Guest Author Destiny Allison

August 13, 2012 1 Comment

Robyn, our friend from WOW, has come back to visit us today and as usual, has brought a very multi talented and impressive female author to introduce us to, Ms. Destiny Allison. So without further ado, let’s welcome them to the CMash blog!

DESTINY ALLISON

Destiny Allison is an artist, a business woman and a writer. Her work is collected by public institutions and private individuals internationally. In addition to her numerous awards for excellence in art, she was also recently named Santa Fe Business Woman of the year for 2011.

In addition to being a full time artist, she is also a managing partner in La Tienda at Eldorado — a commercial complex, community center, and arts center inSanta Fe,NM.

She is represented in prominent galleries across the country and owns her own gallery, Destiny Allison Fine Art, located at La Tienda.

Allison’s first love was writing. Her first poems were published while she was a child and she received numerous awards during adolescence. The story of how she became a visual artist is told in her book, Shaping Destiny: A quest for meaning in art and life. While her focus over the last 20 years has been primarily on sculpture, Allison also paints on steel using acids and natural oxidation, and in acrylics.

The eloquence of Allison’s language dates back to her childhood when art was constantly discussed and debated by her father, a writer, and her mother, a painter. Born and raised inSanta Fe,N.M., Allison moved toBostonafter college where she worked as a freelance journalist while raising her three children. It was there that she discovered her voice through sculpture. Predominantly self-taught, Allison apprenticed at a bronze foundry in Massachusetts, and later taught sculpture at the Attleboro Museum of Art and the Fuller Museum of Art, both in Massachusetts. In 1997, Allison returned toSanta Fewhere she currently resides.
Connect with Destiny Allison at her website here.

GUEST AUTHOR POST

Our lives are our greatest works of art:

This morning I woke to possibility. Sun and birds, the sight of my husband opening his arms to me as I staggered one-eyed into the kitchen, the sound of my dogs rising to greet me, and the smell of breakfast gone cold overwhelmed my senses like the first strokes of vivid color on the vast white of a blank canvas. What picture will I paint today?

Will I push the dogs away as they nuzzle against me? Will I ask my husband why he didn’t wait for me to join him for breakfast? Will I rub the sleep out of my eyes and settle into my computer chair to greet the day electronically – placing emails and analytics over the realities of my life? Will I let habit win, or will I do something different? What would the day look like if I made time to kiss my husband deeply or dropped to the ground to play with my loving mutts?

It seems that every minute of every day, I am faced with these kinds of choices. Most of the time, my decisions are out of habit or necessity. My husband is ok with his quick hug and the dogs never seem to mind when I ignore them. They all know my routines and understand that I will greet them, if there is time, once my eyes are fully open. But what if I surprised them? What if I surprised myself?

Making art is wrought with similar questions. Every day I am faced with the possibilities of a blank canvas, a blank screen, or the cold grey sheets of metal on the floor of my blackened studio. What will I make today? In art, every line and plane matter. A sculpture that leans as little as an eighth of an inch must be cut apart and re-welded. In sculpture, balance is everything. When I muddy a canvas because I was impatient, I kill the painting.

The challenge of being an artist is that I never really know where I’m going until I get there. I have to listen to the voices inside me as they manifest on canvas, page, or metal. I have to throw away all the junk that comes to the surface as I try to find that one shining thread I am called to follow.

I believe that living my life is just like making art. When I listen, am not afraid to try new things, and clear my junk (habit, self-indulgence, and my need to control), my life becomes rich, clear, and filled with meaning. When I don’t, days blend into a long, running stream of muddy memories and my life is without form.

The beauty of living life like making art is that everything matters and contributes to the whole. The kiss we shared in the kitchen forms shape of my day. That couple of minutes on the rug wrestling my dogs becomes an ongoing joy that balances mundane frustrations. Over time, those moments shared deeply and authentically with my husband and dogs become some of the lines, planes, and colors of my life. My junk will always be in the way, but if I want my art to speak and my life to be art, I have to clear it to the best of my ability. Then, my life will have form, my smile will be contagious, and my days will be wrought with meaning.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Shaping Destiny is the inspiring story of Allison’s life from the creation of her first sculpture to her acceptance into a prominentSanta Feart gallery. The book, which recounts her journey from traditional female roles to self-actualization and independence, is told with three voices: the emotional, the intellectual and the instructional. Though she had no formal training, Allison moved quickly from small, Plasticine clay sculptures to an apprenticeship at a foundry to teaching in a small museum. Along the way, the author wrestled with shedding and then reclaiming family. To add to the extended metaphor binding her story to the theory and language of sculpture, Allison infuses an ample dose of popular philosophy in lessons culled from childhood days spent with her father. The 22 lessons at the beginning of each chapter intend to guide readers’ passage through the complexities of clay and life; each lesson works with the idea that art is a process, as is life.

Watch the trailer: