I grew up in Michigan, but visited Olympia, WA on a road trip as a teen because my aunt Safiya lives there. I fell in love with the Pacific NW generally, and I have a clear memory of visiting Childhood’s End Gallery in downtown Olympia. I loved that it wasn’t an austere type of gallery with artworks spaced far apart. While there is a dedicated space for rotating exhibitions, the majority of the gallery is filled with colorful, fun, eclectic artwork of all kinds, mostly by local artists. I knew I wanted to move to the west coast as soon as I was able, and I fantasized about being part of this gallery.
In my 20s, I was selling art, but it was scrappy and experimental, moving from one medium to another. It took me a long time to find a creative voice. Even in my 30s, as I grew into mosaic, my work wasn’t consistent enough to sell in galleries, and I realized by about 2010 that it wasn’t the direction for me at all. I wanted to create architecturally integrated artwork, so that’s what I pursued.
Now, as you know, I’m actually living the dream, making site-specific mosaic for homes, businesses and public places. And for the past 2 months, I’ve been hard at work on a very special new project, which I installed at the end of September 2022 in the entryway of Childhood’s End Gallery! This feels like such a significant project for me. It has been a great pleasure working with the staff at the gallery to hone the design and arrange an installation in their only doorway without interrupting business. It will be unveiled for Olympia’s Fall Arts Walk. I’m so proud of this entryway, made of smalti and stone, which will outlive me and will be a permanent fixture in the Olympia landscape, along with another sidewalk inlay in front of the Washington Center for Performing Arts. What a wonderful feeling!
*I want to acknowledge that B&R Flooring went out of their way to help me source the transition-ramp at the last minute when Home Depot let me down, and that Joel Finch of Octopus Design Build spent an evening helping me with the installation, going above and beyond, and just being an excellent friend.
