I had to became a sculptor because my fingers remembered
I was not always an artist. I used to be an academic— a researcher, professor, and author in community studies and education. My identity shifted in 1996. The university class I was scheduled to teach didn’t make enrollment and I found myself with a free evening.
“Why don’t you come to my drop-in clay class,” a friend asked. I had worked with clay as a child and thought it might be fun to try again. So I went. And my fingers remembered. They pushed into the clay and the clay would not let go. I spent the next 15 years figuring out how I could sculpt full-time.
In 2005 two big events occurred in my artist timeline. I built my art studio and I adopted a most mischievous labradoodle named Tupelo Honey. I call him my muse.
Tupelo Honey was goofy, cuddly, enthusiastic, and completely joy motivated, which meant he got into a lot of trouble. He ate whole watermelons and steel wool and money. He pranced through the neighbors’ prize-winning roses and slept wherever he pleased –like on the dining room table. He was a perpetual puppy and a LOT of work but I admire him. Tupelo Honey knew how to stay open to the innumerable joys of a new day and he reminded me that breaking rules in the spirit of adventure does not make you a bad dog (though people may forget this when they are mopping up).
Tupelo Honey passed in October 2018. Always in my heart. And in my fingers.
