Kathy Nida

I read lots about people making art who are afraid to call themselves artists. They’re not sure they’ve found their voice yet. They’re hesitant about declaring arthood, fearing someone will call them out on it and demand proof.

Not me. Never have been. Afraid of that.

I am an artist. I’ve been an artist as far back as I can remember. I lost myself in drawing when I was young, and I never looked back. I’ve been making art forever, just like most of you (although many of you may have stopped around the time that drawing on your binder became uncool).

The first exhibition I remember entering was when I was 16. I had two pieces in it: a drawing and a weaving (it was a math project). I won prizes…I think 2nd and 3rd, but I’m not sure. I’ve been exhibiting since then, with a few lulls and peaks, but for 26 years, this has been a major part of my life.

I have a Studio Art degree. In college, I did black and white photography, drawing, ceramics, some painting (not very good), and printmaking. I liked prints…etchings and screenprints. I continued the screenprinting after college when I found a local class that helped me find supplies and make my own screens. College was pretty useless when it came to teaching you how to make art without the supports of a fully funded studio.

I screenprinted until the boychild was born, in 1996. I think I did a few prints after his birth, but it was too hard to find the time to clean screens and paint them. Meanwhile, I had started quilting in 1990, and this seemed to be something that meshed with my new existence as a work-from-home mom.

And mesh it did…obviously. I’ve been exhibiting quilts since 2000, with the first art quilts finished in 1999. I’m not stopping any time soon.

This week there was an issue with my existence as an artist…a question about whether I had the right to make the art I wanted and still have the life that I have. That question is still out there, but there has been some relief with information received today. I can’t really talk about it…but suffice it to say that the thought of having to hide what I do, who I am, what I’ve been my entire life, something that is more a part of me than anything else I’ve ever done, and yeah, that probably includes my kids…because they will move out and have their own lives, and I will still love them and care for them, but I will be making art when they’re gone and I was making art before they existed…the thought of that was incredibly upsetting. I don’t know how to explain that to people who don’t do that, who don’t have the drive I have, the potential insanity of artbrain. I felt like I was having to explain not who I am, but what I am. This is the core of my existence…this IS what I am.

It was the most depressing week I’ve felt in a long time. I hope the issue is over. I hope it doesn’t poke its ugly little fanged head towards me again.

I am an artist. I always have been. I always will be. The other things I am and have been will come and go…although I think I will be mom for a good long time (which is totally OK…).

I wonder what it is that makes that happen…what makes one person an artist and the other not.

I suspect I will always wonder about that.

Oh yeah. And I am hand-embroidering the Sightlines quilts. I started last night and it looks like it was always meant to be there…

so I’m continuing the insanity…

I wish I could show you the whole thing…because it blows me away to look at it.

I have no freakin’ clue what it all means (which may in fact be the artist statement that accompanies the quilts), but I unequivocably like them.