|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
On Becoming an Artist 
When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by a small wooden box in my mother's study. The box contained her oil paints and a beautiful wooden palette. Although I was far too young to be playing with paints and brushes, my mother would occasionally allow me to use them. It's obvious that this was where my love of art was first kindled.As a child, I was encouraged to take art lessons and soon all my free time was spent doing anything having to do with art. I watched my uncle, Clifford Stubbs, a noted New England artist, paint the mountain scenes behind our home. I painted posters to advertise local dances. I spent childhood summers at the beaches and harbors on the Massachusetts coast where I watched amazing artists paint famous scenes. I lived art. I created scenery for school plays, got a job designing store windows, and at an early age I won the annual Vermont state dairy poster contest, (we had far more cows than people in the state in those days) and I received a $25.00 check and a trip to Burlington, Vermont for a guest appearance on a statewide television show. I knew I had now arrived as an artist. There was no longer any doubt about my future. 
The decision where to go to college was simple. I enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, RI, a school whose alumni list read like the who's who of prominent artists.The Romance of Frakturs My art school major was Graphic Design and my concentration was type and calligraphy. It was there that I saw my first illuminated manuscript and Fraktur art, but it wasn't until after college, when I was designing book jackets for Doubleday in New York City, that I would produce my first Fraktur art. It was a wedding gift for a former classmate. I was a frugal single person and using traditional commemorative art seemed like a perfect way to express myself to my friend. She responded so positively that I continued to make them as gifts. 
Later, I used Frakturs as decoration in my own house. My husband and I bought a pre-Revolutionary cape in Massachusetts. Its cracked walls, low ceilings and earthiness contributed to my love of primitive design. Often, to cover a crack or stain on the wall, I would create a piece of art in keeping with the period of the house. I painted everything from Frakturs to "antiqued" paintings of early Americans. Soon, people who saw these pieces were asking where I had found them. More than once I created a new branch of the Stubbs/Copeland/Durocher family tree to satisfy their imaginations.
Now I live in New Hampshire, a stone's throw from where I grew up in Vermont. I retired a few years ago as the Chief Creative Officer in a small advertising agency. Retirement has allowed me to dedicate myself to my passions again - my family and my art. 
I paint from an old wooden desk I bought at an auction before my kids were born. They used to do their homework here and I often think about how much history the desk must hold. Now I use it to create new history. I paint so we can remember the events in our lives and have something beautiful to record them.
Crow Hill Art allows me to share these Frakturs with more than just my family and close friends. By reproducing them, you get to have the same joy I experience when I give them as gifts or use them in my own home. I should tell you, the old farmhouse where I live now no longer has cracks to cover up. I use Frakturs purely as decoration and a way to remind me of all the love and adventures we've had as a family. My son and daughter's births hang as Frakturs above my bed, along with a piece of poetry my husband wrote for me 35 years ago. They are as much a part of my life as anything else. I hope they become part of yours. |
|
