Choices

Every day we get to choose. We are a combination of our choices from the beginning. I have always been an artist. I have had a calling in my soul for as long as I can remember to create. Even as a little girl growing up in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, I lived with the magical world surrounding me. "Being an artist is not practical." "You need to really be focused." "Stop daydreaming." "You are not good enough." I still hear it all each and every time I step forward to create, but the scoffing voices are getting quieter. I pay very little attention any more. I look at what I do...make dolls, critters, pin keeps, and I love them. I know those who purchase my work love them too. Many do not. I was once told, "I'd be hard pressed to like anything that you do." I was shocked to be told that...then I smiled. It is about the creative muse, not the critic. My biggest complement was from a gentleman who continually came to buy my dolls. One day I asked what he did with them...were they gifts? He laughed and said they decorated his office. He was an engineer. He said he was collecting a group of creatures to help him keep perspective of his own work. He said that all of his purchases had formed a dysfunctional family with way too much inbreeding! When he looked at them...he smiled and remembered what was really important...SIMPLICITY. He said my work made him smile, especially a rabbit I had named Festus...he was sure he had turned into a Blue Grass fan because of Festus's face!  No greater complement than that!
    So I say choose to create and let nothing stop your journey. I am 65 years young and I am finally starting to "Get It" Choose all that is good for your Soul. Choose to be unstopable. Choose to dream. Choose to use God's gifts. I choose to be a Folk Artist......Blessed Be !

There's Always a Little Girl Inside

It's been raining in Upstate NY...I do love rainy days and that was something that was taught to me by my mother. She made rainy days very special. In our dining room was a buffet and the bottom drawer held surprises galore. I was allowed to choose one item per rainy day and it was from this drawer my first book of paper dolls emerged. I was hooked...but too little to cut them out...so we sat by the fire place and she cut and I began to fantasize. That was the beginning of my doll love affair. I must have been 3 or 4 years old and I am now 64...long time obsession with dolls and not a chance of it letting up or being cured...as if I would choose the cure!! I wish mothers introduced their daughters to this wonderful world...we loose so much of our imagination. I was an only child for 6 years..before the baby brother..and we lived in Cresson, PA. We were located in a valley between two 2000 ft high mountains (Allegheny Mts.)  The Main Line (Railroad)   moved through Cresson on it's journey to the famous Horseshoe Curve. We lived about 10 miles out of the town on a private lake near the town of  Loretto. My dad worked 3 jobs back then...one was that of a coal miner...any how...It was 1950 and my mom stayed at home and did not drive a car...So she and I spent much time engaged in dolly make believe...I treasure those days. I had my own play room  filled with dolls and teddies...I recall red and white gingham curtains, a tin doll house filled with plastic furniture, a golden record player and oodles of little plastic golden records. We need to remember our roots and what makes us who we are today.. How I sang along to those golden record songs! ...Bibbity...Bobbity...Boo... I cherish the good ole days and appreciate how I have become who I am today....I still sing along as I create my dolls. It really is a GRAND rainy day !!!