I'm always talking about how art doesn't happen very often in a cabin in the woods. It happens in the swirl of life, with all the chaos going on around you -- and sometimes that swirl is the very thing that inspires you. Writer Madeline L'Engle called this "writing at the kitchen table," a term/concept/image I adore. I stumbled upon the work/website of Anna Maria Horner, a fabric designer, while doing research for my new novel, which features a character who studies textiles. Here, in her bio, Horner gives a lovely description of the swirl that led to her own creative success -- and that continues to inform her work:
Anna Maria Horner grew up in a house full of her dad's paintings and with a closet full of her mom's handi-work. Beds were warmed by the hand-loomed wool blankets sent by her grandmother from Greece. The busy little bodies of her and her siblings were warmed by the beautiful handknits of their grandmother in Indiana. As a kid in the 70's, she passed up the $1.79 Barbie dresses in Service Merchandise, opting instead to create designs from her mother's fabric scraps....an artist was born.
In 1995, after graduating with an Honors Fine Arts Degree in Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Anna Maria opened Handmaiden, a clothing and housewares boutique. This retail space served as the homebase for Anna Maria's clothing line which she designed and produced, together with her mom. Eventually, the label was offered to the wholesale market, where it sold at several stores across the country.
During her years as a retailer/designer, Anna Maria had her hands in almost every medium on a daily basis. Designing clothing served an interest that she had since childhood. Her love of fabrics and patterns spilled onto her fine art canvases as well. Though busy with clothing design and production, Anna Maria found the energy to stay active artistically through exhibiting in galleries regularly. Her paintings, both small and large scale, are part of hundreds of private and commercial collections.
There have been many interesting stops on her artistic path but a common element in all of Anna Maria's work whether clothing, accessories, quilts or paintings is a passion for color and vibrancy. As she continued to realize her point of view in sewing, painting, writing, and photography, all of these disciplines created a dialoque, one bettering the other, and leading to a constant stream of artistic growth. Her fascination of taking an item through all the necessary steps from her sketchbook to a store shelve sparked the momentum to create a brand. Anna Maria's fresh perspectives within traditional markets and her vision of being surrounded by the work of her own hands has led her to partnering with more than two dozen manufacturers to design homewares, gift items, textiles and to authoring her first sewing book, Seams To Me, published October 2008.
"I refuse to accept the notion that I should stick to one medium as a means of success," Horner says, "so I move from one discipline to another as a way of freeing up my process from becoming too rigid. Creating one of a kind pieces, either sewn or painted, is the lungs in my body of work. Conversely, I also have never taken to the idea that the craft of mass production is something to be undervalued. I am continually impressed with the mechanisms and ingenuity that are employed in the production of my licensed collections. All of these creative and evolving forces work together as a vehicle to bring my aesthetic into public view...in big and small ways. All of them are meaningful to me, and hopefully to others."
Today Anna Maria and her husband, Jeff, make their home in Nashville with their five children, and eagerly await baby #6 in May 2009! She and her husband embrace both the charming wonders and the imperfect moments of raising a large family. She is incredibly thankful to be able
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