Cynthia Cook: Recycled Materials Collage Artist / Queen of Ye Olde Analog / President of the TMAS (see below)

Sagewolf Interviews

Current exhibition
National Hispanic Cultural Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The scene:
We are sitting at Cynthia’s dining table inside her beautiful home, which is a sculptural display everywhere the eye travels. I’m obsessed with her kitchen, which has grey walls and ceiling to counter shelves stacked with colorful vintage ceramic Fiesta plates and bowls. The light coming from the windows is shaded and creates a sense of being enveloped inside a sacred space meant for contemplation and non-distraction. As I learn, this is intentional. Join us for our candid conversation about making a living as an artist with zero digital interaction.
Highlights:
+ Business name: Cynthia Cook Fine Art (no website, search her name)
+ The “Terrible Mutual Admiration Society” (TMAS) TM
+ Cynthia has a landline and writes letters - with stamps - that’s it!
+ No cell phone, no texting, no email, no social media
+ Talismans
+ @erincurrierfineart is a super-connector and “Godess Incarnata”
+ The new technology of the land and farming
+ Making a living as an artist for 34 years
+ Hard lessons - the best life teachers
+ “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden”
+ “There’s a lot of tooth and claw to life”
+ A description of Cynthia’s art process
+ Repoussé: patterns formed by hammering or pressing, esp. of metal
+ Collages made of trash - “enshrining natural ephemera”
+ Jewelry made from recycled metal from an origin of silver and gold-smithing
+ Refusing to work with newly-mined metals
+ @parsonsschoolofdesign Studio Art degree
+ The expectations of the modern digital world
+ “We don’t want to be with anybody who doesn’t want to be present with us”
+ Making an effort to be with people (is not texting)
+ The mark of the artist - “resisting the chicanery of the gnomes”
+ Choosing a perspective of optimistic hopeful belief
+ Carcass collage gifts from wild foxes
+ Cynthia knew she would be a working artist at 4 years old
+ The awareness and confidence of living hand-to-mouth
+ The arts are a time capsule of artists sharing through the ages
+ Balancing extroverted interviews and introverted nature
+ Hindsight, building blocks
+ “Quietly Courageous” (my biggest compliment ever!)
+ Having an organic, genuine exchange with another human
+ An archivist approach to documenting reality, anthropology
+ Clairaudio (like clairvoyance) - when you hear sounds others can not
+ Empathy and compassion and gifted sensibilities
+ Caring for aging parents, with Alzheimers
+ A young mind and an aging body
+ Warrior-healer-goddesses-type-people
+ Giving compliments is a lost art
+ Doing your art with whatever medium it requires
+ Live music is profound because the moment is lost as soon as you’ve heard it
+ Most of the behaviors we have are projections of our self
+ Do birds take it personally when an animal kills their young?
+ The qualities of a good Boy Scout - a post-it story
+ “Don’t worry twice” - wait for the data
A taste:
“I first encountered that saying at a job I had in college. I worked at a vintage clothing store for this fabulous goddess woman - it was kind-of a front for her drug dealing business. […] The only time she ever got in a car wreck was when she was trying to drive sober.”
Favorite saying:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom

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Love, Sagewolf xoxo