Risk-takers Make Better Artists
Is risk-taking a genetic or learned personality
trait? Is it beneficial or harmful? You’re probably already thinking,
these questions are flawed. Risk-taking encompasses both nurture and
nature, and often results in positive change. Cultures endure and
develop because they are composed of the risk-taker and the cautious.
Moreover, we often think chancy behavior is linked to gender and age.
Like old women who need their chocolate (dark), young men seem to crave
stimulation. But, risk-taking is broader than just desiring to engage
in near-death experiences on a moving objects. It’s also climbing out
of your comfort burrow to try pursuits that threaten failure.
As I was exploring the booths lining Whitewoman
Street during Roscoe Village’s Old Tyme Music Festival, I came across
Sally Emslie’s booth. I met Sally nearly fifteen years ago when she was
making mixed media art. Several years later she had moved on to
creating contemporary art quilts. Her need to create and experiment has
recently redirected her interests once again. Now Sally’s making lamp
work beads. What a jump in technique from textile to glass.
Sally has focused her creative energy into making
visual art, following her inquisitive mind’s lead. She knew she wanted
to be an artist in grade school, but her fire wasn’t lit until she moved
to Coshocton County in 1973. The beauty of the county—its dense
foliage, winding roads, farming and gardening culture and general
tranquility still feeds her creative spirit.
Sally began her art quest in Roscoe Village at the
pottery. After learning the basics from Becky Lowe, Sally built a kiln
in her garage and began making her own pottery. Then she took a
watercolor class at the Zanesville Arts Center. She cleaned the clay
off of her hands to take up the paintbrush. After spending years
developing her watercolor skills, Sally began adding three-dimensional
objects to her paintings. These were her assemblage (3-D box pictures)
years. Next, someone asked her to go to Athens to see the Quilt
National show. Textiles became her challenge and passion. The natural
next step for Sally was to begin embellishing her quilts like she had
done to her paintings. This time she used beads and eventually was
introduced to hand-made beads, her current infatuation. Sally assured
me that she doesn’t leave one art method for another until she has
thoroughly explored it.
Making lamp work beads is the most technically
demanding art process Sally has ever tried. She uses a torch and glass
rods to form beads on a mandrel (iron rod). Her husband, Don, once
again helped her retool her studio at their farm in West Lafayette.
This new adventure is different from the others in that Sally’s twin
sister, Sue Quinn, is at her side, making beads and working craft
festivals together.
After retiring from her job in Cincinnati a year
ago, Sue moved to the area to start a new life. This is the first time
she has actually worked at creating something. After sitting behind the
torch for three months watching Sally make beads, Sue sucked up the
nerve to try her hand at it. Now Sally gives her lessons each week.
They have several shows lined up—Zoar on August 7 and 8, and Apple
Butter Festival in Roscoe Village in October. Now that Sue has her own
beads for sale at the booth, the shows are more fun and gratifying.
Both Sally and Sue followed their
interests into an unknown space. They weren’t taking risks that might
result in dreadful consequences but in ones that could yield failure,
loss of investment capital and physical pain. Often the fear of failure
alone can keep the wary from jumping into a new enterprise. For
artists, it’s the stretching of boundaries, the innovative seeing of the
world that distinguishes the good from the mediocre. Like Sally and
Sue, risk-takers make better artists.
Back to
Community Stories
