My journey began as a young girl on the island of Guam. My father was an artist who could draw, paint, sculpt, carve, whittle, you name it, he could do it and he was absolutely the apple of a young gal’s eye! (Yes, I admit to being a Daddy’s Girl). He tried so hard to teach me how to do the things he could, but I just couldn’t grasp them. No matter how hard I wanted to draw, I had problems drawing a straight line with a ruler! Drawing people and things – well, they all looked like the same blobs. I was so disappointed.
My art until recently had always been music. I began performing at 7 with my first ballet recital. Singing followed at 9 when my father gave my a guitar he’d found in pieces after a typhoon and had put back together. I taught myself to play and began a career that led me to stages over the next seventeen years from Agana, Guam to San Francisco, California. I credit my church choir director, David Pace, as well as my French teacher, Madame Hildy Jarman, as having had the biggest influence on my voice, however. Recognizing raw potential, they gave me the opportunity to hone my instrument through many solo performances throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at music festivals and private concerts, nudging and coaching me until my four and a half octave range was as easy as breathing. Although my own music took a back seat when my daughter, Siannan, also a gifted singer, was growing up, it was never far from my heart and she explored different opportunities from directing several musicals for community theater to costuming and makeup for productions in which my daughter was involved.
But then, in 1984, my dad passed away and seemingly left me his gift. Now I can draw, I paint, I sculpt, I whittle (a little), but mostly, I dye. In 1998, I met my husband, Rich, who introduced me to the world of fabric dyes. Cool toys! I have embraced them and made them my own special medium adding in all the other things I love in an eclectic style that frequently defies description.
I prefer working in cotton and natural fibers and using fiber reactive dyes. I especially love painting on dyed canvas. So responsive and so malleable. Most of my pieces are designed to elicit a visceral reaction separate from left-brain analysis. I try to keep my pieces simple and expressive, entertaining and thought provoking. I want them to be art that people will want to look at for a long time before they see everything in the piece. Just as our lives are layers of experiences, so, too, are my pieces layers on layers of thoughts, feelings and expressions.
Recently I have begun to look at my doodles on paper in a different light. They have become family to me and are taking on a life of their own as well as any good child should.
DeSigns by DeBorah – for a little something different.
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