A Short History of My Creative Journey
conniech April 10th, 2007
One of my earliest memories is of sitting in a canvas tent with my older brothers and sister doing spool knitting. It was one of the many creative ways my mother had of keeping our hands busy. I am fortunate that I learned from an early age what great satisfaction could be gained from creating beauty out of simple materials. I realize now that spool knitting was not only a way of using up left over yarn colors, but for me it was an early lesson in how colors can be combined, thus creating exciting effects for the eyes. I now realize that even as I child I was a natural introvert who could spend hours in the sand pile absorbed in creating buildings and small villages from my imagination.
In my teenage years, I fondly recall making decorative and useful objects with macramé, beading and even batik. Now I’m very grateful to have had a mother who supported us in these creative adventures.
During the 1970’s , as a young mother of two sons, spinning, weaving, knitting, crocheting and using natural dyes became some other passions of mine. Because my then partner and I were in the commercial fishing industry, the knitting and also photography were conducive with living on a boat. Both my father and grandfather were professional photographers so documenting my experiences using photography always been a great form of creative expression for me, and was one of my favorite subjects later in my thirties when I was in art -college.
It is my nature to want to learn and experiment with a variety of artistic mediums,so during the 1980’s, emerging from a craft back round, I began exploring with and learning about watercolor. This was quickly followed with collage and other forms of mixed media experimentation. It was during this time I started entering my work in juried shows and was awarded with several awards of excellences and honorable mentions.
With the large canvas pieces I have done in more recent years, I have come full circle, as they have much in common with watercolor, but on a larger scale.