An Artist Makes Art: However, Whenever, Whatever and Wherever—and with Whomever

I began my professional career in 1982 as a family physician in rural Vermont. After nearly 25 years, I left my practice of medicine in 2006 to pursue a full time career in the visual arts and, as I discovered later, to dance.

Initially, I worked alone, but in 2008, I had the good fortune of being invited to join a group of artists who were making art collaboratively, taking turns adding to the evolving piece. After sixty to ninety minutes, we looked at our creation in each of the four orientations and described what we saw. This experience changed my art-making career forever.

For one thing, I realized that I was never really working alone, as my art-making was really affected consciously or unconsciously by the conversations I was having with artists both living and dead. Therefore, collaboration was occurring in their influences on me in my creative expression.

For another thing, I was learning the joy of working together with others. This was, of course, obvious in dance, but I also sought out collaborations with artists, poets, and photographers to create collages, books, and photographs. Even my two sons invited me to work with them on projects of which they had concieved. And most recently, a photographer asked me to model for her, and together we made some quite provocatively beautiful images.

I have not been content to stay long with one form of expression. From graphite or charcoal drawing, I moved to acrylic painting, to pastels, then to oils, then to mobiles, photography, collage, and assemblage. For some odd reason, I don’t seem to be content making the same art for long—just long enough to master a technique, then, when something else beckons me to innovate, explore, and adventure on with, I don’t resist—or at least, not for long!