Views of Newport

Matt & me. Neither of us has ever taken a serious photo, ever. It’s a problem.

Roxy posing for glamour shots. She is the Cindy Croford of dogs.

Roxy sporting her new blistering pink rain parka. She is sometimes referred to as Deep Fried Low Tide, Dirty Road Salad, Princess Peanut, Roxy Rose, Roxy Miranda Rose (if she’s being extremely bad), Ro Ro or Ro.

Watercolor, ink, crayon, and art paper collage

When I am not painting or snacking (my other favorite hobby), you will find Roxy and I walking along the beach, looking for things to roll in (her, not me).
Meeting up with other dog friends for a good romp, traveling to locations with tacos and other yummy foods on offer, or sitting on the couch knitting and watching movies as the rain pounds down on the roof.

The story of how I became an artist

Sometimes, I don't think I had much choice in becoming an artist.

My mother is a true Renaissance woman. She does everything. She used to sew clothes for my Barbies with fabric scraps, all my party dresses, and jackets for my dogs. She taught me to knit and crochet when I was seven or eight years old and has made countless sweaters, scarves, hats, and mittens. She once made a set of dolls from fabric, and all their clothes and yarn-based hairstyles were historically accurate. Her gardens are overflowing with color and blooms.

And she paints. Susanna Myer paints GORGEOUS landscapes in oil.

My father, on the other hand, is a fixer, a tinkerer, a maker, and a scavenger. He finds broken things and fixes them. He makes things out of scraps and parts. His garage/wood shop is full of scraps, bits, pieces, and junk that might be useful one day.

His mother, my grandmother, was a professional architect, a writer, and a painter.

These were my influences growing up.

My toys were yarn, scissors, glue, paper, billions of crayons, old art supplies, art magazines, and Barbie dolls with hand-tailored party dresses.  I had a set of fashion plates. I would spend HOURS upon hours creating and drawing dresses and other outfits.

I also had an army green Smith Corona typewriter that my dad found and refurbished for me. One of my grade school teachers thought it would help my Dyslexia if I could see the letters and type my assignments. I felt so special having a typewriter of my very own. I would stay up late into the night clacking away at that thing, writing stories that I would then file in my filing cabinet - another find of my father's.

I can smell this photo - the ink ribbon had a very particular smell.

Additionally, I had more than my fair share of learning disabilities.

I still struggle with Dyslexia today.

Which is to say school was hard. So I ended up taking a lot of art classes because, with my background, they were my "easy A", the thing that kept my GPS afloat.

But because I was taking those classes as a way to graduate, I didn't take them that seriously. Art was a means to an end.

When I graduated college, I wasn't a great artist - I was excellent at using my fake ID with the confidence of a foreign dignitary and ordering pizza while highly inebriated, but oddly, those skills don't translate on a resume.

So I went out into the world to become a barista and work retail like every other aimless 20-something in the 90's.

It was roughly 15 years later that I was in the grocery store. I saw the kid's art section, and suddenly, the need to paint hit me hard, like a craving for chocolate-covered potato chips. I spent $6 on a Cyayola watercolor palette and supplies. I painted in every spare moment for two solid weeks.

It was this bizarre, unquenchable thirst—an obsession.

Then I went to the big kid art store and spent much more than $6.

From there, things just kept going. I followed the craving day after day, and here we are. 

The cherry on top of this diabetes-coated analogy is that I attended an international art show in college and saw a giant red encaustic painting. It captivated me. I still remember it as exquisite, which sparked my desire to paint with encaustic paint. A desire that faded but was never fully extinguished.

When we moved to Newport, OR, and were house hunting, I fell in love with the garage of our current home. It had cross ventilation and a built-in workbench that was already pretty grimy.

- I was about to make it a lot more grimier.