry. Why imposter feelings? Because I have little training or pedigree. Because I am terrible at drawing even still. I don't have the carefulness and planning and precision of some of my artist friends. I kind of dive in and see what happens (which is harder, however, when you're working with limited or spendy materials, so I try not to.) One of the reasons I took so easily to digital collage is no cutting and no glue to fuck up, and fuck up I do quite readily with those materials. My trashcan beneath my paint table is littered with false starts and botched collages. I did a series of very messy flocked black velvet pieces that I exhibited in fall 2021 and then ripped from the walls and threw in the trash because I hated them and didn't want to transport them home. (though I did get some nice notecard designs from them.) It's a journey, always, when it comes to the visual stuff.  I can't say the same about my writing, which is subject to far less dramatic swings and feelings. 

But then again, 20 years ago, if you told me I would be an artist someday, or hell, even that the writing would work out as well as it has,  both as a creative writer and a content writer paid to do it, I would possibly have not believed you. The girl, who at 29, would have told you she had so much figured out, would be surprised at how much she did not.