One of my goals this year is to read more artist memoirs / biographies. (Suggestions please!) While it’s interesting to get the detailed and distanced perspective an art historian can provide, there is nothing quite as enlightening as an individual describing their thoughts and journey in their own words.

Alone     ©2017 Elizabeth Fram

I just finished Sally Mann’s 2015 memoir Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs. On many levels it reads like a novel; Mann goes into great depth about her family history, and those folks were anything but boring! More importantly, she does a wonderful job of relating how all the varied people and parts of her life fit together and have influenced the direction of her work.

But on a more personal level, one quote resonated particularly strongly in relation to subject matter. She says, “Part of the artist’s job is to make the commonplace singular, to project a different interpretation onto the conventional”.

Empty Pair     ©2017 Elizabeth Fram

In creating the pieces I do, I spend a lot of time thinking about how ordinary events and circumstances are really more, in that they add depth and meaning to our day-to-day, making routine experiences worthy of notice and appreciation. My drawings and stitched work speak to those often unsung moments, acknowledging that their influence is greater than we would ever guess.

I think David Byrne said it best:

“Most of our lives aren’t that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details.”