By me

About me

By Lola Bennett

Artist is such a broad term. It includes so many things, so many different crafts, so many

different techniques, so many forms. And yet I can't help but find myself thinking an artist is

someone who creates some subjective abstract painting displayed on a white wall with a lovely

varnished wooden bench across from it where you sit and ponder it for hours but still never

quite place your finger on what it means.

Since I was really young I was told I was an artist, and like most little kids I was very

creative but I honed this creativity as I grew up, rejecting sports and everything else offered to

me. I loved making things out of paper and reusing items, and, at the time, I was living in Jersey

where everyone had new things all the time. I've always needed to make tangible beautiful things

and be surrounded by them. Ive tinkered and built as long as I can remember, whether this was

making jewelry, sewing, working with clay or anything else I could think up. I could never draw

or paint nicely and despised still lifes with my whole being. I needed to create products that

meant something and that could be held and shown in places other than walls or behind glass.

My power struggle between sticking to old art forms and branching out into things far

out of my comfort zone has caught up to me over the past two years. I've been an avid tailor and

have used a sewing machine since I was 14. Before that I would even hand sew my own clothes

but now I find myself moving into poetry, filmmaking, and other mediums wavering from the

path I have always seen my set future in. I'm not quite sure what to call myself (artist? writer?

poet?). In each phase of my life my urge to create has followed me for some reason or another

and given me something I needed that I couldn't find anywhere else. I realize now the bond I feel
between objects and memories and how making them is a way for me to associate more than just

a visual to memories. This is why I create art.

The very first memory I have of creating is sculpting little bits of food for my dolls out of

polymer clay. My parents, both chefs, were very good at it and would sit with me for hours in the

kitchen as I decorated very lopsided cakes and misshapen bowls. I was always very frustrated

and confused why I wasn't as good as they were at it and became very closed off very quickly and

stopped whatever I was working, much like I do now! I have never really recognized my age; I

didn't think it was important or an excuse to why I wasn't good at creating things. I would keep

these clay foods in a little pink tin or on a shelf, much like I did with my nail polish in middle

school. I might sound terribly OCD or a bit like a hoarder but everything then and now has a

place in my home and I can't really settle until things are put there. Thinking back to these

memories I think of the garden in our backyard, a little plastic flat pink car, nail polish, and bare

feet in streets puddles. I wouldnt have been younger than five here but it feels like even then I

knew how important these feelings were to me. This frustration towards making little food and

not having it go my way, probably sounds like the normal way a five year old would react but

still having this habit today when I cannot express myself accurately through my creative work is

where I discover my connection with tangible objects, the present world and my mind. My

source of wanting to create is this cycle of seeing something, interpreting it in my brain and

connecting it to things I associate with it somehow and then having to recreate it exactly how it

was in my mind.

A quick review of my childhood: I would always draw very happy characters called FeFos

who each had special powers like water, fire, ice, etc. I named them this because I thought it

sounded like something a Kawaii character would be called and I was really interested in this

style when I was in elementary school. I did this a lot though. I would do collective doodles of
things that went together and had characters with personalities that almost fit together like little

families. In life, I would also look for this, a perfect friend group where I would fit in and have a

certain role and place. Being me, meaning very odd, this didn't happen and I don't think I

minded after awhile-- I just liked to doodle. I was also a big fan of collage and mixing patterns

and colors. I used collage while spending time with my grandmother, and from this, I started to

idolize her and wanted to have the power to feel above everything like she did: she was just

living her life with no one's influence directing it but her own. I would ask her as many things as

I could and would always let her take the lead when we were collaging together, I rarely saw her

and tso this was a big thing for me. It made me feel very safe to be and make art with someone

who wasn't concerned about anything but that moment. She wasn't thinking about anyones

opinion on the piece we were making or the way she was acting and having fun with me. It was

just a moment for her between the two of us, for no one else. I would try to be like her in this

way but I probably came off a bit snobby for an 8-year-old! She was the kind of idol I needed

then-- poised, put together, wise and creative, everything I was struggling to be or was not. She

was so comfortable with herself all the time and with others around also. In future I needed this

for myself, to be comfortable with my process, my mistakes, my rough drafts. It's all a part of the

final product and just because every step didn't play out just as planned, doesn't mean the end

result is ruined but maybe even improved.

Around age ten or twelve, I was still the same: closed off in my room with my thoughts,

still playing with toys, creating elaborate scenes for them that made my room barely livable for

me without running into a paper mache castle or bags of overflowing patterned paper. There was

a solid week where I had taped string from the ceiling to the floor with little boxes attached like

small elevators. And my jewelry making! I would make hundreds of earrings out of every bead I

owned and make rings out of wire or any material I could get my hands on. Pliers were my best
friend and as I would sit on my bed (bingeing on Doctor Who, of course, because who needs

nature) and twist and coil wire into loops for hours, selecting bead from cubes in fishing bait

boxes. No one around me really made things in Jersey so I kept it to myself, in fear of other

judgements. Even if they were silent ones, I was a anxious child thinking I always had a target on

my back. I participated in a couple of craft shows and didn't have much luck. Just like the

pressure to be an artist was on so was a way to find to do something substantial with that. I was

told you can't just make thousands of things and do nothing with them, I had to do craft shows

or have an etsy shop, something at least. And a part of me wanted to but a bigger part of me just

wanted to be left alone doing my thing and eventually again they did. A lot of this pressure came

from my parents and friends and family and I feel I little silly saying this now but then it was

true I felt I had an audience and I didn't want to disappoint. People talking about my little

ribbon handbags or feather earrings felt like an awful lot of weight when I thought it was just fun

to create. I didn't want my creations to be open fire for people judgements or even compliments.

These were objects I was making for myself to organize my thoughts, not crafts to stick on the

fridge.

When we moved to Vermont, I was 13 and still sewing. I found an awesome mentor

named Lisa who totally hand held me through every single step. The first thing I think I made

with her was a little navy polka dot shift dress that I haven't worn to this day! Through the

period of the next two years, I was fascinated with the sixties and the shortness of everything. I

became pattern crazy and bought hundreds of vintage patterns, all of which I probably only

used twenty. I made dresses out of what I describe as tea towel prints (pictures of very

geometric bees or fruits in neon colors) on stiff cotton fabric that were extremely, extremely

short. This fascination of what the cool girl would wear in a cooler city with a cooler life than

mine was the ultimate unrealistic goal. I would never wear these little mini dresses I made
either; I didn't dare to. Maybe I was at the point where I cared about what others thought or

maybe I wasn't ready to try to be that cool girl yet. It didn't matter though because the things I

did wear out in public were often complimented so I'm not sure what I was really afraid of.

Clothes and sewing my own clothes, even if I did not wear them, was this outlet to a fantasy I

didn't have the courage to take the plunge into. Staring back at me from my closet, my mini

dresses were encouraging me and inspiring me silently and I would sit in front of my closet

really deeply looking at them, knowing they were something from a future self showing me a

possibility I wasn't quite sure of yet. I needed this hope, real or fake.

The techniques I was learning were imprinted on me and I saw all of them in clothes

around me, and I didn't realize the power of this knowledge-- that I could take apart 90% of the

outfits I saw in a room and put them back together perfectly. Or another thought I had was, and

maybe this was just a style opinion, if that silly ruffle was taken out or a pleat on the front of a

shirt was added the whole look could be elevated. The piece could be your own, instead of what

the designer intended it for. Once you buy or obtain a piece of clothing it's just like art or poetry,

it's up for interpretation. It's yours and you can think and do whatever you want with it. An

example of this is maybe a shirt made for a casual outfit could be jazzed up by being tucked into

very tight disco pants with a sun hat or matched with a mini skirt and a dangling necklace with

pom poms on it, once you have made an opinion or memory with an object its past meaning

disappears because it's yours now and you've stored it in your brain remembering it a certain

way.

Last year I found myself at a standstill in my projects. Do I keep reading and writing

about fashion designers that this study has made me hate or come off as a flake and change

studies to something no one expected? I hated coming off as a flake. And in the end I did change

what I was doing. I went on to do a poem a day study, where I would write every day and at the
end of the semester make a poetry book. A lot of my work then was inspired and even

stylistically based on of Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. My poems were all very short and to the

point but involved a lot of sensory detail that I have continued to use.

I needed this little time to feel safe and make simple sentences because I was honestly

just scared of the interpretation of others. Not that I was throwing it in peoples faces or writing

on the walls for all to see, but, irrationally, I feared someone picking up and reading my work

and not understanding it and then having to undermine it for their sake. But that's just because I

was at a very insecure part in my life that thankfully only lasted for a few months. Even my

poetry notebooks were very neat and readable for once, which was a good habit but only for

show.

I remember writing one poem about the evilness of older boys and how I thought I was

making a big statement of sorts. I even put it in the art show thinking it would do something. Of

course, it didn't. It was begging to be something special without the work put into it and a silent

inner part of me vowed to never write something silly like that again. The anger I felt within me

was real but writing about it directly did nothing for me. When I was at the Governor's Institute,

I took a poetry class that completely opened me up and broke me out of my format of 4-lined

poems that were not very memorable. I was writing not-very-good poems but twisting, skipping,

jumping poetry with visuals I thought were very scary and loud because being loud was how you

got heard. The act of performing poetry was good, too, and I participated a little bit in slam but I

preferred decorating walls or objects with my poems. It always comes back to this though,

visuals, the face to face experience with an object and the material(s).

This year, I think my writing has changed a lot. I had tamed myself a bit from summer

and wasn't trying to prove what I was before, that I had nothing to prove! I had wanted to show

people my work was as loud as me and how I presented myself but now I see it's a way to show
the part of myself that isn't. I am finding ways to show myself mostly how to put my thoughts to

paper and I try to do this by being very open with myself and I what I need to say. One of my

favorite pieces of writing this year was the poem set I created titled The Hard Feeling in my

Lungs, which was a series of nine poems that ranged in size and are about different feeling or

views I had and the way they manifested and looked in my brain. That's the point of my writing

now, not to explain to anyone else whats going on in my head but for myself .

I am so scattered and sometimes upset why I can't see things as things but instead as

feelings or emotions I have towards them in some way. Just like creating my own clothes is a

way to express my style and who I want to be, writing is a way for me to understand my thoughts

and feelings and put them together. Recently, I wrote a sentence or two with letters in sets of 2

or 3 vertically stacked. I still write in normal format, but these column poems have been my

main focus and creative outlet. They are usually paired with little drawings and I think my way

of writing them reminds me of minimalist tattoos I really enjoy. It takes a bit of time to read

these poems. It's not the kind of thing you can walk by and understand with one glance. I've

been thinking a bit and I'm a little upset by the fake things I read all the time in passing, mostly

not very smart or important things like Facebook news and click bait articles. I want people or

even myself to have a choice to take the time and read my work. Im not saying the work is

important or smart but it is something weird when I myself have to stop running around to piece

together a sentence for a minute and then once I have spent a moment dissecting it, it strings

together like a normal sentence. Reading it requires me to slow down which is odd for me

because I do everything very fast paced and it's even odder for me to have to take time to read

my work. I like this though about the how long it takes the poem to be put together and read and

made, like it's coming full circle back to its birth.

The interpretation that I am so fond of when it comes to fashion, I am so afraid of when

It comes to my poetry. I know I'm an odd girl and the way I see and write about things is

unusual to a lot of people. When I write I dont really want people to make there own

connections to my work because my work is made out of the very messy colorful puzzle pieces

that are in my mind and I did not give them permission to try to figure what the picture is of. I

know this is apart of reading poetry though! As humans we all make parallels between things

when we try to understand them and this is especially when we are reading. Learning to be ok

about this and let it pass over me a small wave is a good step to helping me share it more and

have more trust that I am good writer with things to say that are interesting to others.

I've always felt this pressure of making what I think of as traditional art. (Paintings,

drawings, etc. You know the drill.) And because of this I've never considered what I do to be art.

To me art is made with the intention of being art and then viewed as such. It's in a gallery or

displayed in an obvious way with the creators signature somewhere and you can always tell that

it is indeed art. Making a bag out of old ties or hair clips out of found paper wasn't art. It had no

meaning or statement or intention of being seen as art. I think I enjoyed making. And I still

sometimes don't think what I make today is art either. It's almost like my thesis of art is the

setting out and intention to make art, whereas I just feel the urge to create something because it

will look cool or I see that the materials have a greater use. The need to create does not

necessarily mean make art. Possessing the created thing is important to me. My room, since I

was little, has always been covered in my creations and I loved so preciously placing everything

in its little spot. Just like how I piece together an outfit and contents of my bag, I do this with

every object I own. I consider the objects relationship to the space and things by it. On a

window in my room I have funny soda bottles lined up together with flowers and felt lollipops in

them. Colors never clash or match too closely, and the clearest bottles are in the middle so

sunlight can shine through them. My love of things probably comes from the fact I get a feeling
from each one. This feeling is not usually an emotion but a sort of sense mixed with a memory.

When I look at a tapestry in my room, I feel a sense of rebellion and isolation associated with a

feeling of dark matter. (Im wondering now why I have them up!) And my crystals, when I see

them I am reminded of my old house and my Dad and also now, recently, the smell of rain.

When I haven't seen something in a while or am reminded of one of these feelings, I usually

know exactly what object is associated with it and the time it was most important to me.

Material things and their effects on my brain are like a very special version of a sketchbook: it

gets dusty and lost sometimes but you can always find it and recall where each picture is from.

A future project of feeling I want to make is made out of Marlboro Lite cigarette cartons

and wild flowers. What it looks like in my head is a mobile with a very simple structure, a hoop

about the circumference of a beach ball with five strings attached from the top where they meet,

creating a canopy, making these pieces a bit shorter so the canopy part at the top is a bit shout.

The string, I imagine, would be light brown twine and the hoop a wood very natural looking but

not too stick like and natural, no bark. I would almost bead a carton on each string on both sides

of the wooden hoop, so there would be ten in total. On the remainder of the exposed string I

would braid long strands of grass together tightly around it and then braid over the grass in a

looser plait with with small flowers like blue forget-me-nots and buttercups. These flowers

remind me deeply of my childhood and the grass and concrete but they are just the second layer

of flowers. There are two more to go so they are covered and create a foundation for the rest to

rely on. Bleeding hearts and snow peas, both from my childhood, would be woven in a bit

tighter then the forget-me-nots, making them bulge a little. The third layer is woven in more

randomly and loosely. The flowers themselves are much bigger: shasta daisies and creeping

daisies, two flowers I am not very familiar with at all. I would also weave the flowers like this
around the exposed part of the hoop. This piece will be the memories I have of last summer.

Imagining it in my mind, this piece makes me think of riding in a car with the windows rolled

down and looking at Vermont's green hills and mountains. The actual emotions associated with

this piece are fearlessness and happiness and the feeling of cool air. When I look at the mobil in

my mind I feel light winds on my face, the scent of sweet earth and rain on a hot cement and

being untouchable, almost free. It's almost as if I'm walking on the sidewalk edge, balancing

myself from a dense forest on one side and a maze of concrete topiary on the other.

I have decided there are three world I live in. One)This world reality, two) my world in

my head where ideas and connections and creativity are born and three) the world where my

irrational fears are created. The third world is the one that stops me from adding that last line

on my poem because I'm afraid It sounds too random or cliche and I often mix this one up with

the second. I create to understand and remember the parts of myself I lose touch with or have

not unraveled yet. The real world is without judgment and opinion if I want it to be, just like my

grandmother taught me. Those pictures we made were just for us and because we knew that

nothing else mattered in those moments we shared together. There's no need to carry around

the burden all the time or the label that I'm quirky or odd because it's not a burden it's who I am.

The work I make is are treasures to me and through them I learn more and more about myself.

More than anyone else's my opinion gets in the way of my work and my judgements are the ones

that hurt most. My purpose Is to create what fulfills me and brings me joy and I will always

continue to do this.