What is your primary medium?
My primary medium is enameling. Yeah, so I enamel and weld.
How did you get into that?
Quite by accident, actually. I was taking a class at Boise State University during my master's degree with John Killmaster and he wheeled in a kiln one day in painting class and I couldn't take my eyes off of what he was doing, it just enamored me. It was like magic. I begged him to teach me how to do one piece and that absolutely changed the whole course of my life.
How long have you been doing art?
Well, you know, I've been doing art since I was a kid. I couldn't stop making things. I always had to be using my hands to do something. I had to make stuff all the time and I wasn't really into drawing so much as I was into weaving and doing all kinds of different types of pottery. I just couldn't stop using my hands to make art. When I was a kid, I wasn't really encouraged in it. It was just something that was a hobby but I couldn't stop doing it. So as much as my parents probably didn't want me to go into the art field, I just couldn't stop myself. But as far as being an artist, the first time I sold a piece was when I was like 30 or 31. I became an art teacher because that's what you do when you don't think you can do art for a living.
What made you want to be an art teacher?
I graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland and really was lost as a person. I didn't really have a direction forward in my career and went up to Seattle and thought maybe I should go into the medical field, but that chemistry class just wasn't for me. I kind of had to figure out what I wanted to do. I was working in a framing shop for about five years and loved working with my hands again and working retail. I just really like being around people, I love helping people and being in that sort of industry. I was able to transfer down to Boise and come back home to live with my parents and try to reassess my life, as you do sometimes when you're in your early 20’s and just don't know what to do with yourself. I had a lot of debt from school, and I figured why not just add on more debt. So I took an interest test at Boise State University in the summer, and an interest test, really?!? You're like, I have to do that to figure out what I'm going to do with my life at 22 or something? And so the first thing it said was “florist”, which was not going to happen because I'm really bad with plants. So the second one was “art teacher” and I was like, really. I just didn't think art teachers got a lot of respect in general. They didn't get paid well, but it intrigued me enough to sign up for art education at Boise State. And actually, it was a natural fit, it was the best fit. I absolutely loved writing curriculum and learning about all different kinds of art mediums that you can teach and it was a great fit. I got my master's degree at the same time, so when I applied to Boise Schools I got a job right out of college at Hillside Junior High and that was that. For 12 years I was a junior high school art teacher here in Boise.
When did you start Fire Fusion Studio?
I started it in 2009. I decided to take a sabbatical after 12 years to see if I wanted to do art for a full time gig. I didn't even know what it would be like to be home all the time making art, I had the summers off and I thought, “I just can't stop doing this.” I'd been running home after school and being a teacher is really demanding if you want to be good, so I was really pulled in two different directions. I thought it was time for me to really take a leap out and see if I'm meant to be an artist full time and then welding started to kind of come into picture. I had a welding shop set up, a really small, little oxy-acetylene set up in my garage and I was really into it. I was starting to really love getting back into this welding idea and so I stepped out of the classroom that year, I bought a TIG welder to weld copper and I got the job for Barbacoa and that was that. It totally changed my life.
What drew you into working with metal?
You wouldn't have ever thought I'd be a welder or work with metal, but the enameling, just the idea of being able to do forms in glass. I was like wow, that's gonna blow me out of the water. I mean doing flat panel work was really exciting, but I've always done ceramics. I've always been weaving 3D stuff. I was always really wanting to make things with my hands and I just had a natural rapport with copper. Working the metal just seemed really intrinsic to me. It just seemed like a natural fit and I thought it was the most beautiful thing to see the metal melt and move like liquid gold, I could move it wherever I wanted. It was just so exciting to see that I could create these three dimensional forms and then fuse glass to them. I hadn't really seen too many people in enamelling actually welding. They were soldering more and I saw kind of an untapped part of the medium. I found it very exciting because you don't see many areas in mediums that you can kind of move into and change or open up a new path forward in the medium. It's really hard to set yourself apart and yeah, the metal was just that was a game changer in the welding, totally. That's what got me into electroplating and now 3D printing. Yeah, I don't know, you would've never thought, welder, really?!?
Would you say art is important?
Well, it gets me out of every bad decision. I've made some bad choices in my life and I'll tell you when those days are hard and it's really tough, art always seems to... It's therapy. It’s beauty and it's a conversation between people. I don't know why I have to be a maker and I ask myself that question often because I don't understand why I have to make objects. It doesn't literally make sense to me. Why would I want to be a maker? What is it about this that I can't get enough of, because it's such a hard business to be in and it's just so hard to make a living at it that I could do a lot of other things. But I can't stop. There's just something to it that helps me in my day. It helps me relate to other people. I absolutely love collaborating with other artists. I love learning. Never gonna get tired of trying something new and exploring and always moving forward. I don't know what it is. I've asked myself that it's a great question. Why do you have to make things? Barbacoa was a big change for me, I'd never made anything public before where I could see the response in such a grand way. When we opened Barbacoa, I sat in the back and just kind of wanted to see the response to the Medusa sculpture, negative or positive. I think that a big part of making art is just having people ask the question, and creating conversation. Maybe also helping people, inspiring people to do something new or try something new. If I can leave something behind when I die, I really hope I leave the legacy that I helped. I helped people, and especially, especially kids.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Everywhere. That's one thing my professors would always say; “Can you just pick something and go with it? The best way to make money at art and to really set yourself aside is to pick one thing and just be the best at it. 30 years in and they'll be able to pick out your art.” I look at my art and I don't know that you'd even know it was done by the same artist. I think that might be good and bad. I love everything. I love modern art. I love contemporary. I really like realism. I can do a Medusa sculpture, but then I really like to do mid-modern stuff. I love nature. I'm really just inspired by everything I see and people I'm around. Not so much the environment. Mostly my life experiences. Other artists inspire me greatly. I get a lot of inspiration from what other people are up to, especially living in Idaho where we don't get a lot of influences. It's not like going to San Francisco where you’re just, mind blown when you see it or LA where it’s like, Oh My God, I'm going to take that home! I have to be on the internet and go to conferences. I go to a lot of workshops and try to see what the enamelists society and the culture is up to. So that's really inspiring for me.
What gets you out of bed in the morning and thinking, “I need to make something today.”
That's a great question. I don't know. I just want to see what it does. I'm always excited to see what's next. This medium is so exciting because it's never the same for me. I get excited by what other things I can try or push the envelope with. The electroplating has been so exciting for me, I can't wait to see what my tanks come up with every morning. Like, that's my morning. What are they? What are they doing in there? How's the plating going? And then, what am I going to do with what I plated? What am I going to weld to that? I also want to say something. I get excited about having a message or meaning or showing that there's just so much out there to experiment with. So I think experimenting is really fun for me, I get really jazzed. I don't really always have a path forward and I think that's the exciting part. I don't know the journey. I don't know the end result. I just know that I'm going somewhere and where it's taking me is the exciting part. I mean, I have an idea in my head, but then it can't go anywhere and I think that's what gets me up. There's just not gonna be enough life in me to do everything that I want to try and I think I get annoyed by the fact that time is running out the older I get. I'm like, come on, I need more time for all the stuff I want to do.
Are there opportunities you’ve had here in Boise you might not have had elsewhere?
Oh, yeah. I mean, that's why I stay. It's economically feasible. I mean, I could buy a house here, I had a stable job. I had a lot of stability to live here. And I don't think I could have ever purchased a building as an artist in a city anywhere else, you know, I can't believe I got away with it. To be able to do that, it's pretty impressive. I think that's the testament to Boise being affordable and giving opportunities to artists. I don't think I could have had this life if I stayed in California as a child and I don't know that I would have gotten into welding without the ruggedness of the environment here. It's a different environment growing up here. The wilderness and camping, all of that really does frame you for being outside and yeah, it's really great.
What has it been like for you to earn a living through your art?
The hardest thing I've ever tried to do in my life. There were times when I didn't think I could do it, but I put the stakes pretty high. I mean, I think if I had stayed at home and just been a studio artist at home, it would have been a lot easier. The minute that I decided to go into retail and own a building and get employees, that's when it started to get really, really hard and almost overwhelming to where you're crying in the parking lot not thinking you're going to be able to make payroll that month. I don't wish that on many people; hundred hour work weeks, and just trying to keep the doors open is really really stressful. It causes you as an artist to make decisions you don't want to make. Basically, making things for people that aren't necessarily in your framework of where you want to go as an artist. You have to do a lot of production work. That for me is sometimes challenging. I would really rather do my sculpture and make what I want to make. But when you go to that level, you have to make it happen, and you're gonna survive or you're not. You're gonna make some hard choices, you're going to really just do whatever. You're gonna scrap, you're gonna scrape. I'll sell Idaho pendants at the market to make the money come in so that I can pay all the bills. You may not be able to pay yourself and that's really what it comes down to. You have to be okay with that. It's not a starving artist, but sometimes it's pretty damn close to it. I didn't have kids, I was single, those things are possible. I think when you get more obligations and more bills and you have less flexibility in your choices, it becomes much harder. I would encourage anybody that wants to go into retail and have a storefront to really have business sense, some freedom, and have some extra cash.
Do you find it easier to make original or commissioned work?
I've done quite a few commission pieces. And if the client and you have a really good rapport, I love making their dream happen, absolutely I do if it's a fine art piece. I'm starting this new building with my own art because I really do like that part of the business. Sometimes production work is where it gets tedious. So what's wonderful is that I have some great employees that can help me on that side of the business so that I'm not always having to do that or to teach constantly to keep the business running. It's just exhausting and you use up all that energy and those kinds of things take you away from what I call the dreaming part of making art. You have to have space around the dreaming to make new things. That's true for doing custom orders even if somebody has an idea, they really need help to make it come to be reality so you have to have space in your mind for that and time. I'm hoping with this new building I will have more time for my own personal art and my wonderful employees can do some of the other work for me and also help with customers.
How important is it to have a space to come and be around your art?
It's probably the most important, I mean, you have to make your space comfortable for you to be creative. You also have to make it organized so that you're efficient. For me, I'm efficient. I like to know where those tools are and to get them fast. My medium just takes a lot of space. There's a lot of powders, a lot of equipment, it's welding so I need a lot of room. I've had all sorts of different studios, from porches to dirt floor garages, I'll work in anything, I'll make it happen. It does help to have to have your space set up and that's why this new building is an absolute dream come true. I'm going to have light and beauty. It's going to be like walking into a cathedral. Yeah, I'm so excited about it.
Has it been beneficial for you to have other creatives around to bounce ideas off of?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I hope that this helps me be more collaborative with Boise artists. I've been a member of BOSCO for maybe 14 years. I absolutely love BOSCO and it's because it's an educational avenue. We can teach the public what we do and kind of get them to be inspired by us and learn from the mediums and I will take that because my basis is as a teacher. I mean, I have been a teacher most of my life, I'm a caregiver and this new building will make it happen more. I really want to help local artists have a venue for showing their work and I really want a place for them to be inspired and to talk and for me to help them. If I can help people, in this medium especially, I'm going to learn from them, try new things and bring their stuff in. I think that's really going to be the exciting part of making more of a cultural center. It's not a competitive situation for me ever. I try to really not have an ego in what I do. It's really about the journey and the learning and sharing.
Do you think art is something you'll ever stop doing?
I think for any artist you ever talk to, retirement is not an option. We don't retire from this. We may get tired of doing what we're doing. But no, I mean, I'm hopeful that my business will continue in the hands of maybe someone else, but there will never be a day when I'm not going to make art. I'll be welding when I'm 70 or 80 years old if I can keep this body together.