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25 Random Art Things About Me

 

The 25 Random Things Meme has been circulating, and I decided it would be fun to share one about my art:

  1. In the first grade I wanted to be an artist, but in the third grade, the teacher’s idea of art was to trace things, and I wasn’t good at tracing and decided I couldn’t be an artist.
  2. I took the bus to the Edmonton Art Musuem at age 14, and saw the block prints of Sybil Andrews and fell in love with the marks that wood cuts make.
  3. The social studies teacher in Jr. High was also the art teacher, and I sat in social studies class, wishing I could make art, but never thinking I could.
  4.  I taught myself to draw with Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and was amazed, because I always one of those “I can’t draw” people.
  5. From the first time I saw a mosaic up close at the Wernersville Jesuit Retreat Center, by Hildreth Meiere, I knew I wanted to make them, but I lived in an apartment.  I made collages in the dining room, but bits of glass are different than bits of paper.
  6. When we bought a house 5 years ago, I got a room all to myself as a studio.  I never had my own room before!
  7. I love little tiny pieces of glass, and save off-cuts in candy tins, sorted by color.
  8. My husband makes original stained glass and between the two of us, we can’t have bare feet in the house.  It’s hard at times to attribute the blame as to who tracked a glass fragment into the hallway, but we always try.
  9. Orange is my favorite color, which surprises me, since I never liked in the past.
  10. I took a workshop on Composition and Design with Nita Leland on Long Beach Island in NJ in 2004, and it was the first time I’d ever driven that far, or taken an overnight art class.  It was adventure!
  11. I found a bowling ball at a yard sale in my neighborhood and brought it home to mosaic. Boy was it heavy walking those few blocks and then up the stairs to my studio.
  12. I like making abstract pieces, or those inspired by patterns like fabric, flowers, paisley, quilts.
  13. I spend far more time in hardware stores than I ever imagined–grout, glue, gloves.
  14. I went to Snow Farm: The New England Craft Program, for a week long class on Mosaic making.  It was like a paradise summer camp for artists, with food cooked by a restaurant chef.
  15. I love to go to quilt shows for inspiration.  People ask if I’m a quilter because I use quilt patterns in my work, and I tell them no, but my husband is!  That usually throws them.
  16. My mother sent me some dishes that belonged to my great grandmother that had broken in transit, and I was thrilled to be able to transform the fragments into a whole.  I am named Margaret after my great grandmother.
  17. Almost every window in our house has stained glass suncatchers made by my husband, and we also collect art tiles and paper cut art.
  18. For my 40th birthday, I went to the Roycroft Inn, site of the original Roycrofters artisan guild, and took tours of Frank Lloyd Wright houses, and checked out the Louis Sullivan
  19. architecture in Buffalo, NY, a true “art geek” birthday.
  20. I live less than 1/2 hour from Henry Chapman Mercer’s Moravian Tileworks and his fabulous tile filled concrete castle of a house in Doylestown, Fonthill.
  21. I keep my tesserae in deli containers, stacked in drawers of an Ikea closet organizer.  I call it my “tower of tesserae.”
  22. I had to start selling my work, or there would’ve been mosaics up to the ceiling.
  23. I tried many mediums before finding mosaic: ceramics, drawing, watercolor, collage, and an unforunate experience with cake decorating.
  24. I had a 1st grade teacher who brought reproductions of art by the Canadian Group of Seven into the classroom, and I was fascinated by how different brushstrokes could make leaves or snow.
  25. I order Weldbond Glue–a spage age adhesive and Canadian too!–by the gallon
  26. I am incredibly blessed to be able to do something I love, and make art.

Related Posts:

Pilgrimage to Walls Speak:  The Narrative Art of Hildreth Meire

The Ignatian Spirit and the Mosaics of Hildreth Meiere

Weldbond:  A Mosaic Artist’s Friend

Quilts

2 comments

  1. Olga G says:

    hi Margaret, thanks for your comment on my post; how nice that you are learning spanish! your mosaics are amazing! I’m off to see some of your work now (the celtic cross looked amazing).
    Have a nice Sunday!
    OJ

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