Untitled 1996.

Art of Ornament Tamara's statement

It is color that inspires me. My heart leaps to see a brilliant ruby next to a softened clear rich peach. It could be glass; it could be flowers, or dyes, pigments, colored pencils or threads. What one color does to another is magic, and I thrive on it.


Painted Silk 1981.

Kachina 1987.

In the days when I was painting on silk and I would place maybe some sparse coral lines in a great field of emerald green, the contact with those yards and yards of intense color had the power to drown out even the darkest of moods. My eyes eat the color. It is the food that nourishes my entire being.

All my life I have been making things. Doll clothes, costumes, paintings, clothing out of all kinds of fabrics, jewelry, beads. The "making" is important. Figuring out how to put something together and feeling into how it needs to "be" is exciting and challenging, but the thread that keeps all this varied "making" connected is the color. Colors in relation to one another have the ability to create surprisingly subtle experience of mood and sensation.

When I made a shift from making paintings into making clothing, I also developed for myself a creative dilemma that has been rather difficult to shake. It had to do with which was more important to me clothing or painting and what was my relationship to "art" in the pursuit of either or both of these two activities. I had a lot of attitudes that had developed from art school training, as well as from other artists that tended to view painting "better and best".


Pen and Ink Drawing 1961.

Danceteria 1983.

What I discovered in working with fabrics and clothing was how much I really enjoy working with others. To see the happy response to something I had made for someone was a wonderful thing. I love the special feeling that comes about from working on something that is destined to be with a particular person. It felt as if some part of that person would be present with me subtly informing the process, often well before I would even know where it was going!

That creativity can just be fun, curious and interesting was a new experience for me. And still my mind would continue to nag at me. "You are not doing your art". This voice had the power to insidiously poison and otherwise delicious and inspired day. It is most curious to discover how the making of beads has become an important bridge in resolving the intensity of this dilemma.


Silk Jacket 1981.

Glass Bead 2003.

First of all my fascination in the movement of hot glass color is completely hypnotic and the infinite combinational possibility of color, texture, volume and transparency move entirely away from what is possible in pigment. With volume and transparency wrapped together, I am in altogether new territory.

The additional dimension of taking the beads and putting them into the context of a piece of jewelry opens one more door. I am delighted by the experience of seeing how a piece of mine can enhance the expression of someone else.

I feel my life to be in a continual process of unfolding who I am in the presence and midst of others. I feel alive making beads, and the identity problem of what is art and what is not fades in the heat of this fine transformational flame. I am having fun, and from this perspective, who I am and what I do seems to fit comfortably in the world of beings and things that only appear to live outside of me.

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