Back to Light is a very special continuing series of interviews with me. My health journey that nearly resulted in my death—and was thankfully restored by a double transplan—was a springboard for me into art and the creation of DAP. My personal story is in the My Doodle Journey blog. These interviews are the journeys of people who have persevered through their own difficult times with the help of art. Many artists in the Abilene community have crossed my path during DAP events, monthly downtown Art Walks, First Fridays at People's Plaza, and City Light Ministries Friday lunches. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some of the them and hear some very interesting life stories. Whether owning their own gallery, selling their art in town or on the road at festivals, or just starting to go public, one common thread among many I have met is how therapeutic art has been for them through tragedies and other difficult times in their lives. I have the privilege of sitting down privately to interview them. Here are their stories of how they have waded through darknesses with the power of art to find light.
Samantha LaPierre
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Mezamiz is a quirky coffeehouse located at 3909 S 7th in Abilene right around the corner from well-known Record Guys. Every Monday night I hang out there from 6 to 9 PM and host a doodle night for DAP and doodle with whoever shows up.
Samantha (Sam) LaPierre came in to doodle one night bounding with energy and immediately clicked with me and the other doodlists. Her dazzling intricate doodles and other artwork were as captivating as the many stories she shared with us that night and in the Monday nights to come. Sam is an open book about all the hardships she has gone through in life, including a rough childhood and raising four children while serving a three-year stint in prison. Through all of it, her art, and its link with her faith, have kept her strong, smiling, and eager to share what she has learned. She is kooky and silly one moment, and then very earnest and insightful the next—truly an artist with a dynamic personality. |
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We meet at *Mezamiz* in the back conference room for the interview. Her son Noah comes along for a little moral support and sits at the far end of the table. Samantha lays out a bunch of art supplies in front of herself and begins painting as we start the interview.
DAP: Does that help you with communication?
SAM: If I’m having a really deep conversation, or if I need help like doing anything really difficult, or if I have any kind of like…where I don’t know what’s going on, then my hands are busy and I’m focusing on whatever my hands are doing, but I’m more in tune to what you’re saying. And my heart’s more open when I do that. So, I don’t want you to think that I am just blowing you off (laughs).
DAP: It helps you concentrate?
SAM: Yeah, I think it’s just that I get myself out of the way. It’s not so much of a thought process as it is just being open and just going with that flow. I don’t think it matters if you’re being creative in the kitchen and you’re a line cook, and you find that synergy and not thinking about what you’re doing. I know it’s pretty much the same process when I’m cooking as I’m painting or drawing or doodling.
DAP: What kind of art do you do?
SAM: It’s really colorful. And it’s kind of almost ambiguous. Right now, I’m focusing on one thing. A lot of times it will just start with a squiggle. And it will turn into something else, and then it will look like something else and by the time it is done it will look like all of those things. But the more you look at, it the more you will see.
DAP: Do you have any themes?
SAM: Eyes. Trees. Faces.
DAP: (pointing) I see that you’re using multiple things here.
SAM: These are called ink blots and if you start out with it dry, they’re like a pastel. You take water to it and it’s like ink. (scribbles) The coolest thing ever.
DAP: What else do you use?
SAM: Acrylic. I like watercolor. I’ve done a little bit of oil but I’m not super comfortable with it… just because it acts different. I’ve used resin apoxy stuff and I put it on top and it gives it a different layer. I’ve done wire wrapping around rocks. I’ve painted clocks with acrylic and also used regular craft paint.
DAP: Does that help you with communication?
SAM: If I’m having a really deep conversation, or if I need help like doing anything really difficult, or if I have any kind of like…where I don’t know what’s going on, then my hands are busy and I’m focusing on whatever my hands are doing, but I’m more in tune to what you’re saying. And my heart’s more open when I do that. So, I don’t want you to think that I am just blowing you off (laughs).
DAP: It helps you concentrate?
SAM: Yeah, I think it’s just that I get myself out of the way. It’s not so much of a thought process as it is just being open and just going with that flow. I don’t think it matters if you’re being creative in the kitchen and you’re a line cook, and you find that synergy and not thinking about what you’re doing. I know it’s pretty much the same process when I’m cooking as I’m painting or drawing or doodling.
DAP: What kind of art do you do?
SAM: It’s really colorful. And it’s kind of almost ambiguous. Right now, I’m focusing on one thing. A lot of times it will just start with a squiggle. And it will turn into something else, and then it will look like something else and by the time it is done it will look like all of those things. But the more you look at, it the more you will see.
DAP: Do you have any themes?
SAM: Eyes. Trees. Faces.
DAP: (pointing) I see that you’re using multiple things here.
SAM: These are called ink blots and if you start out with it dry, they’re like a pastel. You take water to it and it’s like ink. (scribbles) The coolest thing ever.
DAP: What else do you use?
SAM: Acrylic. I like watercolor. I’ve done a little bit of oil but I’m not super comfortable with it… just because it acts different. I’ve used resin apoxy stuff and I put it on top and it gives it a different layer. I’ve done wire wrapping around rocks. I’ve painted clocks with acrylic and also used regular craft paint.
DAP: When I say doodling, what do you think?
SAM: Just like the appetizer for artwork. You know, it’s keeping your hand busy, and your mind occupied, and your soul at peace. It’s just as important.
DAP: Do you consider doodling art?
SAM: Yes (as she scribbles).
DAP: What do you think when I say doodle art project?
SAM: I think it’s giving people like… you just give them a little square, right? You can’t take it too seriously. You can’t overthink it. Some people are like, “I can’t do art, but I can doodle.” Well, if you can do it all, that’s the first step. That’s keeping your hands busy so your mind can open. (laughs) You can doodle anything. It’s a great stress reliever.
DAP: What value do you see in art?
SAM: I see all kinds of value. I mean, like, we all have different ways that our minds were, right? And artists are usually a little bit different, but I kind of see artists as people who specialize in ideas. It’s not just to make something pretty, but it’s also to create.
Sam admits that she’s not good at promoting herself or her art and only recently had her first art pieces on display for the public. One day she found some inoperable clocks about 3 feet in diameter in a parking lot as she pulled up to work. She was inspired by the wood, and after cleaning it off, she painted images she saw in the wood on each one. Those three giant clocks hung in the gallery at People’s Plaza with work from other local artists for about a month.
M.C. Escher, Frida Kahlo, and colorful graffiti on dumpsters and trains are Sam’s favorite art. If given a sabbatical for a month to paint anywhere she wanted, she chooses the coast of San Diego where she would wander the beaches and people watch. Music inspires her and currently she really likes Florence and the Machine and also listens to a lot of Christian music—“stuff with lyrical relevance.” When not doing art or working, you can often find her gardening or sleeping. She sleeps a lot because she has a thyroid condition. Recently she got back on thyroid medication and has become more stable, though she is still impacted from time to time.
DAP: What is the condition that you have?
SAM: It’s called Hashimoto’s and it’s a thyroid disorder. It’s an auto immune thing, and I always laugh, “See, I’ve been in a war with myself since day one.” But I didn’t know they were a lot of symptoms that could present themselves as mental health. There’s a bunch of different things that are all connected to that. So, it affects your hormones, it affects your thermostat of your body, regulating your heat. Your energy levels because of how you metabolize food. Sometimes I feel like my brain feels bipolar, but my body also feels bipolar. I’ll be like “Woohoo!” and then I’ll be dead to the world. I’ll be freezing cold and then be burning hot.
Sam’s hardships began at an early age. She grew up in Escondido, California (San Diego County), before her family moved to Texas when she was 17. Her mother was 37 when she had her, 18 years older than her sister, and she protected her by often keeping her away from people. When she was alone, she doodled and made things up in her head and learned how to be okay by herself. There were some very painful moments.
DAP: Did you have a tough time growing up?
SAM: It was just really empty. Honestly. When I was a kid, there was like… there’s a lot of things I don’t remember and there were quite a few things that went really wrong. And I try not to linger on those things. Like I spent years going it’s my mom‘s fault…blah, blah, blah.s But now it’s finally…that’s just how things go sometimes. There was sexual abuse when I was a kid from my step-grandfather. When I was 14, I was sexually assaulted by two guys and left in a stolen car.
For a long time, I thought somehow that was my fault. And my mom let me somehow think it was my fault. There was a lot of emotional poverty, but there was also this gift of not being super influenced by the outside world, so that I could just be myself. I wasn’t trying to keep up with anybody. I don’t even know what kids are talking about. So, I’m just gonna be myself. So, it was different.
I was always like an extroverted wallflower if that makes any sense (laughs). I could be inside myself just as much as I could be around people. But when things get tough….Oh, I’m going to doodle (laughs). People just look at me and I go back to that place where I feel safe. Sometimes it’s like in my head I can picture all the chaos swirling around, right? All the uncertainty. And when I go into that space I can almost get above it and look down on it and not let it affect me. I think that might be like some kind of disassociative disorder, but at least (laughs) at least it’s pretty.
DAP: You have a great sense of humor about things.
SAM: You know it’s just one of those things where, like, I can either let things hurt me and walk around all offended all the time and always at odds with myself and the rest of the world, or I can just shrug it off and be like “that’ll make a good story later.”
By the time Sam was twenty-one she had four kids by herself. Being a mother has been very tough for her and she admits that she hasn’t always been the best mom and has struggled a lot. She says that her family has been to hell and back, but that they don’t give up on each other or themselves even when she went to prison.
DAP: What is it like, having looked back on your life, being a mother?
SAM: My relationship with my kids is probably one of the harder places in my life, right, because…for a lot of years I was just not there and I missed a lot. I’m still learning how to not suck at life. And so, there’s a lot of things I haven’t been able to give them that they needed. Like being able to regulate myself emotionally. Or not panic. Or just be consistent with anything.
Sam is proud of her kids. She describes them very affectionately. Noah (23) is kind and thoughtful, humble, smart, and nurturing. Samuel (19) a is wicked-funny, razor-sharp smart, kind, and very unique kid. Michael (18) is a hard worker, super funny and smart with a depth to him that blows her mind. Ava (17) is tenacious, tough, nurturing, smart, and loves her family fiercely. Both Ava and Samuel are also talented artists as was Sam’s mother.
SAM: I had this profound realization when I was in prison that regardless of what’s going on or what it looks like, I know that God loves them more than I ever could and he loves me more than anybody ever could. And despite my feelings or where I fall short all of that, he’s gonna have his way in our lives regardless.
Because guilt and shame are those things we carry around with us like a brick on our neck. It’s kind of helped me to let go of that baggage. And to see my kids as they are, and not how they were when I left them or… to not try and smother them. Because I know he’s way better at life than I am and when they need something I’m able to give it to them now to the best of my ability. Before, I couldn’t even have a house for us to live in. And I think that through my life I think they will learn once they get past all their teenage angst. Kind of like I did with my mom. Eventually you just get it.
DAP: What was prison like?
SAM: It was like grade school, but with a bunch of grown women that had a hard time regulating themselves emotionally. It was just really… It kind of blew my mind. So, you take us out of the world, and we go back to being little girls. That’s the bottom line of it. We do things to seek attention and we try to group up and make friends and, “Well this is my best friend, and you can’t have my best friend.” Or “This is my girlfriend and don’t look at my girlfriend.” Or “I’ll be your best friend for soup.” You know, it’s the same game.
I always had something to do. I would draw. That’s how I got stamps. Because, you know, have to find a hustle in there, right? You have to find some way to make money because nobody wants to eat the child trays because they are awful. And so, I just started drawing. I made cards. I made poster boards. I did all kinds of stuff. And that kept me in coffee pretty much all of the time and it gave me a lot of peace, because, well, I’m not dealing with those people. I’m going to draw.
SAM: Just like the appetizer for artwork. You know, it’s keeping your hand busy, and your mind occupied, and your soul at peace. It’s just as important.
DAP: Do you consider doodling art?
SAM: Yes (as she scribbles).
DAP: What do you think when I say doodle art project?
SAM: I think it’s giving people like… you just give them a little square, right? You can’t take it too seriously. You can’t overthink it. Some people are like, “I can’t do art, but I can doodle.” Well, if you can do it all, that’s the first step. That’s keeping your hands busy so your mind can open. (laughs) You can doodle anything. It’s a great stress reliever.
DAP: What value do you see in art?
SAM: I see all kinds of value. I mean, like, we all have different ways that our minds were, right? And artists are usually a little bit different, but I kind of see artists as people who specialize in ideas. It’s not just to make something pretty, but it’s also to create.
Sam admits that she’s not good at promoting herself or her art and only recently had her first art pieces on display for the public. One day she found some inoperable clocks about 3 feet in diameter in a parking lot as she pulled up to work. She was inspired by the wood, and after cleaning it off, she painted images she saw in the wood on each one. Those three giant clocks hung in the gallery at People’s Plaza with work from other local artists for about a month.
M.C. Escher, Frida Kahlo, and colorful graffiti on dumpsters and trains are Sam’s favorite art. If given a sabbatical for a month to paint anywhere she wanted, she chooses the coast of San Diego where she would wander the beaches and people watch. Music inspires her and currently she really likes Florence and the Machine and also listens to a lot of Christian music—“stuff with lyrical relevance.” When not doing art or working, you can often find her gardening or sleeping. She sleeps a lot because she has a thyroid condition. Recently she got back on thyroid medication and has become more stable, though she is still impacted from time to time.
DAP: What is the condition that you have?
SAM: It’s called Hashimoto’s and it’s a thyroid disorder. It’s an auto immune thing, and I always laugh, “See, I’ve been in a war with myself since day one.” But I didn’t know they were a lot of symptoms that could present themselves as mental health. There’s a bunch of different things that are all connected to that. So, it affects your hormones, it affects your thermostat of your body, regulating your heat. Your energy levels because of how you metabolize food. Sometimes I feel like my brain feels bipolar, but my body also feels bipolar. I’ll be like “Woohoo!” and then I’ll be dead to the world. I’ll be freezing cold and then be burning hot.
Sam’s hardships began at an early age. She grew up in Escondido, California (San Diego County), before her family moved to Texas when she was 17. Her mother was 37 when she had her, 18 years older than her sister, and she protected her by often keeping her away from people. When she was alone, she doodled and made things up in her head and learned how to be okay by herself. There were some very painful moments.
DAP: Did you have a tough time growing up?
SAM: It was just really empty. Honestly. When I was a kid, there was like… there’s a lot of things I don’t remember and there were quite a few things that went really wrong. And I try not to linger on those things. Like I spent years going it’s my mom‘s fault…blah, blah, blah.s But now it’s finally…that’s just how things go sometimes. There was sexual abuse when I was a kid from my step-grandfather. When I was 14, I was sexually assaulted by two guys and left in a stolen car.
For a long time, I thought somehow that was my fault. And my mom let me somehow think it was my fault. There was a lot of emotional poverty, but there was also this gift of not being super influenced by the outside world, so that I could just be myself. I wasn’t trying to keep up with anybody. I don’t even know what kids are talking about. So, I’m just gonna be myself. So, it was different.
I was always like an extroverted wallflower if that makes any sense (laughs). I could be inside myself just as much as I could be around people. But when things get tough….Oh, I’m going to doodle (laughs). People just look at me and I go back to that place where I feel safe. Sometimes it’s like in my head I can picture all the chaos swirling around, right? All the uncertainty. And when I go into that space I can almost get above it and look down on it and not let it affect me. I think that might be like some kind of disassociative disorder, but at least (laughs) at least it’s pretty.
DAP: You have a great sense of humor about things.
SAM: You know it’s just one of those things where, like, I can either let things hurt me and walk around all offended all the time and always at odds with myself and the rest of the world, or I can just shrug it off and be like “that’ll make a good story later.”
By the time Sam was twenty-one she had four kids by herself. Being a mother has been very tough for her and she admits that she hasn’t always been the best mom and has struggled a lot. She says that her family has been to hell and back, but that they don’t give up on each other or themselves even when she went to prison.
DAP: What is it like, having looked back on your life, being a mother?
SAM: My relationship with my kids is probably one of the harder places in my life, right, because…for a lot of years I was just not there and I missed a lot. I’m still learning how to not suck at life. And so, there’s a lot of things I haven’t been able to give them that they needed. Like being able to regulate myself emotionally. Or not panic. Or just be consistent with anything.
Sam is proud of her kids. She describes them very affectionately. Noah (23) is kind and thoughtful, humble, smart, and nurturing. Samuel (19) a is wicked-funny, razor-sharp smart, kind, and very unique kid. Michael (18) is a hard worker, super funny and smart with a depth to him that blows her mind. Ava (17) is tenacious, tough, nurturing, smart, and loves her family fiercely. Both Ava and Samuel are also talented artists as was Sam’s mother.
SAM: I had this profound realization when I was in prison that regardless of what’s going on or what it looks like, I know that God loves them more than I ever could and he loves me more than anybody ever could. And despite my feelings or where I fall short all of that, he’s gonna have his way in our lives regardless.
Because guilt and shame are those things we carry around with us like a brick on our neck. It’s kind of helped me to let go of that baggage. And to see my kids as they are, and not how they were when I left them or… to not try and smother them. Because I know he’s way better at life than I am and when they need something I’m able to give it to them now to the best of my ability. Before, I couldn’t even have a house for us to live in. And I think that through my life I think they will learn once they get past all their teenage angst. Kind of like I did with my mom. Eventually you just get it.
DAP: What was prison like?
SAM: It was like grade school, but with a bunch of grown women that had a hard time regulating themselves emotionally. It was just really… It kind of blew my mind. So, you take us out of the world, and we go back to being little girls. That’s the bottom line of it. We do things to seek attention and we try to group up and make friends and, “Well this is my best friend, and you can’t have my best friend.” Or “This is my girlfriend and don’t look at my girlfriend.” Or “I’ll be your best friend for soup.” You know, it’s the same game.
I always had something to do. I would draw. That’s how I got stamps. Because, you know, have to find a hustle in there, right? You have to find some way to make money because nobody wants to eat the child trays because they are awful. And so, I just started drawing. I made cards. I made poster boards. I did all kinds of stuff. And that kept me in coffee pretty much all of the time and it gave me a lot of peace, because, well, I’m not dealing with those people. I’m going to draw.
Paige Boutwell, 1117 Studios & Gallery
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1117 Studios & Gallery is a hidden gem near downtown Abilene in the Original Town North neighborhood. It’s a mixed zoning area of industrial/commercial/retail and the gallery rests in the center of a nearly block-long building. Past the large black front doors, gray, white and black swirls in the shiny marble-like floor greet you—almost looking like water you could wade into. Industrial metal air ducts and black iron girders above juxtapose the white walls accentuated with black features.
The first studio of ten belongs to artist Paige Boutwell. In addition to being an artist specializing in oil painting and colored pencil drawings, she is the gallery director of 1117. She conducts tours of the gallery, manages art sales for the artists there, hangs up the shows, among other duties. In fact, she hung up the DAP exhibit in January of this year, putting up 1000s of doodles in various forms. She loves her job and does it very well. |
I meet Paige just inside the front door of the studios and join her in her studio space, first one on the left. It is filled with many of her paintings and drawings and art supplies along with a couple of comfortable chairs and a coffee table with books, including one large one about Salvador Dali.
Paige stands at 5’4 with long black hair and has a Southern drawl representing her home state Alabama well. She grew up in Perdido, a small town in southern Alabama with a population of about 200. It’s located in an area full of trees and rivers and is technically called the rainforest of the United States. She attended college at Alabama Coastal Community College (formally Faulkner State University) and moved to Abilene in 2018 after marrying her husband, Michael, who served in the military at Dyess Air Force Base.
DAP: What was it like growing up in Alabama?
PAIGE: I really enjoyed it. Since it was a small town, everyone’s spaced out. It’s pretty much farmland and everything. So, my closest neighbors were probably half a mile away and I am the youngest of six, so we spent a lot of time out in the woods just running around like crazy, most of the time barefoot. Probably not the smartest idea.
DAP: Building forts or anything like that?
PAIGE: We built forts into the natural layout so…there was a clay pit in our backyard that we just found some throwaway wood and we built a fort there. We built one in the woods. There was a fence line. We took the trees, the young ones that were bendy, and we tied it to it and made a hobbit hole opening and we built shelves and stuff up on there. We also built some up in the trees that were, not by today’s age, safe and we also dug some out and got yelled for them.
DAP: How long have you been interested in art?
PAIGE: In general, I’ve been drawing since I was really really little. I don’t know exactly when it started. I do remember one time my oldest sister Kim had a class project, she was in eighth grade and I was in kindergarten. She had to draw something, and I said that I would do it, and she laughed at it and everything and it was like people and so I drew out the clothes first and then the body and it’s better than what she could draw…Stick people, but I got really heavily into it in 2006 after the house fire. That’s when it really took off.
DAP: At your exhibit opening, you told the attendees a little about the fire. What more can you add here?
PAIGE: So, as I said, I was the youngest of six. The day it happened, I had just gotten the day before a lock on my door for the first time and I was super excited, and I locked it and everything. And at that time three of my siblings were, it was summer, three of them were staying at different places and two of them are still there. My dad had gone to work, and my mama came up and unlocked my door and told me she was going to take my brother Logan to my grandfather’s house to work on some stuff and take my sister to band camp and she’d be right back. And I actually wasn’t awake during that. I have a tendency to sit up and I’m completely asleep.
I woke up to the house filled with smoke and I ran to the door. Tried to remember all the fire warnings they teach you, so I almost grabbed the door handle, but I touched the wood of the door to make sure it was okay. Ended up locking myself in because she had left it unlocked. Got down the stairs and, again, locked myself in with the deadbolt because when we would leave, they would leave it unlocked and I got outside. I remember spitting up all the smoke inhalation at a magnolia tree that was out front and then I took off running down the road to the neighbors. The first part of it was iron rocks and the second part was limestone and I’m completely barefoot, looking crazy I’m sure. I had on these silver shorts that went to my calf and this giant shirt that was to my knees and we had two neighbors and then one that was building.
I kept going back-and-forth between the two neighbors until I heard power tools being used at the other house and I ran there. And it was Mr. and Mrs. Eddins, and I told them the house was on fire. And I didn’t realize that nobody was home, so I was like my brothers and sisters are in the house. We got to get them out.
Paige stands at 5’4 with long black hair and has a Southern drawl representing her home state Alabama well. She grew up in Perdido, a small town in southern Alabama with a population of about 200. It’s located in an area full of trees and rivers and is technically called the rainforest of the United States. She attended college at Alabama Coastal Community College (formally Faulkner State University) and moved to Abilene in 2018 after marrying her husband, Michael, who served in the military at Dyess Air Force Base.
DAP: What was it like growing up in Alabama?
PAIGE: I really enjoyed it. Since it was a small town, everyone’s spaced out. It’s pretty much farmland and everything. So, my closest neighbors were probably half a mile away and I am the youngest of six, so we spent a lot of time out in the woods just running around like crazy, most of the time barefoot. Probably not the smartest idea.
DAP: Building forts or anything like that?
PAIGE: We built forts into the natural layout so…there was a clay pit in our backyard that we just found some throwaway wood and we built a fort there. We built one in the woods. There was a fence line. We took the trees, the young ones that were bendy, and we tied it to it and made a hobbit hole opening and we built shelves and stuff up on there. We also built some up in the trees that were, not by today’s age, safe and we also dug some out and got yelled for them.
DAP: How long have you been interested in art?
PAIGE: In general, I’ve been drawing since I was really really little. I don’t know exactly when it started. I do remember one time my oldest sister Kim had a class project, she was in eighth grade and I was in kindergarten. She had to draw something, and I said that I would do it, and she laughed at it and everything and it was like people and so I drew out the clothes first and then the body and it’s better than what she could draw…Stick people, but I got really heavily into it in 2006 after the house fire. That’s when it really took off.
DAP: At your exhibit opening, you told the attendees a little about the fire. What more can you add here?
PAIGE: So, as I said, I was the youngest of six. The day it happened, I had just gotten the day before a lock on my door for the first time and I was super excited, and I locked it and everything. And at that time three of my siblings were, it was summer, three of them were staying at different places and two of them are still there. My dad had gone to work, and my mama came up and unlocked my door and told me she was going to take my brother Logan to my grandfather’s house to work on some stuff and take my sister to band camp and she’d be right back. And I actually wasn’t awake during that. I have a tendency to sit up and I’m completely asleep.
I woke up to the house filled with smoke and I ran to the door. Tried to remember all the fire warnings they teach you, so I almost grabbed the door handle, but I touched the wood of the door to make sure it was okay. Ended up locking myself in because she had left it unlocked. Got down the stairs and, again, locked myself in with the deadbolt because when we would leave, they would leave it unlocked and I got outside. I remember spitting up all the smoke inhalation at a magnolia tree that was out front and then I took off running down the road to the neighbors. The first part of it was iron rocks and the second part was limestone and I’m completely barefoot, looking crazy I’m sure. I had on these silver shorts that went to my calf and this giant shirt that was to my knees and we had two neighbors and then one that was building.
I kept going back-and-forth between the two neighbors until I heard power tools being used at the other house and I ran there. And it was Mr. and Mrs. Eddins, and I told them the house was on fire. And I didn’t realize that nobody was home, so I was like my brothers and sisters are in the house. We got to get them out.
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They called my mom and dad and the fire department and everything. My mom told Mr. Eddins that everything was fine. They took me back to the house because my mom was coming down the road about that time. The EMT checked me out. He was very new and said something he probably shouldn’t have, “We just telling a 12-year-old that if they had been in the house a moment longer, they would’ve been dead.”
We sat down and watched the house burn trying to figure out where we were going to live after that. |
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Luckily there were amazing people in the community who found us a place to stay, got us some clothes, some beds, just everything we needed ‘til we could get the stuff, the more personal stuff that we needed.
DAP: Have you gone back and relived that, or has it been too hard?
PAIGE: I… it’s not something I can forget, so reliving it is difficult. It’s always back there. I really wasn’t focused on me. I was focused on my family. So, in my mind I had to get out and I had to get someone who could get them out. So, there was panic and everything and there was terror, and I was trying to remember everything I was told like keeping low to the ground which probably works when the fire is first starting but once it was to the point, it wasn’t easily breathable in any sense.
DAP: Was it hard to see?
PAIGE: It was very difficult to see. I was on the second story, so I had to go downstairs, so I was crawling and everything. The fire was not near me yet, so there was not even light from that, and I was just trying to get out and then it was just auto pilot trying to make sure everyone was safe.
DAP: That must’ve been very panicky thinking that some of your family was inside.
PAIGE: It was. I remember thinking they were all dead, but there was still a possibility that they weren’t so I had to…I had to try.
DAP: How did you all rebound after that?
PAIGE: For the rest of my family, it wasn’t as difficult because they weren’t there. For me it was very difficult. I had to sleep with a nightlight and the one I got was red and that sent me into panic attacks every night. My brother had gotten a blue one for the hallway and so we switched it and that helped a little bit. But after that I would go into panic attacks all the time. I got to where I couldn’t sleep in my room. I had to sleep on the couch, which was next to the front door. I even… and I don’t even know if my family knows this…I had packed a set of clothes into a Ziploc bag and put it in a tree outside, so that I had something else just in case it happened again.
DAP: Was that because of embarrassment of what you had worn previously?
PAIGE: No. Because of only having one set of clothes and having to take handouts from other people is not the best feeling. Funny thing about those clothes is that the night before my mom had threatened to burn them because she hated them so much and then the next day she said (chuckling) I will never threaten to burn another thing of yours again (laughs).
DAP: Oh, my goodness!
PAIGE: I still have the clothes. I plan on getting them framed one day. But they were just these ugly silver-blue shorts and it was a shirt that was orange and had this tiger clawing through it and it said “Release the Beast” that my brother had given me.
DAP: Wow, wow. So… when was it that you started getting into art regularly?
PAIGE: So… after all of that, my brother saw me kind of spiraling bad. He’s six years older than me. His name is Josh and he was in high school for art and everything and he started teaching me what he was learning in classes because he knew I always liked art. So he heavily started doing that. It just evolved from there. I found it as a way to just get all the emotions out and have it done for a time at least, so it was very therapeutic to have something productive to do.
DAP: What is it about art in your view, in your personal life, that is therapeutic?
PAIGE: So, from that event, I got PTSD and that takes all of the light out of your life. It makes it where every dark thing that could possibly happen is just bearing down on you constantly. And with drawing and painting and everything you get to bring something into the world and…it’s when I really got into painting. I didn’t think I really had a style and I just started realizing I’m just pulling light into these paintings and pulling it out of the dark to be able to show to others. And to me, even though I didn’t realize it, there is light in darkness, and without the darkness you couldn’t find the light.
DAP: Are you able to deal with your PTSD better more recently?
PAIGE: I can definitely deal with it better. I don’t know if you can ever be cured of PTSD. I’m lucky enough that my triggers for me are not actually fire…but for me it’s smoke. I know a lot of people have PTSD from sounds and things like that and so their triggers are more apt to happen. When they do, they’re really rough and I found ways to deal with them and art is definitely a big one, so I think I’m handling it much better than I did all those years ago.
DAP: I see a lot of paintings where things are a kind of darker color, but things pop out of them.
PAIGE: Yep. I remember sitting down with my grandparents showing them my art, and I was like I don’t really have a style and then compare it to -- think it was David Kincaid who paints the light in the windows of all of his paintings and they were like, “You do that with your paintings. You bring the light into the subject matter and the rest is kind of in the background… so that’s what you’re doing.”
DAP: Have you gone back and relived that, or has it been too hard?
PAIGE: I… it’s not something I can forget, so reliving it is difficult. It’s always back there. I really wasn’t focused on me. I was focused on my family. So, in my mind I had to get out and I had to get someone who could get them out. So, there was panic and everything and there was terror, and I was trying to remember everything I was told like keeping low to the ground which probably works when the fire is first starting but once it was to the point, it wasn’t easily breathable in any sense.
DAP: Was it hard to see?
PAIGE: It was very difficult to see. I was on the second story, so I had to go downstairs, so I was crawling and everything. The fire was not near me yet, so there was not even light from that, and I was just trying to get out and then it was just auto pilot trying to make sure everyone was safe.
DAP: That must’ve been very panicky thinking that some of your family was inside.
PAIGE: It was. I remember thinking they were all dead, but there was still a possibility that they weren’t so I had to…I had to try.
DAP: How did you all rebound after that?
PAIGE: For the rest of my family, it wasn’t as difficult because they weren’t there. For me it was very difficult. I had to sleep with a nightlight and the one I got was red and that sent me into panic attacks every night. My brother had gotten a blue one for the hallway and so we switched it and that helped a little bit. But after that I would go into panic attacks all the time. I got to where I couldn’t sleep in my room. I had to sleep on the couch, which was next to the front door. I even… and I don’t even know if my family knows this…I had packed a set of clothes into a Ziploc bag and put it in a tree outside, so that I had something else just in case it happened again.
DAP: Was that because of embarrassment of what you had worn previously?
PAIGE: No. Because of only having one set of clothes and having to take handouts from other people is not the best feeling. Funny thing about those clothes is that the night before my mom had threatened to burn them because she hated them so much and then the next day she said (chuckling) I will never threaten to burn another thing of yours again (laughs).
DAP: Oh, my goodness!
PAIGE: I still have the clothes. I plan on getting them framed one day. But they were just these ugly silver-blue shorts and it was a shirt that was orange and had this tiger clawing through it and it said “Release the Beast” that my brother had given me.
DAP: Wow, wow. So… when was it that you started getting into art regularly?
PAIGE: So… after all of that, my brother saw me kind of spiraling bad. He’s six years older than me. His name is Josh and he was in high school for art and everything and he started teaching me what he was learning in classes because he knew I always liked art. So he heavily started doing that. It just evolved from there. I found it as a way to just get all the emotions out and have it done for a time at least, so it was very therapeutic to have something productive to do.
DAP: What is it about art in your view, in your personal life, that is therapeutic?
PAIGE: So, from that event, I got PTSD and that takes all of the light out of your life. It makes it where every dark thing that could possibly happen is just bearing down on you constantly. And with drawing and painting and everything you get to bring something into the world and…it’s when I really got into painting. I didn’t think I really had a style and I just started realizing I’m just pulling light into these paintings and pulling it out of the dark to be able to show to others. And to me, even though I didn’t realize it, there is light in darkness, and without the darkness you couldn’t find the light.
DAP: Are you able to deal with your PTSD better more recently?
PAIGE: I can definitely deal with it better. I don’t know if you can ever be cured of PTSD. I’m lucky enough that my triggers for me are not actually fire…but for me it’s smoke. I know a lot of people have PTSD from sounds and things like that and so their triggers are more apt to happen. When they do, they’re really rough and I found ways to deal with them and art is definitely a big one, so I think I’m handling it much better than I did all those years ago.
DAP: I see a lot of paintings where things are a kind of darker color, but things pop out of them.
PAIGE: Yep. I remember sitting down with my grandparents showing them my art, and I was like I don’t really have a style and then compare it to -- think it was David Kincaid who paints the light in the windows of all of his paintings and they were like, “You do that with your paintings. You bring the light into the subject matter and the rest is kind of in the background… so that’s what you’re doing.”
Greg Crone, The People's Plaza
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Behind the column-enforced behemoth known as First Financial Bank at the intersection of South 14th and Willis, rests People’s Plaza with its equally expansive parking lot. It’s a hidden gem in Abilene, Texas, many people aren’t even aware exists. Built in 1978, it’s a 50,000 square foot building that leases office space to a variety of businesses and artists.
About ten years ago, Sean David inherited it from his father, and in 2017 began turning it into an epicenter for art, healing, and entrepreneurialism. Currently it hosts First Friday every month, organized by Greg Crone and Casey Larue-Chavez. The public can come out for free to check out the art in the building as well as art vendors and other vendors selling their wares. It’s really a tale of two plazas: the business side and the creative side. |
When you walk into the lobby of People’s Plaza you have three directions you can go: right, center, or left. Going right takes you down a long hallway of offices for myriad professions including attorneys, massage therapists, and construction companies. On the left side is the Creative Studios lobby previewing offices rented out to mostly artists, but also a barber shop, hair stylists, and a few other businesses.
The center path begins with a small art gallery before leading you through a labyrinth of Hallways—mostly artist studios—into a much larger art gallery and vendor display room. Having been to People’s Plaza many times, I choose the center path because I know it is the quickest way to get to Greg. The gallery currently holds an exhibit of Greg’s work titled Visually Loud and displays paintings done on old record albums, random boards, canvas, other assorted items, with a variety of characters from kings and queens to cartoon devils, insects, aliens, and pulsating brains.
The center path begins with a small art gallery before leading you through a labyrinth of Hallways—mostly artist studios—into a much larger art gallery and vendor display room. Having been to People’s Plaza many times, I choose the center path because I know it is the quickest way to get to Greg. The gallery currently holds an exhibit of Greg’s work titled Visually Loud and displays paintings done on old record albums, random boards, canvas, other assorted items, with a variety of characters from kings and queens to cartoon devils, insects, aliens, and pulsating brains.
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One very special painting done on a cookie sheet rests on a pedestal in the center of the exhibit. It features a large eye in the middle, with pulsing waves of vibrant colors, connecting theeye to all sides of the pan. It is the first painting Greg ever did and he painted it the week his daughter was put into hospice after having struggled with brain cancer and passing away. That day was the day he decided to drop a regular job life and follow his passions. Never having painted before, he wanted to become an artist.
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I make my way through the exhibit of his bright and beautifully strange art that is, indeed, a good representation of visual loudness with its bombastic fluorescent yellows, pinks, and red commingling with muted browns and oranges and featuring a Who’s Who of future and past iconography. I continue into the first hallway lined with paintings from various artists, and turn down another hallway with paintingson the walls of both ends and find myself at the open door of Greg’s 33 1/3 Studios.
Greg sits at an easel painting a picture of a mermaid reclined on a shore. He is a heavyset fifty-seven-year-old with whitish hair in a ponytail and a purple goatee. For as long as I have known him he likes to wear Rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts, shorts, and dark knee-high socks with sneakers. A wall of windows behind him displays the outside world behind the complex, including a large tree with Barbie dolls affixed to it set against the beautiful green creek area—a scene of the macabre juxtaposed against beauty—a sign of Greg’s twisted sense of humor.
He grew up in a middle-class part of town in San Antonio, Texas. After high school, he lived in Austin for a while doing masonry work before his wife decided to move with the kids up to Astoria, Oregon. He traveled up there to try and earn a living, but jobs just weren’t available that suited him. So, he moved back to Texas with his son to live in his parents’ home in Abilene. His jobs included bookkeeper at a nursing home, furniture manager at Big Lots, and director of donations for Goodwill covering a thirty-two-county region.
Greg’s motto in life is “Stop and sniff the roses, no matter their state of decay” because he believes you can find beauty in ugliness and even death. He finds beauty in the enjoyment of humor from the shocking to the sublime and claims he has no trigger or filter because he just is who he is. Currently, he is creating banners that say, “Strange art for strange folks.” yes, some of his art is definitely strange, but it all comes from a place of sincerity and joie de vivres and appreciation for others who take a chance on attempting art like he did five years ago—the day his thirty-seven-year-old daughter Tiffany was placed in hospice due to brain cancer. He decided he was an artist and wasn’t going to work for anybody ever again.
DAP: What can you tell me about Tiffany and what happened?
GREG: She was noticing like this (points to left cheek) line was getting deeper and she thought her mouth was drooping. We thought it was maybe Bell’s palsy or maybe she’d had a stroke. She had an MRI done here in Abilene. The neurologist calls us on a Sunday, which is never…(pauses…laughs)…they don’t call on Sundays, man. And so, yeah, ‘Can you be here first thing Monday morning?’ We got there and there was a lesion on her brain—she can’t be here in Abilene, she has to go somewhere, you know. So, we went to Parkland in Dallas, you know…a
month… maybe three weeks later when that guy was like, ‘Oh, you know, it’s a tumor in there, but they grow slow. We’ll just monitor it.’
Greg sits at an easel painting a picture of a mermaid reclined on a shore. He is a heavyset fifty-seven-year-old with whitish hair in a ponytail and a purple goatee. For as long as I have known him he likes to wear Rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts, shorts, and dark knee-high socks with sneakers. A wall of windows behind him displays the outside world behind the complex, including a large tree with Barbie dolls affixed to it set against the beautiful green creek area—a scene of the macabre juxtaposed against beauty—a sign of Greg’s twisted sense of humor.
He grew up in a middle-class part of town in San Antonio, Texas. After high school, he lived in Austin for a while doing masonry work before his wife decided to move with the kids up to Astoria, Oregon. He traveled up there to try and earn a living, but jobs just weren’t available that suited him. So, he moved back to Texas with his son to live in his parents’ home in Abilene. His jobs included bookkeeper at a nursing home, furniture manager at Big Lots, and director of donations for Goodwill covering a thirty-two-county region.
Greg’s motto in life is “Stop and sniff the roses, no matter their state of decay” because he believes you can find beauty in ugliness and even death. He finds beauty in the enjoyment of humor from the shocking to the sublime and claims he has no trigger or filter because he just is who he is. Currently, he is creating banners that say, “Strange art for strange folks.” yes, some of his art is definitely strange, but it all comes from a place of sincerity and joie de vivres and appreciation for others who take a chance on attempting art like he did five years ago—the day his thirty-seven-year-old daughter Tiffany was placed in hospice due to brain cancer. He decided he was an artist and wasn’t going to work for anybody ever again.
DAP: What can you tell me about Tiffany and what happened?
GREG: She was noticing like this (points to left cheek) line was getting deeper and she thought her mouth was drooping. We thought it was maybe Bell’s palsy or maybe she’d had a stroke. She had an MRI done here in Abilene. The neurologist calls us on a Sunday, which is never…(pauses…laughs)…they don’t call on Sundays, man. And so, yeah, ‘Can you be here first thing Monday morning?’ We got there and there was a lesion on her brain—she can’t be here in Abilene, she has to go somewhere, you know. So, we went to Parkland in Dallas, you know…a
month… maybe three weeks later when that guy was like, ‘Oh, you know, it’s a tumor in there, but they grow slow. We’ll just monitor it.’
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We did not like the answers we got there. She was a server. She had no insurance. So, we were applying for all these programs and it kind of came down between a place in Boston and MD Anderson and they came through first. She had a one-year-old son at the time, so we went down there [Houston].
They told us we’d be there for like twenty-four days and they were going to do surgery and we get down there and the brain surgeon explained to us… Like people think of tumors as...here’s the black tumor, here’s the healthy pink tissue. She said it’s more like if you had a tablespoon full of salt and dropped it at the beach. So, she did a biopsy as aggressive as my daughter was willing to go at the time. It came back as a stage two, I think. So, she left with chemo and radiation. |