Liz has been surrounded by art her whole life, sharing some of the different ways it has impacted her:

 

“I have a degree in ornamental horticulture, but I’ll start with childhood. Everyone in my family really was artistic. My dad made things for me in wood, he made me a wonderful dollhouse when I was a child. He also, when I was an adult, made a cradle for my first child. And my mum was just absolutely artistic. No matter what she touched she could do, she was that kind of person. Full of ideas and creative. My eldest sister had a degree in art, waiting for another degree. She had a scholarship waiting for her, which she chose not to use. She wanted to get married, so she did that. My sister… But she was very, very artistic, could draw and paint. My younger sister was also a painter, and my brother was clever with his hands, making little chains to go across the caboose on a model train. They were just great.

 

Myself as a child, I drew cat brides. All my brides were cats. When I think back on it, I used artistic ideas, but I also used geometrics because all my cats, all the brides had no waist, they were all triangular and the skirts were triangular. Their faces were of cats, they all had veils and fancy shoes and bouquets. I loved to draw them. Also, I had a thing about drawing flowers, I loved to draw flowers. I used to find wildflowers… We lived on a dairy farm, and I found wildflowers, things that were protected that I didn’t even know were protected. And I would bring them home, things like trillium and pinksters, that sort of thing. But I brought flowers until my mother said, “No more, no more,” because they would be on every available windowsill in the house. So, you can see my love for flowers.

 

I became interested in interior design, so I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology. Hated the city, I was a true country girl that didn’t like it. I had to commute from Long Island and half of the time I was scared to death. I finally decided that I was coming home. And I did come home, stayed home for about a year, and then went to SUNY Cobleskill for my AAS (Associate of Applied Science) in Ornamental Horticulture. Had my own shop, a flower shop, while my husband had his landscape design. He was a landscape designer and contractor. We met in college of course, and I had the flower shop and he had that business. And I loved doing it. Loved arranging flowers, smelling flowers, just being creative.

 

It doesn’t make me sad that I do not arrange flowers anymore, I can enjoy other people’s flowers. They say that when you lose one sense that you gain more in other senses. And I can tell when there are flowers outside my room or on my floor, they don’t even have to be in front of me. I can identify them by fragrance. I can identify more by fragrance than by feel anymore, my fingers don’t have the sensitivity. I couldn’t make a beautiful little bow if I wanted to now. I used to make bows from this size (holds hands about 1 inch apart) to this size (holds hands around 18 inches apart). In school we even learned how to do projects. We had to devise a heating system for a green house. Once wee each had a crop, mine was the Christmas cactus, and I had to take cuttings, not of the prickles but of other parts, and create them, create the plants. We also had to design and install a copper propagation area that misted and took care of those things for growth. We learned an awful lot by doing, not so much from books but from doing. I mean, we had the textbooks, but it was by doing that we learned the most. I think creative people learn by doing.

 

When I came here I was not happy… Not happy, but I finally realized that it was it for me. I’ve been here 8 years already, going on 9. And the art here that Margaret has brought to us has been really inspiring for me, because I’m blind – now I’m blind, wasn’t all those other years. I’ve been blind 13 years and I have a new interest in creating abstracts which I could not do before, I had no interest at all. And now I’m creating some things that have gotten some mention, and I feel kind of proud of that, I enjoy it. It’s part of what makes me wake up every morning and think about what I’m doing here and where I’m going. Even as I look at the end of my life I find that it is has been creatively happy for me. It’s given me purpose; I’ve always found purpose from creation. I’ve loved doing anything, doing any kind of art. I appreciate looking at it, reading about it, admiring it, sharing what I know, learning about others’ experience.

 

We’ve used watercolor, acrylics, I think we’ve used oils. For creative projects, we’ve used – I’m not sure what it turned out to be, probably a plaster of paris, where we made a knee bowl. You would put it over your knee and I think it has three sides, possibly four, I don’t know. It’s on my dresser now, and I decorated mine with sea shells and starfish. My son has his eye on it, but I’m keeping it here for a while. I never liked working with clay, that’s the one thing I have not enjoyed and have not been able to manage. I don’t like the feel of it. Some people like the feel of it, but for me I don’t like it. We’re doing a tree of life project, decorating them with buttons. I’ve never done anything like it. But were using small buttons, even tiny buttons, and because I can just drop them and whatever, they’re working out well.”

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Speaking on the importance of looking at art from the past, Liz said, 

“There are so many things that are the same, and people don’t recognize that they’re living proof. It really shows connection, and that you are less alone.”