by Denise, of Not What It Seems

“Latency is a time delay between the moment something is initiated, and the moment one of its effects begins or becomes detectable. The word derives from the fact that during the period of latency the effects of an action are latent, meaning ‘potential’ or ‘not yet observed’.”

I am not sure, but I don’t believe a period of latency is supposed to last decades. Although indeed  that has been my experience with art.  Of course, I colored and painted as a child. I made collages with images in odd juxtapositions, culled from magazines . I dabbled in clay and printmaking.

Then nothing. For years the only artistic endeavors I undertook were dinners, decorating and dressing my children.  I bought art, I didn’t make it.  Near the end of my marriage,  in a morass of depression, I began working on a table, using antique china I had collected as  mosaic tiles,.   Hammering the china to shards was the best part of that project.  I suppose I could summon up some psychological interpretation of that project as well as the series of Fallen Angels I began at the same time.

Yet, any insights I may have had at the time did not seem to bear fruit.   I moved from NY, got divorced, fell in love, moved back to NY, stayed in love but far away from the object of my desire.   I lived alone for the first time since I was 18.

Things began to accumulate.  Art related things; scissors, photographs, paint, glue.  And broken things, rusty things, lost things.

I started to put them together.  I lurked in JoAnn Fabrics and went to the flea market every weekend that I could manage.   I worked most of The Artist’s Way and wrote in my journal every day.  I had a vague feeling that I would concentrate on paper, and boxes.
(Again, feel free to insert a psychiatric construct here.)

I made a couple of things I remain proud of.  Most of the rest have been taken apart to be used in other projects.  I still believed that writing would be what I did.  But I found myself adding images in my mind to whatever I wrote.  Feeling like Temple Grandin, I was thinking in pictures.

Moving to the beach, back to the island I had fallen in love with years ago, ended the period of latency.  The space I needed to contain my art supplies and my imagination grew.  Forget the tortured artist cliché; I was happy and work began to emerge, work I liked.

At first I showed only my best friend and my children,  then on my blog.  Finally feeling that a 40 something year old woman should not be afraid to try something new, I listed some items on Etsy.  And I sold some.

I still have problems calling myself an artist but I am trying.  When people ask me what I do, I sometimes tell them I have a shop online for my art .  I still need to work on it so I‘ll practice on you: Hi, my name is Denise and I am a mixed media artist. There, that wasn‘t so bad..