Please help me welcome someone new to the team of editors: Karen McConnell, who will now serve as our guest art editor. I interviewed her to dive more into her tastes and preferences, and it has definitely been interesting. Her favorite part about art is the storytelling, what kind of words can be used to describe a single photo, moment, or life on canvas. She admires a piece she can walk into, and take a moment to connect with emotions, thoughts, or memories that come flying at her. She likes art that leaves her with an impression. Photography that makes her feel like she is in the picture. And anything inviting her into the artist’s mind or life.
Why was she cast into our borrowed solace kingdom? It is directly related to her experience. Having her art work displayed before and published in Fall 2018 borrowed solace, her life is a creative one. Creativity and making art runs in her veins. Karen’s mother also is very creative and in the past owned a ceramic shop for more than 20 years and sold those creations at local festivals and fairs. Karen is also my mother. I remember as a child she had to help out at the store by making dolls and dinnerware. At the festivals, my cousins and I would play and go on adventures around the parks and downtown while our mothers worked the stalls. Every year when I was younger, aunts, cousins, friends, and anyone who wanted to come could go to the Christmas crafting party. Ornaments to hang on the tree were made. To this day, crafting parties for my grandmother’s church, for local nursing homes, shops, family’s homes, and craft festivals are when my mother’s family gets together to create any and everything.
The new thing in art that my mother and I are both trying is diamond painting art. If you haven’t tried this already, I forewarn you, it is addictive. For those of you who don’t know what it is, you can buy them on amazon for cheap, but it is a canvas with an image you pixel in with tiny rhinestones. My mother’s first adventure into this is one good angel and one dark angel to represent the light and dark of the world. My first adventure is the little mermaid sitting on her famous rock under the moon. It is addicting because you can’t stop at one rhinestone or two or three, you have to do half of the damn thing! Even then, when your eyes need a break, it’s hard to tear yourself away from how the art will turn out and the fact that it is not finished. But nonetheless, art is something that keeps Karen on her toes, since creativity is one thing that the world has lots of left to still explore. She is excited to review all of the art that is submitted to the upcoming journal.
