Eileen Bellamo

Name: Eileen Bellomo

Age: 60

Location: The Bronx, New York!!

Profession:  I am now retired, but I was an elementary school teacher for nearly 35 years.  More time to craft now.  Yea!

Craft(s) of Choice: I’ll try anything.  I knit, scrapbook, make cards, am obsessed with ATCs, have done fused glass, I take painting classes, and was a potter when I was younger and had a better back, lol.  Right now I pretty much confine myself to anything to do with paper.  I love paper and collect it shamelessly.

Blog: http://www.artsaveslives-paperqueen.blogspot.com

What got me started:  I was not quite 5, in kindergarten, and busy copying a picture of Abraham Lincoln that hung in front of the classroom. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be doing something else.  Instead of getting angry, the teacher called my mother and said, “get this child some art lessons.”  My mom registered me in a great children’s art program at the Brooklyn Museum, and every Saturday we went to a different gallery there,  and drew what we saw.  I mostly remember the African section, sitting on the floor, sketching the masks in a sketch pad that was almost larger than I was,  then going home and trying to make one myself with brown paper bags and assorted scraps.  Loved it then, love it now! Crafting frees me from day to day worries, gets me out of my own head for a while.  Like my blog name says:   Art Saves Lives!

Heather Cunningham

Name: Heather Cunningham

Age: 36

Location: Grant Park Atlanta

Profession: I’m a full time fine artist, potter & crafter

Craft(s) of Choice: Pottery, sewn goods

Blog: www.artreverie.com

I have fond memories of my father teaching me how to draw different things and he was always my hardest critic. It’s funny how while growing up I never considered my drawing or painting to be a hobby or an extracurricular activity. I quit everything else; tap dance, ballet, gymnastics, the violin, the piano … and all the while I was creating art to occupy my time.

I always used to complain that I had large hands, not like my sister’s petite little fingers, until later in life I realized I inherited my father’s very capable and talented hands and and eye for creating art with them. I look at my hands differently now. My father and his father and my mother’s father were all aspiring artists who had to give it up for mostly financial reasons and raising the family.

I am the first in my family to have a degree in art and pursue it full time and I do it for me because I’ve always known that what I wanted to do and I do it for them because they never had that chance. I have a BA with concentration in drawing and painting but have also discovered ceramics, sewing and other arts and crafts. I will be adding my first love; oil painting, back into my repertoire soon. In true Gemini fashion, I have my large hands in many types of projects and ideas.