How I became this version of "me"

My life seems to revolve around overcoming clutter & chaos, I guess that's why being drawn to the kind of art I do was a natural outcome. I'm a self imposed, semi-reformed packrat. I keep things long after most people would throw them away, every item in the pile is a cherished fragment of memories I have trouble letting go of. Each one is tied to my past, to things I care about... so in my mind it seems disrespectful to toss any of these fragments into the trash. This "keeping" practice alone creates chaos , but it's a comforting chaos....at least to me. My children hate it, I should mention that.

When the world goes mad I sort through and rearrange these memories and fragments, & as if by magic I am transported from the current madness that fills my life into a different time, when things were not so insane or overwhleming. Simplier times, when having almost no money meant vacations were simply creative but not non-existient. Times when getting away meant putting my finger on a map, filling the car with gas, loading the kids and camping gear in, packing a cooler and going off on an adventure... to discover the thrill of experiencing new places....only to return with memories and treasures you cannot buy at places like Disneyland. We discovered each other as well on these trips, to this day we are closer than most families, we have not drifted apart even though the kids are adults now, living their own lives, spreading their wings... they know home is always there, a safe place filled with love.

In my artistic endeavors I specialize in putting fragments together, I quilt, I make multimedia sculpture and usable things out of discarded fragments, I alter books into art journals and life journals, I use textiles and fibers to 'paint' pictures of the fragments of memories that hold a place in my heart or mind, I reclaim furniture that someone else has tossed as having no value and give it new value in either my heart or the heart of someone else. I take old clothes, and remake them, I reinvent them... into something else entirely. All of this has been a very natural path for a packrat like me to take.

This blog is going to be about my artistic adventures, my piecing of fragments into whole visions. It's going to start slow, as I pick through the chaos, as I clear a space to work in, as I clear my mind of clutter and search for a defined direction for each new piece. One by one they will apear here, take them for what they are.... fragments of one woman's mind/life given a public voice. You can listen or cover your ears.....