How Do You Measure an Artist?

This has been a tough week. I couldn’t get in to the studio regularly. My cardiac surgeon called to tell me he’s leaving his practice, and referring me to another doctor. And I had a friend die.

Trish Williams was an excellent fiber artist, a skilled quilter, and an astonishing story teller. She covered the black experience in her quilts in a way that drew you in and held you there, helped you to understand what had happened and how it felt. I was privileged to know her through Dana Baldwin and through the Peoria Art Guild. She died this week. I will never forget her work. I will never forget her.

What do we leave behind as artists? We leave a pile of art behind. Pictures, photos, quilts, it really doesn’t matter what the media is. You might think bei ng an artist is about artwork. I don’t really think it is. I think it’s about expressing what we see, our vision. We take what we see, we work with the images to retell our stories, to reinvent ourselves. And as we reinvent ourselves, sometimes, if you’re lucky, good or wise, sometimes we shift the world.

We also collect skills. Build new technology. Recover old technology. Open new doors. Pry open old ones gone and past. Take our own journies. Help eachother on their ways. Pass on what we know, about art, about stories about life. But it’s all in the end, a retelling of who we are, what we’ve seen and what we need.The artwork is a byproduct from the process.

Trish did all of that. You can see some of her magnificent work on her blog at https://trishwilliamshandworks.blogspot.com/. I figure God will put her in charge of directing sunsets, and I look forward to seeing her work.