Today we’d like to introduce you to Paige Anderson
Hi Paige, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I need to make art like I need to breathe.
When I was a kid, it was always textiles and drawing in the margins of my notebooks. I learned to sew at an early age, at the knee of my grandmother, while she quilted every evening and weekend, or, when we went to the river or playground, she carried hand embroidery with her. I carried this well into my adult life, becoming more avid about embroidery and quilting as life became more stressful with college, and then, parenting. For a few years I designed quilt patterns for magazines and self-publication, worked with fabric companies to create kits for those patterns, taught quilting and embroidery classes, had work in galleries, curated needlework supplies, curated embroidery quilts, launched collab products, and vended at markets almost every single weekend.
And then the world shut down and with it, I changed. I’ve also blamed this shift on my saturn return, or on the slow end of my long marriage, or my frontal cortex developing, or any number of things to try to explain why I turned inward and shifted how I felt about art and how I ran my life as a working artist. Perhaps I stopped equating productivity and endless new products and output with my self worth, or perhaps, simply, I burnt out. I slowed down, and haven’t released a pattern since the “before times” and instead focus more on art that feeds my soul in a way that I haven’t quite found the words to explain.
In my late twenties, I discovered painting, and proceeded to paint every room in my home either in murals or in fun colors. I also discovered that I needed my home to be bright and cheerful, and that I needed art to be an extension of myself and I needed it to surround me and I realized that me making art was a love language, that if I surrounded my child and I with everything that I could make, that maybe everything else in our life would seem easier. It worked, a bit.
In my thirties, I craved a change. I’m still sewing whenever I can, but in the season of change, and coming out the other side, I decided that I needed to really follow the deep-down dream I always had of becoming a tattoo artist. So I took some training courses and apprenticed and made it happen, with a gut wrenching amount of hard work. I’m still in my first year of tattooing and finding the balance between the two kinds of needlework that I make my living off of, quilting and tattooing,
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There’s always struggles and I try not to get overwhelmed by it all, but really, life in America is hard right now, and life as a single mother adds a whole different layer to that. I try to keep my chin up but at the end of every day I am always very tired, but I know that I’ve done my best.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I don’t quite know what I’m known for, because I tend to tune out the entire world, to a fault. I don’t know how others see me or where I fit within my niches, I do try to work from my sense of place, sense of home, and try to share work that’s relatable.
In the quilting world, I think I’m known for creating functional pieces, with improv curves and a mix of hand and machine quilting. I’m all about texture.
In the tattoo world, I tend to focus on nature-forward fine line pieces. My favorite projects have been inspired by the sea, and I’m very into organic flowing leafy things and strange little critters, or sewing inspired small pieces.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
The best way to support an artist is to buy their work, and I am trying so hard to not be shy about that!
For textiles, I continually stock wholesalers with quilted accessories. You can find me on Faire at ponderosacreative.faire.com. I also have curated needlework supplies, quilt patterns, and ready to ship quilted goods in a small shop, at ponderosacreative.etsy.com.
For tattoos, book with me! I work in a private studio in downtown Olympia. The best way to get started on that is to send me a message on instagram @ponderosatattoos.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ponderosacreative.com
- Instagram: @ponderosacreative
Image Credits
Paige Anderson, Kaitlyn Texley, Sydney Pearce, Britt MacArthur