All Assembled Awaiting

All Assembled Awaiting

We hope you are enjoying Paige Crosland Anderson’s work and we want you to get to know a little bit more about her. We think you will enjoy gaining more insight into her process, her motivations, and the reality of how she makes creating happen. You can enjoy even more of her work here: http://www.paigeandersonart.com

What are your sources of inspiration?

PCA: I draw inspiration from a variety of sources—quilts; mothering; ancestry and related ideas about succession; meditation and repetition; women; working with our hands; the meanings associated with repeated acts or rituals.

It’s not just the patterns of quilts that inspire me. It’s their ties to women, to women’s work, to meditation and focus. It’s their association with warmth, with family, with creating something to give to another. My grandmother is a quilter and many of my first paintings were based on quilt patterns I had grown up seeing in her home. I have recently turned to pioneer quilt patterns and studied some historical Mormon pioneer quilts that have served as the basis of my latest work.

Often my paintings are like meditations—painting is my quiet time to think about my life, about the little, seemingly quotidian things that make life meaningful and rich. My studio time is a space where I can work out my daily struggles mentally.

scattered the time

scattered the time

What do you want others to take or feel from your work?

PCA: I want the meaning of my work to drawn from both form and process. For example, by displaying a pattern with an indiscernible number of underlayers, I hope to give a nod to the truer parts of life. Uncertainties and ironies are made beautiful in the context of accumulated and successive layers.

In the same way, the process of creating my work, the tedium of painting—triangle, triangle, triangle—repetition is only appreciated when I step back and look at the work as a whole. I think our days can feel much the same. We do what we’re supposed to do. We brush our kid’s teeth, we fold our laundry, we read our scriptures, we pay our bills; the monotonous routine can be a real struggle. But my hope is when we step back and look at the span of what we’re creating with our lives, we are filled with reassurance and joy that we really are doing a great work; that all the tiny efforts are building toward something worthwhile. There is a sacralization of our lives that takes place as successions of events stack up like repeated miracles. I want us to remember that the small things matter, that we are working toward something truly beautiful.

I also love the ideas that pattern has reference to endlessness. I have come to understand my life and personal history as an outgrowth of my families’. My work explores this idea that I am one on a string of genetically linked individuals. This notion has profound implications; that events give birth to events, changes to changes, and actions to actions; that I am part of a grand causality. There is responsibility associated with the inheritance we have been given and the inheritances we will leave for others.

bless this house

bless this house

How do you feel that your testimony is reflected in your work?

PCA: My work’s predominant gospel theme is eternal families. Whether in the work we do each day to build our mortal families, or in the work we do in temples to build our families on the other side of the veil, this work is a daily process often fraught with tedium and discouragement. Sometimes we lose sight of the pattern that we’re working to create; that of devotion, love, and a “welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children” (D&C 128:18).

I know there are great blessings associated with this work. I have felt aided by my Father in Heaven as I have worked (and sometimes slogged) along in the daily grind of raising my family. I have a testimony of its importance.

I also have a strong belief that we are aided by our ancestors. I believe that they are the angels sent to guard over and guide us; that they have a vested interest in our succeeding because the only way we can all be saved is if we are saved together. This sort of perspective on the human family gives me compassion and charity.

How do you find time and space to create art?

PCA: This is a question that I battle with daily. My current “studio” is a desk in the living/dining space in our 950 square foot apartment and with two kiddos (aged 3 and 1) running around. It is a real challenge.

After my second baby was born I was fairly certain that it would be years before I would be making big paintings again. (It should also be noted that I told myself the same thing after my first baby was born.) I always told myself that after my kids were in school I’d get back to the easel and “start my career,” but the Lord had other plans for me and taught me that I can squeeze more out of my days.

I have to be disciplined. The minute my girls are down for naps, I have to get right to work in order to have at least a solid hour of studio time. I’ve also learned to work in 20 minute spurts and make them real productive intervals of time.

I would be disingenuous to not also mention that my husband has been incredibly supportive and made time in his schedule so I can recharge my batteries while I meditate and create.

a bright recollection

a bright recollection

What do you find empowering about being an artist?

PCA: I love that I can create something that can remind people in a visual way that what they are doing matters. It’s only empowering to be an artist if I am able to encourage and empower others through my work. That I have the opportunity to do so is truly humbling.

 How do you encourage creativity in others?

PCA: I am lucky to have a village of people supporting me through my creative journey. A friend told me that as women, we need to help each other create because we have enough on our plates to drain our creative stores. She has certainly been an encourager to me by her enthusiasm about the importance of both my artistic work and my work as a mother. I am inspired by her to do the same.

I had a conversation with a new friend who came to a recent show I was in. She told me that she always had planned to paint once her kids were all a bit older. Her youngest is only a few years from starting school full-time. It would be her chance to launch into creating again. Seeing me make being an artist work with two young kids at my feet inspired her. I told her I believe that she can start creating now, if she wants; that I am in her corner. As sisters in Zion I think we need to be more open about our admiration and more free with our encouragement.

I hope to encourage others by being one example of how to create even when it doesn’t seem like the “season” to do so.


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