Family Connections

T. Vickery's Boots and Shoes! I loved this ad the minute I saw it recently. Vickery, you see, is a family name, though I can't think of any T. Vickery's in the group.

You may think it strange for an artist to also be passionate about family history, but for me there is a direct connection. You see, my art is very personal, and is often about my family, my history, or some combination of the two. My piece The Day Momma Died uses physical objects that belonged to my mother to create an artwork, and to commemorate the experience of the day she died at 62.
Prayers for the Dead commemorates three family deaths which took place shortly after my mother's death.
My Joie de Vivre series is a group of three abstracted self portraits that chronicle, for me, a crucial developmental phase in my artwork. A few years ago, I made a piece about my husband using the lyrics of one of his songs.


Gayle with her piece inspired by her husband's song lyrics: I Hear Voices in my Head

Whether I am working on works for the wall or creating mixed media assemblages, my work tends to be autobiographical. It is the way I process my internal thoughts. It is what comes out when I go to that space deep inside where my inspiration lives. What inspires you?

This is an actual advertisement from Derby, England in 1816. The Mr. Pritchard mentioned is my husband's ancestor.

Creativity One Moment at a Time

Detail of Joie de Vivre 1 by Gayle Pritchard

My daylilies are blooming. Seeing them reminds me of the ephemeral quality of summertime, of life itself. The first time I recall seeing these flowers was when we lived in West Virginia over thirty years ago. On the frequent drive back and forth to Ohio, I would see them, the old varieties I now know, blooming in gullies along the side of the road. I thought they were beautiful.

In my garden, while I have a few of the newer, “everblooming” varieties, I cherish the old-timey ones, in which each bloom only lasts one day. Hence the common name, daylily. You can admire and cherish them for the day they are blooming, but they are on their own pre-determined schedule. The next morning, the previous days’ bloom will be wilted on the stem. They are of immense, and fleeting, beauty.

Creative inspiration seems to keep the same schedule as the daylily. An idea comes, seemingly out of nowhere. It could be in the mist before sleep comes, or first thing in the morning, the sleeper barely awake. Ideas come on long walks, in the shower, driving the car; the more inconvenient for recording them, the better. The creative mind seems to work this way. If I fail to focus on the thought, the very fleeting mist of a vision, it disappears, and my mind can no longer grasp the fullness of what it had seen in that instant.

My journal / sketchbooks are full of such attempts to capture the wisps of an idea before they slip away. The dropping out of thin air quality of creative inspiration is, apparently, a common experience. I remember hearing the story Paul McCartney told of writing the song Yesterday. He says he woke up with the melody in his head, and spent a month asking his friends and colleagues if they had heard it before. When he was sure the song, which he called Scrambled Eggs, was his own, he began to write lyrics.

While I believe that there is no particular magic to being an artist, I must admit that, when the creative mind works overtime solving a creative problem, it can seem very magical when solutions are delivered unexpectedly. It truly feels like grabbing the air and pulling out a gem.

Over the past two decades I have learned to keep my mind open. Looking in my journals reminds me of this. Thinking, sketching and dreaming are all part of an artists work-out routine. This is what creativity is made of. Anyone can learn it, but no one can teach it. It's a path you have to discover for yourself.

Sketch for The Day Momma Died, with front of two-sided piece below.