I’m excited to introduce my latest column series, Tapping Creative Minds: Fifteen Minutes with …, which will appear regularly here on my blog. This sequence of articles features imaginative women in variety of artistic and business fields—from fresh new voices to established successful ones. While the questions asked remain the same, the experiences, wisdom, and inspiration each has to share is unique and pertinent to the amazing life force weaving through all of us.*
Meet Ashley Adams: Artist, student, friend, dreamer—and, coincidentally, my oldest daughter.
What are five words to describe the creative you?
Fun, Cheerful, Happy, Nature, Graphic
In your latest project, what was your artistic goal?
To engage people in an environment they aren't familiar with. To surround them with something that makes me happy and hopefully making them happy/relieved/stress-free. It's hopefully going to have an installation piece at a big-time art show held here in Oklahoma called the Momentum show where they showcase outstanding Oklahoma artists under the age of 30. In the proposal for the show, I will explain that I'm looking at expanding my past explorations of the flowers in hopes of filling an entire room full of them—making an environment that is solely for the flowers and viewers to experience them. Special care will be given to the lighting and arrangement of the flowers in order to fully engage the audience.
In your latest project, what challenges did you face?
I have faced timing issues. To cut out all of the petals and sewing the flowers together really takes up a lot of time. I like the end result, but getting there is hard and at times stressful because I just get to a point where I feel overwhelmed and want it all to be over with. One of the hardest things for me though is to try to explain why I made something. I get ideas that just pop into my head for no reason that seem cool enough to me that I want to do them; unfortunately a lot of people don't like that kind of an artist because they feel like their work has no meaning and won't grab the audience like something that was really emotional for the artist.
In your latest project, what did you learn?
I am trying to learn more about myself and fully explore why I do things the way I do. I'm a very cheerful, loving person who just wants to make other people happy with my art work. I want them to understand that not everything has to be extremely emotional to still be art. I have learned that I am on the outside of the art world looking in; that I feel like my reason for making art is because I want to and feel I need to. I don't know if this really answers the question...
In your latest project, what is your favorite part?
My favorite part of my floating project is something that most people don't get to see. The way I sew the petals together makes the flowers kind of float down to the floor as they fall. They float in the same sense that a feather floats as it falls to the floor. I really like it and have thought about doing a performance piece where I just toss the flowers over the edge of a building that's a couple floors high. I think the sight would be really fun!
And finally, what are you working on next?
What am I working on next; well that's a good question. I have a few ideas in my head of things that I haven't really been able to start working on because of one thing or another. I want to make trading cards, which is actually a project I had originally started at the beginning of the summer, but wasn't really able to keep up with it. I also plan on working on a few things that are based on some dreams I've had. I try to keep a dream journal, I'm not very good at keeping up with it, but at least a couple days out of the week I remember to log my dream from the night before. I'm also working on trying to come up with good t-shirt designs. I want to eventually work up a good enough portfolio and stock of shirts I've made that I can go to fairs and things to sell them.
Thank you Ashley!
*If you have someone you would like to see profiled in this column, please send their name and information to my email. :D
