ABOUT ME
I’m Carol - an Artist, Wife, Mother, Teacher, Technical writer...and ADHD Life adventurer.
ACarolOriginal could be something from a portfolio of a large variety of unique designs, informed by many cultures and a love of colour, in a multitude of mediums.
At age 18 I knew I had more ideas than I could complete in a lifetime and my ideas have since grown exponentially. I have completed 10K works including ceramics, oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings and multi-medium. I'm an innovator and a recycler; it is all about process and technique for me.
My fascination with pattern art began very young. I imagine others have poignant art memories, so I thought I’d touch on a few that helped shape me.
My art journey began literally with a nightmare in my crib. I had this nightmare as a kid: I saw a distinctive wallpaper pattern, closed my eyes and when I opened my eyes the pattern changed! It was a recurring nightmare that continued into my teens. My sister said because I was so sickly, my mom would move the roll-around crib into the warmest room of our drafty old farmhouse. I would fall asleep in one room and wake in the next. I was noticing pattern design in the crib!
I grew up on a farm amidst a family of workaholic achievers. I on the other hand was called “my little Dummy” (by my father). I missed so much school due to sickness and was painfully shy and malnourished, the odds were against me from the start.
We were raised below the poverty level so when others in grade school had 16 and 32 crayons (some even with sharpeners!) All I had was the original fat 8 crayons to work with. In our small country school this other girl and I alternated as having the best artwork. I didn’t realize though, in our unvoiced competition that I had an utter disadvantage both in color and size of crayons and ability to sharpen and not.
We had one art contest in 3rd grade (the only one I ever remember us having). We had a project working with a medium I never worked with before and I hated it. Everyone copied the girl that was my competition - because who is going to copy the malnourished sickly poor weird kid that wore old ill-fitting clothes?! Well, I got a blue ribbon because even back then and to this day I am adamant as an artist to try not to copy anyone, and why I hate the term ‘steal like an artist’ so much! So, I am sure I got the ribbon because mine was so different from the work of everyone else.
Like lots of people in my age group I was told I could never make a living as an artist, and I believed them. So, I spent 20 years doing work I hated. I spent the first year of my employment working on the Chrysler assembly line. I was told by my parents and teachers that I’d never be smart enough for college and didn’t even consider it. Despite this, I decided to leave and join the FBI in Washington DC. Later I joined the USAF which gave me access to tertiary education. I attended 13 different colleges, got on the Dean’s List at 3 major universities and finally graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2004.
Most of what I do, including original techniques, is self-taught through experimentation, which I love to do. I know little art history - I remember asking in one of my first college painting classes if it was okay to paint with Latex Paint… the teacher asked if I’d ever heard of Jackson Pollock. I hadn’t! I felt the Degree just gave me permission to do whatever I wanted, and I did. By my second year the teachers lined up each week to ask how I did particular pieces.
I was awarded the “Best Overall Body of Work” of my graduating class 2004. The Art Department Head said ‘Best in Show’ was not representative enough for all I had done. I was also granted a special Regents showing at my university.
I've been called the most creative person as well as the most prolific artist people know. I am exceedingly productive, defining each day by my accomplishments, therefore I have amassed multiple bodies of work most people have never seen that include 10,000 pieces of artwork and 2000 original, hand-drawn surface pattern designs created since the year 2000.
In the year 2002 I decided to count out how many self-taught designs I had done while raising my son, there were 4000 then, 2000 of which I deemed worthy enough to use as finished patterns. That was 20 years ago, and time has done nothing to dampen my enthusiasm.
I am an innovator and a recycler, but more specifically, I guess you could say I'm a disassembler/re-assembler. I work in all mediums, but I love to "recycle" "repurpose" and find new uses for things, and have for years, long before those catch phrases became popular. Re-use is important to me, but not so much for the reasons others might recycle; it's more about the possibilities that a limited resource and unique assemblage provides, that might not otherwise happen without these constraints and explorations.
My emphasis is creating artwork processes I've never seen before and that is what continuously drives me. Whatever I am working on in my art is all I think about. Everything I do, everything I view, every day, in every way is keeping that goal in mind and bettering it. As a result, I come up with unusual combinations. Other artists are my most interested audience at shows, asking what materials I used and how I accomplished what I did, as well as where I came up with the idea. Each project I've done really has a story behind the evolution of the process.
My philosophy is basically: "Where There's Pigment, There's Possibility" (the name of a book I'd like to write). And so, the unexplored ever awaits...
