I am Art: Part I

My first medium: play.

I was an artist long before I got the degree. As a child, I made art from almost anything I could get my hands on—paper, scissors, glue, paint, sidewalk chalk, play dough, spirographs, a lite-brite, even my food. I would make art of butter, trash, leaves, or my mother's leftover calico scraps. I would draw and paint for hours and when paper proved insufficient, I would draw and paint on the furniture and walls of my bedroom. I didn't limit myself to a specific medium. I created art from tinker-toys, lego, lincoln logs, erector sets, and hot wheels tracks that passed from the living room, into the kitchen, and down the hall. I made art from play.

My next medium: oil paint.

As I grew, I wanted to be taken seriously. I needed to become a serious artist with serious training versed in serious mediums that yielded serious art hanging in serious galleries with serious price tags. Oil paint was my medium of choice. Is there anything more serious than opening a fresh metal tube of Michael Harding's yellow ochre deep?

So I did. I trained. I learned. I grew. I got the degree to prove it. I was a serious artist with my art hanging in residences, galleries, and businesses across the country. I was commissioned. I was certifiable. I made it. I made art that upheld tradition.

My next medium: rooms.

I continued to paint while I explored other mediums. I got a job as a junior designer at a small design firm and made art out of architecture. I designed rooms using the same principles I learned in art school: color, balance, texture, contrast, movement, structure, space, proportion, pattern, and light. I used wood, fabric, stone, and metal. Thousands of people walked through my art in Utah's Parade of Homes. I made art that could be lived in.

My next medium: photography.

After giving birth to my oldest son, I picked up my first digital SLR camera to photograph the fleeting moments that faded just as quickly as they arrived. Paint could not keep up with the rapid growth of my child. Despite having a BFA, I was a self-taught photographer. I dipped my toes in the digital world. I learned how to use digital equipment and photoshop. With the help of my local library and YouTube, my love affair with photography turned into a wedding photography business. Photography was the only medium fast enough to capture candid moments that passed by like a breeze. I made art that held memories.

My next medium: words.

After having three children, I went back to school for another degree—philosophy. I made art with ideas, with arguments, with proofs, and with prose. I made poetry. I made theology. I made art with words that could draw tears or provoke laughter. I sculpted words that pressed on the edges of imagination but held strongly with logic. I made queer art, strange art, even controversial art. I posted my word art on the internet, and people responded with fervency I did not expect. My website, the digital medium that held my art made of words, pixels, and silicon, grew until it was no longer mine. It wasn't just my art being consumed. I was being consumed. I got lost in the chaos of a digital world that disconnected me from my art, myself, and my body. I withdrew from the digital world, my social media accounts, and online connections. I took down my website. I put time limits on my phone. I withdrew. It was difficult, but necessary. I made art bigger than myself.

My next medium: earth.

While slowly coming out of a major depressive episode, I looked out the window to see my backyard had deteriorated to dust. It was once a sanctuary where my children played on lush green grass and ate basil leaves clean off the stem. The aliveness of our backyard was dying of neglect—just like me. I pulled out my sketchbook and ink pens and drew. I didn't sketch what I saw. I sketched what I envisioned.

I designed a garden. It would be my garden, and I would only share it with those I chose. Nothing grand or ostentatious. Nothing opulent or lavish. Just a garden with a quiet place to rest in the joy of one's toil. With paper and ink, I drew my garden into reality.

I drew a large patio with two oversized wicker egg chairs topped with pillows and blankets. Not far would be a small dining space for early-morning coffee or late-night dinner parties with a large umbrella to shield mid-day rays. Just off the patio would be a humble gravel pathway that led to a firepit surrounded by five, no, seven Adirondack chairs. I drew two large trees—one for each side of the garden that would provide shade and protection. All other open spaces would be filled with plants. In the spring, the garden would be vibrant with magenta creeping phlox, delicate white alyssums, variegated dogwoods, and beaming green creeping jenny. In the summer, the fuchsia dianthus would bloom next to hardy mango tango potentilla with tiny amber flowers that would last until October. In the autumn, vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows would flourish. Orange halo gaillardias would unfold alongside golden yellow coreopsis. The burning bushes would transform from emerald to vermillion. The tiger rose japanese maples would glow with red fiery leaves. At night, there would be low level pathway lights that led to the firepit, but only dimly. The moon and stars would not be outshone.

There it was. My garden. I imagined it. I drew it. Now it was time to organize it. The labor was extensive and required professional assistance. A crew was hired, but I labored alongside them. It was my garden, my art, and required my hands. Some of the men politely laughed at my insistence on participating in the manual labor they were being paid for, but they indulged me. They taught me as we worked. I learned how to install a drip system. I learned what plants would thrive in specific conditions. I collected rocks that would line the pathway and placed each one next to the other with care.

After months of planning and labor, my garden was alive but not complete. Absolute completion was never the goal. My garden, even still right now today, is a living, breathing work of art that is never fully finished—just like me. I tend it. I nurture it. I prune it. I become with it.

My next medium: AI.