Page 23 - Allison's Magazine ~ Issue #101

I love visiting at large, is full of creative energy, art,
greenhouses and music, and culture, and I think it had a
profound impact on me. We had lots of
conservatories
friends that worked as artists, so the idea
to sketch, and, in
that it was possible to have art as a career
my downtime, I was never disputed. My mom was also
peruse Pinterest fully supportive, and we lived in an area
and interior design that had helpful resources, like TWIGS,
blogs for ideas a free after-school arts program at the
Baltimore School for the Arts.
about colors and
object placement
What did your academic path
within my designs.
look like?
I give a lot of credit to my high school,
the Baltimore School for the Arts.
The curriculum is highly structured
and focuses on the foundational skills
of creating art—concept is almost
secondary—and I am grateful for the
skills and work ethic I developed there.

After high school, I attended the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
for my BFA because the curriculum
was designed almost entirely around
concept—a completely opposite
experience of BSA. I spent most of my Where do you find yourself most Did you consciously create your
time in the arts administration and fiber often looking for inspiration? style, or did it emerge organically?
arts departments. Most of my work is based in botanical Everything I do seems to emerge
and interior imagery, and I look to my organically. I am not a great planner,
Would you elaborate on how you own home and collection of houseplants and most of my choices are reactionary.
discovered embroidery? for inspiration first. I have always been I stitched my first plant pieces a year
I started making hand-stitched greeting interested in the significance of personal into my exploration of embroidery—
cards for fun, which evolved into objects and spaces, so looking to my inspiration for those first botanical
embroidery on fabric. At the time, immediate surroundings to create pieces came from my dying houseplants.
embroidery felt like a safe medium to compositions makes sense to me. I also While I struggled to keep the real ones
explore and play with, without any have the opportunity to travel quite a alive, I started stitching little memorial
pressure to make something serious that bit for work—teaching workshops and pieces for the ones that didn’t make it.
could be considered art. It was craft in participating in events like craft fairs The theme stuck, and now my botanical
my mind, and it provided a way to be and pop-ups—and I try to photograph pieces are inspired by living and often
creative and keep my hands busy, but I and document as much as possible thriving plants. (My portfolio is not a
also didn’t have to (or want to) identify when I am on the road. I love visiting vast and depressing plant cemetery.)
as an artist at the time. Since then, I greenhouses and conservatories to There was a similar organic development
have reconciled the line between art sketch, and, in my downtime, I peruse to the types of stitches I use, and my
and craft, and hobby and business and Pinterest and interior design blogs for work has transformed several times over
studio practice, and very much consider ideas about colors and object placement the years. Change and evolution is life,
what I do and create to be artwork. within my designs. and change and evolution is art.

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