About me
I have always just made stuff. My hands hate to be still, and I also have
a supernatural aversion to throwing things away. I am quite the pack rat!
When I was little I made doll house furniture and clothes and props for
my dolls. I had this doll house that I'd constantly be gluing stuff to
and wallpapering and making furniture for. To make little doll beds, I
started gluing fabric all over those little gift boxes that you get jewelry
in. I didn't even know what decoupage was, but I started doing it! My Mom
and the parents of my friends would have us doing craft projects fairly
often, so making things was always something that I did.
In high school, I used to make a lot of cool custom mix tape covers for my friends
and I would make them durable by coating them with scotch tape. Eventually, I
started to use packing tape. I have made collages from found ephemera ever since,
and I love clear packing tape, you can laminate all kinds of stuff with it. The
duct tape stuff kind of followed a similar path. I started by repairing a wallet
of mine with duct tape, then I figured I could make a billfold out of a file
folder and cover it with duct tape. I made more duct tape wallets, and eventually
eliminated the file folder and just stuck the tape to itself. To this very day,
I make improvements to my wallet and purse making process, It is always changing
and evolving. Just this week I figured out a better way to make a purse closing
latch. I have also always loved to make jewelry. I discovered and fell in love
with the Fimo and Sculpey clays in grade school and was always making beads and
jewelry for my friends and family. I taught myself how to wrap wire around beach
glass and marbles and made lots of marble necklaces. I took all the art and theatre
classes that I could in high school. I mostly built sets and did tech work, so
I learned a lot about how to make things from some fantastic teachers, and my
parents were always teaching me how things worked. My Dad made sure that us kids
knew how to use power tools and ladders and stuff. And my Mom always encouraged
my art making. She was extremely encouraging and positive, but She didn't just
gush over it all the time. sometimes she was pretty critical. It provided a good
challenge and since I'm very stubborn, her comments acted as motivation to push
my work further. I'd be slightly mad about something she said and I thought "I'll
show her!"
In collage I took ceramics, metal smiting and jewelry making on top of my graphic
design classes. I loved everything I tried! After college, I worked for about
a year, and then my boyfriend and I decided to throw caution to the wind an move
to Arizona to be closer to some rippin' mountain biking. (my other favorite activity!)
While in the desert I met a few really special artists who inspired me to do
more with my work. In Arizona I really had more time to make art, and I refined
my style and kind of got a better handle on where I wanted to take my art work.
I made letter pressed packaging for the wallets and started selling them at a
few local stores. We had a blast there, but it wasn't the right place for us
to stay and build a future, so after about 3 years of fun in the red rocks and
scorching sun, we came back home to Milwaukee. My confidence has grown a lot
in the past few years and things are really starting to take off. This past year
I had my first gallery show of my sculptural work here in Milwaukee at Bucketworks,
where I have found a wonderful community of artists to be creative with. And
now with art fairs like Art Vs. Craft, and the renegade art fair, and magazines
like Ready Made, my style has a community and an audience that I never thought
existed! I'm so excited!
The graphic design jobs that I've had all along always have great creative people
to work with and be influenced by as well as providing for my art and bike habits.
(Oh, and providing for the other life needs too!)
These days I bike to work, work all day, then go to my studio and make stuff,
bike home, fall into bed exhausted and happy and do it again the next day! I'm
so busy with creativity and art making that I barley have time to eat! Life is
so good.
Thanks for this opportunity.
Becky Tesch