52”h x 52”w x 3”d
Rayon embroidery thread, bondaweb, Pearl Ex pigment
In seventh grade, I proudly carried a poster I had made to art class — full of color and certainty and joy. My teacher, Mrs. Conner, looked at it, sighed, and said,
“Sweetie, you should find another creative outlet, because art just isn’t it for you.”
The sentence lodged itself deep, and for more than fifty years, I subconsciously believed her.
At age sixty, after my husband died, I chose to go back to school to study art. That’s where I discovered sculpting with rayon thread — a method that flowed from my hands as if I had always known it. My classmates admired it. My professors encouraged it. And still… in the back of my mind echoed the old refrain: not really an artist.
Then came January 2019 and the great blood moon. I began painting its luminous surface on the reverse side of Bondex sign covering, watching the colors blossom brilliantly beneath my brush. With each glowing layer, with every willow branch stitched into place, something inside me rose up — and I found myself saying, out loud and often with greater voracity each time:
“Take THAT, Mrs. Conner!”
The words became fuel. They pushed me forward with a kind of gleeful determination. I worked with excitement each day, watching the moon emerge — enormous, commanding, impossible to ignore. When I finally stepped back from the finished piece, it stole my breath. I had done it. I felt — for the first time in over five decades — genuinely proud.
Yes, Mrs. Conner…
I am an artist.
And I lasso’d my own moon to prove it.
