2. How do you jump start your creativity when you are in a slump? Truly, I'm rarely, if ever, in a slump. I jump- start every single day by going outside and looking at the trees and the flowers and birds that surround me... and I sing! Nearly every single day of my life I sing... but not in front of people, mind you!
3. If money wasn't an issue, what would you do with your art? Because I'm retired now, money isn't really a big issue to me. Of course, I dearly love to sell my work, and I love having them in large buildings' permanent installations because I can go visit those pieces that way! But I have given pieces to special people who love them and will give them good homes. And recently, I swapped pieces with an artist whose work I greatly admire and who I love as a person. That's really special. I've also donated many pieces over the years to worthy causes for their auctions to raise money, and that makes me happy, too.
4. Do you keep a sketchbook, journal, etc.? No, I don't do either one. Actually, I guess I do, but it's an invisible thing because it's inside my head! When an idea comes to me, I start designing it in my mind's eye... it comes bit by bit until I "see" enough to begin the real thing. Like any sketchbook, this is only a rough draft and not a finished thing, though. I drew so much in advanced drawing classes at university and then as I taught high school art that drawing has never left me. I do love to draw, and occasionally when I'm not sure of how to cut a shape, I do draw it first.
5. Where can people see your other work this year? shows, books, magazines, etc. As a member of the California Fiber Artists, I will have my work hanging in many museums and galleries throughout California for the next two years. I just co-curated a show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art for CFA with Sherry Kleinman, and my work is there now. I will also have 3 pieces at the Long Beach IQF show this July. I have been asked to submit art to various galleries and shows nationally, as well, but you will have to see my Facebook site as these venues happen. Happily, I have also been approached about writing a book... but, for sure, you won't see that this year!
6. Do you teach? where? I do teach, and I love that I do! I've taught from California to Florida and up to Washington state. I'm looking forward to teaching at Asilomar, and "Quilting in the Desert" in Phoenix, as well as at AQS in Paducah, Kentucky, all next year. This year I've been to many quilt guilds, and soon I will be in speaking and teaching in Lincoln, Nebraska (so I get to see the Quilt Study Center, too!), and in the fall I'll be up in La Conner, Washington teaching 4 classes for Quilt Fest at the La Conner Quilt and Textile Museum. What fun!
7. Is there a particular artist who had influenced you in your art life? and why? There is more than one artist who's influenced my work, mainly because I nearly took a degree in art history... loved it! Raoul Dufy was an early influence on me. His paintings are bright, happy, and his color never stayed inside the lines. His work still inspires me. Always Japanese artists, from the oldest to the newest, have been inspiring to me because their composition sense is completely unique, not based on the European view of what composition should be. But for use of fabric, it's Edrica Huws, the English artist, who used cloth like Dufy did his paint. But she could use slices of plaids and strips and flowers that Dufy never had. I bet he would have done, though, if he'd had plaid paint!
8. Where or what show do you hope your work will be in someday? In my wildest daydreams my art hangs in New York City! As a high school student and later a university coed, I commuted into "The City" nearly anytime I wanted since we lived in Stamford, Connecticut and my dad worked in NYC. Imagine... the Metropolitan, MOMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim were all there for me to wander through! That will never happen, of course, but I'd be happy with a piece permanently installed on a hospital wall there, or in a small art gallery, or The Folk Art Museum... oops! Somebody wake me up... I'm dreaming again!
9. Describe your studio workspace. That's easy. It's my spare bedroom, complete with its own bathroom and an entire wall of closets, which are not enough! The work table with my sewing machine is right next to two large 2nd-story windows that look out over our backyard with two African thorn trees just beyond the fence. They are precocious trees, covered with huge pink orchid-like flowers before the leaves pop out. After summer is over, they have large hanging green pods that explode handfuls of cotton all over our backyard. By the way, all our over-night guests have to give us at least a month's warning before they come so I have time to turn my studio back into a guest room! ... and they always know that they have only 3 inches of closet space to hang their own clothes...
10. What 3 tools could you not live without? My two eyes and my finger tips are the most important tools of my trade, but that's not what you mean, I'm sure. The 3 tools I couldn't live without are scissors, a straw needle, and my portable, handy-dandy thread holder full of every solid color of thread that Mettler makes!
11. What drives you to make the work that you do? Gratitude! That's what drives me... When I was 4 1/2 years old and sitting in my kindergarten class drawing a picture of a log cabin in front of a lake with flowers surrounding a log and pine trees, I decided right there that I wanted to be an art teacher. Well, it happened! I loved every single day in the secondary classroom, even when I switched to teaching English literature. Now I get to teach people across the country that they really CAN make art! Who wouldn't be grateful for a life like that? I'm just plain lucky!
12. How do you balance your life? I can't balance it... it's as simple as that. It's like trying to stuff an octopus into a plastic bag! Something is always sticking out, waving at me that it's not going to happen the way I'd hoped. And please... please don't look inside my closets!
http://www.terrywaldron.com/
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