Why I Do What I Do

Original Card - Betsy J. Parker - for Daisy Yellow 2015 ICAD Project

The “Whys” of life can be really interesting or rather mundane. 

 BUT… they DO color everything in life. 

I HAVE to make things…. It’s somehow in my DNA or it’s a color in my soul…. Not sure where it lives in me, but it is insistent!!  My earliest childhood memories include one form of creating or another;  as a child, I told everyone I was going to be an artist when I grew up.

Garden Spirit Faces - hand-sculpted stoneware clay by Betsy J. Parker

I took art all through high school and started college as an art major.  That’s where the crash happened!  I knew the only way at that time (yes, I AM that old!!)  to make a living at art was commercial art.  I didn’t think I had the chutzpah for that and besides, I really didn’t think I had the talent.  So I got a degree in Sociology and became a social worker.  I kept my hand in over the years, and when our son was born, I began doing juried art/craft shows to help the family while I stayed home with him.  As the years went on, I continued to do shows, to do work for shops, to have work in galleries.  I also continued to study and learn and grow.

Of COURSE Pigs Have Wings! - Hand-sculpted Stoneware Clay - Betsy J. Parker

Fast forward to now…. I’m older, I’ve watched our world get closer in communication, but further apart in relationships.  We’re aware of too much of the negative, and often in need of more lightness, more that reminds us the world isn’t totally bleak.  Too many folks sad, alone, many quietly in pain, some exploding in anger from that pain.

I can’t fix it.  I feel it, but I can’t fix it.  But I can - with the lightness of the images I choose to make, with my sharing of the joy and beauty I see in life - I CAN share some of that light with anyone who sees what I make.  If seeing it or choosing to live with a piece of it helps them, brightens their day, makes them smile, eases a black mood  -then the work has done its job and so have I.

Original Card - Betsy J. Parker - for Daisy Yellow 2015 ICAD Project

That is the WHY of what I do.

Live Now - Hand-sculpted Stoneware Face - Betsy J. Parker