Material Innovations

Hello…my name is Leslie and I am a maker.

I live and work in Portland, Oregon which sometimes seems like worlds away from where I grew up. I am an East Coaster, born and bred, from a little town called Westport Massachusetts. To give you a little background, I grew up in a large Portuguese farming family by the sea. I am one of 15 cousins, and I am the first to leave New England.

As a child, my mother was an artist and calligrapher. I was enthralled by her obsession with fonts and straight lines. I would often sit and watch her as she turned our kitchen table into a meticulous studio space. As my mother worked, she would repeatedly proclaim the importance of templates and practicing repetition while the smells of inks and sounds of matte cutting would fill the room. When I was around ten years old I became her assistant in sign making. We were a team. I looked forward to our summer days when we would select and lay out various typefaces and have discussions about balance and color. During my childhood I always had my hands in something. I think this is why I am draw to physical processes. I feel a connection through the materials I work with that leads me to understand what I am making.

My primary creative skill is probably my ability to paint and draw. I had a formal training in two dimensional arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As I mentioned earlier, I really enjoy process based modes of working and often end up making even a simple drawing overly labor intensive. During my time at the university, I also worked at a Craft Center. Having this job, and learning new, craft based ways of working had a strong impact on my work and desire to see more physical interactions with my materials. This led to another systematic form of production that I am becoming more and more taken by, sewing and textiles. I tend to approach these works as an outsider and as a two dimensional thinker, which I find to be both challenging and exciting.

In both fields of working, two dimensional and three dimensional, I often find myself looking for ways to reuse materials, or perhaps better put, simply, to use the available materials. There are several reasons for this. First, cliche as it might be, I am broke. Go figure, a broke, artist, graduate student, what a surprise. There is another driving force however, and that is the ridiculously over abundant amount of “waist” that we seem to be surrounded by. There is stuff everywhere. Despite the fact that I do, like most people, enjoy shopping and the rush that is involved with a new buy, I also feel like there is often no need to buy new things or new materials. I feel, as a mildly conscientious maker, a responsibility to use at least some of what is already there in front of me.

The act of making is universal. Some people create to survive and some for entertainment. I find myself in the middle of the spectrum. I need to make in order to feel as though I am moving forward.  Various ideas and responsibilities rack my brain and as I struggle to find my place, I know that the only way I will understand anything is through my hands, is through making.