ARTIST’S STATEMENT

SHARON McEACHERN

My bumper sticker warns: "I brake for garage sales." So, it was no surprise when I started my third career as an artist, that I would be drawn to collage and mixed media and use stuff of yard sales to make my art – old quilts, scrabble squares, dominos.

Just as I look for ways to recycle old items into my art and give them new life, I find ways to recycle myself and portray this theme in my art works. Formerly a journalist and psychotherapist, I have reclaimed myself again as an artist. Self-identity is a frequent theme in my art. As a woman in my 60s, I frequently deal with topics of identity and aging in my art.

While the tangible qualities of collage and mixed media are multi-layered, so is the symbolism represented within my art. For example, in "Tea on the 9th," an old woman sits naked, revealing herself to the world --sagging breasts and enlarged belly, sporting a pearl in her belly-button. Pearls symbolize beauty created from imperfection. Golfers standing at the perimeter cannot ignore the old woman -- she’s naked and sitting atop the 9^th hole. For the younger golfers, the 9^th hole represents the mid-point of their game, or life. The old woman, however, is at the last hole of her game and she is in no hurry to “play through.” The golfers symbolize society and how its members view the elderly – often keeping their distance and viewing the old as being “in the way.” Is she making a statement, or is she senile? If senile, she is still revealing herself and her need for their attention. Will the golfers play around her, skip the 9^th hole, ignore her existence? Are they annoyed or angry at her presence? These are questions I hope the art evokes.

The worn and torn quilt piece in the borders is a symbol of a woman's aging. In fact, it is part of a quilt my grandmother, Neva Belle Brown of Conway Springs, KS., made before I was born. My parents, now 83 years old, had it in their Wichita basement. As a child, I sat on the folded quilt, atop a hand-crank ice cream freezer, providing some weight while adults did the cranking.

By using Grandma's quilt in my art, I get to have part of her with me and it makes us collaborators in the art. Perhaps it's from her that I inherited the recycling gene. Just take one swatch from the quilt, the material she bought to make an apron. Wearing that apron she cooked Lord knows how many meals, for family members now dead and gone, and washed how many thousands of dishes, canned how many quarts of tomatoes, pickles, peas and beans -- all wearing that apron. Later she used it to make a quilt, on which new grand babies slept; picnics were held; and, ice cream was made.. And 60-some years after it was stitched together, a grandchild uses that same piece of material in an artwork. Imagine the energy still held within those stitches. All recycled objects have similar energy, continuously re-expressing itself. I enjoy reclaiming old materials and giving them new life in my art work. Doing so, helps me to renew my life through the creative process.