About Me
Welcome to Vulture Gulch
This gallery website is a very exciting step for me. Vulture Gulch hatched from a series of seemingly random events organized by the Universe, (Capital U) and its minions. It has been many years of contemplating its arrival and then fretting over the organizing and planning. Failure is never the destination. Whether this project is successful or not isn’t the point. The point is to do it, take the risk, make something that wasn’t there before and share it with the world. Instead of telling my story, I would rather keep it focused on you the reader, viewer, customer, friend, but including a personal history gives depth and connection to the work and the business.
My earliest influences would include my childhood in the 1970s, back when playing outside unsupervised was pretty normal. When I wasn’t running around getting dirty, riding horses or my bike, I had my nose in a book up a tree somewhere. I was very difficult to get back indoors and was always restless to get back out and play with the other neighborhood kids. Nature, animals, old cartoons and colorful illustrated children’s books were my emotional touchstones. I grew up with my head in the clouds, daydreaming and doodling. Even young, I had this sense that society would trap us if we let it and my world view was wide open. I wondered at things like rules and manners and appearances and thought most of it trivial in contrast to the bigger questions of life. Of course this turned out to be problematic as an adult and it took some hard life lessons to snap me back into balance and reality.
After taking every art class in High School that I could, I was left with the daunting task of having to figure out a career. I spent some time in an Upstate NY Community College to get my ‘required’ courses out of the way. I should mention that I probably have some undiagnosed ADHD and sitting still, to focus on things that bored me was and still is, a challenge. There was always art and it was one of the few things that kept me still for hours at a time. How did that translate to a career though? I continued to feel as though art was better left as a side passion and not a vocation.
My wanderlust and propensity towards variety informed many years of my young adult life. Partying and making spontaneous, delicious and often ridiculous decisions led me both astray and headlong into memoir worthy situations. Eventually I did get into that Visual Arts program in the mid 1980s at Purchase College in NY, a fairly prestigious arts college and part of the SUNY college system. The studio classes there were all day, from 8am to 4:30pm and included Woodcut, Intaglio, Painting, Sculpture, Photo and Design Classes with instructors that were actual working artists. Residing just north of NYC the campus was a quick train ride to Manhattan, which I had the great fortune of having as my museum library and research destination. I graduated with a Bachelors in Art History in 1995. My path was never a linear one. Since 1990 my parents had been living in the Dallas Fort Worth area. My sister and I drove across the country the year they moved, from NY to TX and then on to California and as far north as Washington State. The West mesmerized me. It was so vast and open! The Fauna and critters were so different from what I had seen before. Buttes, Mesas, Sequoias and Saguaros…
After moving to Texas and back to NY, I ended up living in San Francisco, CA, where I had some of my most happy and memorable moments, but due to heartbreak after a failed relationship my alcoholism began to show itself. It’s important to include this part of my past, first because it may help others that are dealing with similar issues to know that there is no shame in it. Second the fact that I got sober changed not who I am, but allowed the healing that culminated today. It took time, but I was a classic starter and not a finisher. I quit sports teams, projects and bailed when things got hard. After getting sober in Portland OR, I slowly learned to trust myself, to not take my self so seriously and to release the perfectionism that had kept me stuck for so many years.
Still in Portland and feeling more alive, I learned from my mentors the fine art of small moments, friendships, generosity and being genuine with no pretenses. I began drawing again; mostly small gifts, cards and vision boards, but most importantly I was excited again about color and design and I finished pieces to share with people. In 2011 my sister had a baby, my first nephew and I gifted an oil painting for the nursery. It was called ‘Yoga Monkeys’ and was on a small, not very well stretched canvas on a hand built stretcher. The feeling of gifting a piece of art and seeing the joy it generated, continues to be the hook.
Soon after I was in North Carolina to be closer to family and continued to paint. Charlotte was booming and the neighborhood was new development. It was the perfect combination of new homes and new transplants decorating with fresh eyes. I had several commissions based on room color palettes, empty wall syndrome and personal requests. While painting out in the garage, a neighbor came by and asked if I had ever tried welding. “You have a very steady hand.” Firework Moment! Insignificant at the time, but a few months later I had enrolled in my first welding class. When I was introduced to welding it was like the lover I never knew I needed walked into the room. It was science and it was art. It was scary and challenging and new. It was heavy, it was hot and filled with young rambunctious men. It felt like all the feelings I had chased and all at once run away from. Some days I cried and I swore in frustration. Other days I would drive home sweaty and dirty feeling like the baddest of bad ass women. I learned, GMAW, GTAW, SMAW, Blueprints, Metallurgy and received scholarships to earn an Associates in Welding Technology. I stayed the course as my sobriety path and spiritual mentors encouraged from the sidelines, including some spectacular welding instructors at Central Piedmont Community College. Never underestimate the power of a committed teacher!
In the Metal Fabrication class I started a steel frame for a painting on wood that popped into my consciousness during a massage. That idea later became Mr. Octopus, which sold to a coworker at my first welding job in Moorseville, NC. My focus for the past decade has been on this new career in the welding industry which has brought me financial security, finally, and to a job with Lincoln Electric, one of the leading welding manufacturers in the world, where I got to travel as a weld technician and trainer. Currently I am living in New Jersey on the engineering team at a global company that provides products for the nuclear power industry. I have been at it 10 years now and have been painting and creating in my spare time as well. I have sold 19 original paintings so far.
Vulture Gulch as a business is me, one woman experimenting with materials. It is a reflection of all of you, entwined with my personality and imagination. It has organically taken on a life of its own and become truly something like the egg that breaks open to reveal a chick inside. Due to response from social media, friends and coworkers, I have created 2 logos, had T-shirts, stickers, mugs and hats made, and even a mascot, ‘Voltage the Vulture.’ People ask, why a vulture, and there’s a few reasons. I love an unsung hero. I like dark and creepy, as well as cute and fluffy. The Vulture, Condor, Buzzard, Griffon, comes in many forms, from many places and represents how humans misunderstand wildlife so often and that that can bring a species to its knees, as a result. With an impressive 10 foot wingspan and a nasty reputation in folklore and myths, it is regularly on the endangered list due to shootings and poisoning. They are however, no villain, they are natures clean up crew, often preventing disease by eating carrion. A mated pair cares for a single chick for up to two years, soaring on the thermal drafts above us. They are a perfect fit for the paradox that is life.