Dreams are quiet.
Even small at first.
They form
unexpectedly,
without sound,
without notice.
Still waters…
a ground-swell
from nowhere.
There was no television in the upstairs flat where we lived in 1963. My sisters and I would each pick a letter and my mother would turn each letter into a volume from her set of white Encyclopedia Britannica. Once we caught on, we’d pick the letters with the most color pictures, D for Dolls and Dogs, C for Cats and Cars, F for Fish and Flowers. She’d sit between us with the huge volumes on her lap, turning the pages and reading the captions for us. As it turned out, the C was also for Color and P for Painting. When I was allowed to handle the books with my own hands, I’d pore over those amazing pages for hours, reading all the captions myself. From this small source of inspiration grew my desire to paint.
I don’t remember when I began to draw everything in sight. Reading, drawing, drawing, reading, it seems they have always been part of my life. After years of studying the color pictures in my mother’s encyclopedia, I graduated to staring at the work of real painters at the Detroit Institute of Arts. In ninth grade I received my first real drawing pencils, a kneaded eraser, acid-free drawing paper, cotton-duck canvas, and finally, my first set of oils. I was fourteen with my first tubes of cadmium and cobalt and cerulean. It didn’t take long to realize I was in no position for others to take my dreams as seriously as I did. It would take twenty years of life and independent study to make paintings to match the intensity of those dreams.
At Siena Heights College in Adrian, Michigan, I majored in Ceramics and Painting but I graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration—this to please those who felt life as an artist would be unrealistic for me. Late to bloom, I did not make paintings like these at Siena Heights. Starting in 1983, I worked on the edges of the advertising industry to support my own family. There I learned a lot about communicating ideas not meant to last, to people not interested in hearing. In the meantime, as I struggled to understand the world I grew up in, my desire to paint just waited—silenced.
I was once asked, “Why the chimera when you do not seem to be a monster?” The chimera is not only a monster—a mythical creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. The chimera is also illusion, fantasy, a wild or unrealistic dream. A creation of the imagination. That’s me. Always dreaming. Yet, to those who’d rather live in the safety of ALWAYS and NEVER, one who imagines life as I do would be somewhat of a monster. After so many accusations of idealism over the years, I finally accept the challenge.
We all start out, and remain dependent on others. Others we hope are bigger, stronger, smarter, better. Others who, for some, might even be well-intended, but wrong about us. Instead of the support we need to grow, we are imprinted with unreasonable fear and limitations. This is a disaster. Instead of distrusting the validity of limits—taught to us by people we’re truly dependent on—we learn to distrust ourselves. Isolated, discouraged early, a lot of us learn to hide that which is special about us. We keep quiet and try to fit in.
When I started ChimeraBlues, I thought i was the only one. ChimeraBlues is about me waking up—not so quiet anymore. Using paint and canvas—to tell stories at last. Stories, at first, about me. Now stories about us. Stories about living, taking care of people, loving without giving up everything, without losing…myself. The one thing that can’t be replaced. Oh, and you. We should all be bigger, stronger, smarter, better so we can depend on each other.