“Fecundity” by Cindy Blakeslee
fe-cun di ty - the ability to produce many new ideas the fact of producing or creating a lot of new things, ideas, etc.
"[Her work] gives testimony to Blakeslee's fecund imagination, productivity and evolving skills."
These are the recent words of an art critic. I took her response to my work and wear it with pride. A found-object sculptor, I have developed a process where I usually let materials suggest to me what they want to be and my job is to get them there. Rather than have an overt meaning I embed the meaning in the medium, a result of fifty years of serious environmentalism. As an autodidactic artist I gather skills and tools as I need them and learn to employ them in different ways. The result are works which sometimes startle but which are also full of texture and whimsey. The work in this show features the many types of found-object work I have learned to produce over the past twenty years: hard, soft, quirky, serious, colorful, monochromatic. I hope you enjoy it!
Cindy Blakeslee Bio:
I came to art after several other work endeavors: freelance technical editor, executive director of a trade association, food writer, environmentalist. Art has proven to be a good choice as it combines many of my skills and interests and puts me in charge of my time and energy. As a self-taught found-object artist I am always collecting new skills and tools and solving problems. The challenge of taking what others consider waste and making it beautiful or provocative or witty is one I have both posed and accepted. My current work has little to do (actually nothing) with my degree in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University as I had no idea I'd be an artist until I stumbled into it in my late 40s. Instead, my lifelong environmentalism and creative bent brought me to a new way of trying to reach people with a message as well as an aesthetic sensibility. Over the past twenty years I have been in many group shows and have now had three solo shows (AVA, Catamount Arts and The Satellite Gallery). I also had a very large display of my work at The Kent Museum's show in 2021, 20/20 Hindsight, which also featured my work on their poster.
See the full exhibit catalog HERE.