Creativity Lives

Oil pastel sketch: Aunt Vivian, Grandma, momma

Finding and connecting with the source of our creativity requires a certain amount of practice. It’s a bit like the discipline of dividing plants in the garden to keep them healthy, or performing daily exercises to stay limber.

Once rediscovered, the process of creating offers much to the human endeavor. Creativity can solve almost any problem. This is a one-sentence version of a favorite quote that I keep in my studio. The rest of the quote, attributed to George Lois, reads: “The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”

Well, almost everything.

We are attending the funeral of a young man this morning, a young and talented artist. He was the son of neighbors, acquaintances we became friendly with through the osmosis of raising children and attending their school activities. He was found dead by his own father, hung and out of his misery. We only learned a day later that the young man had been in insufferable pain from cancer. His sudden death, still tragic, was framed in a different light with the new knowledge. For him, creating was clearly not enough to ease his suffering. Luckily for us, in his physical absence, his spirit remains in our minds and in the artwork he left behind.

Creating can be a positive outlet for dealing with pain and grief. When my mother died suddenly nearly twenty years ago, “making” gave me a place to put my feelings. In my artwork, bits and pieces of my mother’s life were transformed; sheer curtains, a St. Christopher’s medal, a bridge tally became talismans for remembering.

When my father died without warning the following year, I felt compelled to create artwork about him, as well. I continue to create such artworks even today, as I experience the loss and emotion of grief in new ways as each year passes.

Hero: Only one of Daddy's Battles and The Day Momma Died, front

Years ago I was asked to participate in a national exhibition entitled Memories—Images of the Soul. The artwork shown was a powerfully moving testimony to the abiding capacity of the human spirit for expression and renewal. I remember walking through the gallery amongst the artwork, the emotion in the space palpable, and being moved to tears by the experience. In the exhibition catalog, the project coordinator Rick Grahovac wrote, “Art evokes and transforms our inner experiences, the movements of our soul, into concrete form. Our thoughts, feelings and the meaning we create from our encounters with life and death are contained, preserved, and available for our contemplation. The process of making art allows us to mourn, to externalize the inner experience of grief. …Art gives us a way not only to remember, but also immortalize and remain connected to our loved ones who have died.”

Mother Shrine

When someone dies, all that remains for the living, regardless of one’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are memories and objects connected to them. When all of those living who remembered the person are also gone, only the objects remain, often cut off from their original context. Creativity, the end product of human imagination, lives on, though, long after we mortals have returned to the earth’s soil. A poem, a song, an artwork hung on the wall, continue to stir the soul of anyone who is open to the experience.

What do we do when art isn’t enough? Create more art. Sometimes, it is all we have to give.

Book of Years: Granddaddy, detail

All artwork by Gayle Pritchard, http://www.gaylepritchardart.com/. Copyright protected.

Art Quilts are Still New

I had an unusual opportunity recently to speak about art quilts at a hospital. It all started a few months ago, when I received an email out of the blue from someone who had been referred to my website, http://www.gaylepritchardart.com/ After a few emails back and forth, we finally arranged a time to speak on the phone, and I learned that this family wished to learn more about art quilts in their quest to commission a memorial artwork in memory of their loved one, a well-loved physician who had lost her battle with cancer last year.

So, last Monday I found myself in Plymouth, Michigan at the historic Inn at St. John's, prepared to meet this family at a dinner party. My friend and colleague Christine, who has experience with the selection and installation of artwork in hospitals, generously made the trip with me.

When we arrived for the party, the house was packed with friends, family members and colleagues. Each conversation was an opportunity to learn about this amazing woman, who, like most women, had been a wife, a daughter and a mother in addition to everything else she was in her professional life. What was clear was that this physician had been a woman who had touched many lives deeply.

Despite arriving back at the Inn early, I found myself unable to sleep most of the night. My mind raced with snippets of conversations, thoughts about the memorial art the family was contemplating, and the text of my upcoming presentation. I have had the opportunity to speak all over the country about art quilts in the process of promoting my book on the subject, Uncommon Threads: Ohio's Art Quilt Revolution. http://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Uncommon+Threads

I have presented my Power Point presentation in dozens of locations, the lecture tweaked each time for the specific audience. This is, however, the very first time that I have ever presented such a lecture in a hospital. I was curious to see what the audience would be like.

After a very early wake-up call and a quick breakfast with the family at the hospital cafeteria, it was time to head to the auditorium and gather my thoughts one last time. As audience members continued to trickle in, I was once again amazed at the ongoing interest in the topic of art quilts that I have encountered everywhere I have traveled. Physicians, hospital staff, administrators, family members and interested hospital staff spouses had come together on this morning to honor the late Dr. Stuck, and to learn about the emergence and evolution of the art quilt movement in Ohio and the Midwest. Unlike most audiences, there were not many questions posed at the end of the lecture. What happened instead is that individuals came up afterwards, one by one, to ask the questions that had come to mind as they listened to the history and looked at the images of contemporary art quilts. When it was time to leave, I was left with a great sense of personal satisfaction that another audience had come to appreciate an art form they were not previously familiar with.