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 My personal website with links to my writing is at http://heywoodlorraine.com and you can write to me at ppgfh@hotmail.com
Please give me feedback and feel free to ask questions. I was born in midsummer in southern Idaho in 1942, fourth down and fourth up of seven children. A memory when I was two years old is of the thrill of the effect of paint on paper. By the time I was in school, I was too self-conscious and too self-critical to try art again. As I raised my children, I watched them for a propensity toward art and kept them supplied in paint and paper, but other things took their interests.
In 1976 I graduated from Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, with a bachelor's degree in English and a bachelor's in art, which had started as a minor and became a second major. My MA from Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, was in English. Though I wrote a novel, short stories, and over 300 poems, I had no confidence in my own "art," and I had to support my children. If I had it to do over - well - it's better to be older and wiser than just older.
Over the years, as I was raising children and teaching English Composition, when I found time and resources, I painted - on canvas, on pieces of discarded plywood, and on paper. When I couldn't find time and resources to make paintings, I painted rooms in my house, put down tile in kitchens and bathrooms, textured walls and reveled in chemical effects of washes on walls. I worked hard after I got home from work in the evenings and on weekends making changes to flat surfaces wherever I found them. When I was doing this, and when I was painting on canvas or masonite panels, I was lost - no - found! - in color, texture, line and shape and completely happy - never happy with the result, but always happy with the process.
In 1983, living by myself again, I took my last name - Heywood - as my first and took back my father's last name as my own in a process of learning to protect myself from bad dreams. This has been empowering.
June of 2006, I quit my job and moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to Boise, Idaho, where, with my younger sister, we remodeled, painted, and 'flipped' a house and in late September that year, with my share of the money, I took my dogs and moved to Heyburn, Idaho, to a little house three miles from my mother's studio in Burley, where at 88 she teaches painting and continues to paint beautiful landscapes and other art.
In April 2007, when I had finished the remodel of my house, I began to paint at my mother's studio and I began looking for secretarial work. On May 16th, on my way to a job interview, I realized I only wanted to paint. I decided that if I did not get the job - and I didn't - I would begin the next day working for myself as a painter. I committed myself to paint at least 20 hours a week. Since May 17th, 2007, I've painted an average of 30 hours a week, have produced over 160 paintings and have sold over forty paintings.
I'm happy as I have ever been in my life and wish everyone the same. - Heywood Williams - |
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