Cameron Covey- Artists In Action Gallery

I was born In Vanport, Oregon, and I am a woman named Cameron. I was a teenager in the sixties. I lost friends in the Vietnam War, cried for President Kennedy, cheered women who fought for women’s rights, remember the Civil Rights Movement, remember the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the war after war after war that this country has gone through.

I attended St. Mary’s Academy in downtown Portland, Oregon and went on to Portland State University. I achieved a degree in education and endorsements to teach both blind and mentally disabled individuals. After my sophomore year in college, I went to Holy Cross, Alaska where I “taught” sixth, seventh and eighth grade students in a single classroom. There were 30 students. They actually taught me. I loved the experience.

I came home and went back to school to earn my Masters in Education with an endorsement in teaching Handicapped Learners. I was a special education teacher and an administrator for over thirty years in three different school districts.

I retired in 2005. I had been creating art throughout my life, but only for myself and my family. When I retired I had more time for my art endeavors, journals, jewelry, photography and felting. I decided to center on my skills as a photographer and fabric artist. I was asked to be the Featured Artist at the Salem Art Fair and Festival in 2011 and had my felt shawls in the Clay Ball Auctions for three years. Shortly after that I joined the Red Raven Gallery where I was a member for about five years.

I am a self taught artist. This is due mainly to time constraints. I have learned a lot from information on line and from the books that I have purchased. I can say that I love learning new ways of doing art and am always striving to do more and better.My biggest challenge is that I don’t know what I want to be as an artist when I grow up and I have way too many materials to create way too many things with way too much imagination.

Artist Statement:

I grew up with a family of artists. They are not professionals, as in making their livelihoods from art, but all very talented in the pursuit of their individual arts. My father would walk through a forest, find a branch or root from a tree, come home and make a creature out of it. We grew up with these wonderful creatures. One such was “Clarence.” One of my brothers makes beautiful furniture, two others are acrylic artists.
As for me, I have loved the creation of art from my earliest memories.

My time in church was spent daydreaming about my art projects. I would come home and try my best to make my vision come to fruition without the benefit of the materials I needed. I grew up in a family of seven children and art materials were a low priority when food had to be put on the table and clothing had to be made. However, when it comes to artistic expression, there is always a way. I used my mother’s sewing scraps and left over yarn. There was always paper and crayons and supplies from school.

My love for photography began while I was attending Portland State College. I took some classes in black and white photography studying the work of Ansel Adams. And I was a devotee of the medium from that time forward. I love to play with photographs, am rarely satisfied with the picture as taken. It is the mystery that intrigues me. What will happen if I combine this picture with this one? Or this part with this? Or if this color changes…

I also discovered the art of felting several years ago when a friend brought me a felted scarf from an art fair. I loved the look and feel of it immediately and decided to learn how to make it. I went on-line, got in touch with felt artists, ordered books, and began to work. I worked at felting day and night for weeks until I was able to produce a scarf. I was hooked and haven’t stopped. There are also layers involved in making a felted fabric, and I don’t know until it’s finished what it will look like.