Christine De Camp - Living Art as Life

On a particularly wet and dark Northern California afternoon, we traveled through a storm to meet Christine DeCamp in Point Reyes, a few hundred feet from the ocean. The storm was such that it was often impossible to find a line of demarcation between the edge of the storm and the edge of the road. Arriving at her aged wooden home was like stepping from the undulating deck of a wind tossed ship to the safe and sane comfort of the dock.

DeCamp has been hunting for her own safe harbor for years, now, and the search is documented by her artistic outpourings. What the observer sees, and is touched by, is her emotional center. "The thing about abstract work is that it's conceptually based. My work is more like popular art. People can relate to it; they may not understand the imagery, but they relate to it. there's something about what I'm doing that is emotional. Coming not from the head, but from the heart. When I work fairs people come up to me and say that they are emotionally touched by what they see. It's not art about art, which a lot of work is now."
Jeweled borders on paintings, and paper mache' sculpted figures that have shells and bells, and pearls (along with other things) integrated into their design are not commonly accepted in the world of art galleries. She talks freely about her use of embellishments. The term `folk art' certainly isn't used in a complimentary way, here. 
"I think a lot of people in the art world have a problem with that. It's seen as craft, or as being connected with 'folk art'. When I add beads or something to my painting and someone like Robert Rauschenberg adds trash off the street to his paintings, they're seen differently. Part of it is that I'm a woman. To me, it's something that comes out of my background. It has to do with what I've done all my life, like sewing and working with fabric. It's connected to folk art and the idea of using what you have on hand. It also relates to Russian art, Icons and such, which I'm moved by. It's not something that's looked on favorably in the gallery world today, because people see it in a certain category."
There seems to be some feeling floating around that since `folk art' isn't, by its very nature, sophisticated, it isn't artistically valid. What, one wonders, makes Rauschenberg's use of a quilt with what appears to be paint thrown on the top more valid than the use of jewels in a border to add a sense of icon-like holiness to the figure of a woman suckling a bear cub? I particularly liked the photo I saw of Rauschenberg's sculpture. But the picture of that cub and the woman who nurtures it brought forth a stronger emotion. I saw it as an image of humankind nurturing the planet and its' inhabitants. Very positive. She started drawing and painting as a child, and found that she received positive attention for her work. Mostly, anyway. Few adults would praise a child for drawing on a wall. And her early burst of artistic energy caused her to try to fill all the empty spaces on every bit of paper in the house. When those ran dry, she turned to the wall as has many a youngster before her. But everything changed when she went to college. "I came from a really small sheltered community in north-western Pennsylvania. I was always the artist in my class and there was a lot of support. When I went to Philadelphia to this all-girl school I was totally unprepared for living in the city. There was a difference in the school, too. It was very competitive and there wasn't a lot of support for individual creativity."
This kind of treatment is difficult for a young person to work through, and she was derailed from pursuing her artistic career, at least for a while. She got an English degree instead, and turned away from painting. Batiking, fabric design, and weaving drew her to the textile department. Then she began doing sculpture and got a second bachelor's degree, with a major in sculpture. "I had a painting block for a long time. I wanted to paint but I couldn't. I painted my sculpture, but I wasn't doing paintings. I had this deep desire to paint. It was like I was stuck. It was funny, because when I was a kid I used to draw on everything. I used to draw on all the paper in the house. I would draw on the wall and get into trouble. It was something that came naturally to me and it just got stopped."
In 1981 she moved to California and began to come unstuck. Now she is truly a multi-media artist. She sculpts, paints, does ceramics, magnets and has a line of handmade cards. All of which has a legitimate basis in her feeling about where art is going in these modern times.
"I think that the whole art system is changing and more artists are taking control of their own careers and going out and meeting people. The gallery system is dying, basically, because it can't be supported. In order to support a gallery in downtown San Francisco, you have to earn so much money that the only people you can sell to are the high end collectors. With things like art fairs, a lot of middle class people can buy and have something that they like in their living rooms. I think there's more of an awareness of original art, and more appreciation by those people because they're out there seeing it."
DeCamp's world took a 90-degree turn in 1998. After years of sidelining in restaurant work, her back had called it quits. "Several years ago I started having some serious back problems--mostly caused by an intense waitressing job. I realized that the time had come to make a CHANGE in my lifestyle--but what? I took a couple of weeks off and went back east to visit family, and while I was there I went into this bookstore that was run by a woman who was in school with my older sister. There had never been a bookstore in the little town I grew up in--it's a very small town up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, surrounded by National Forest lands. This bookstore was adorable--new books with a local writer's section, a room in the back for readings, which also doubled as a gallery, and a little "tea room" next door where they served tea, cookies and sandwiches. It was lovely. And I said to myself--I COULD DO THIS!!!"
See more of Christine DeCamp's artwork at this website: www.artheals.org and http//www.abebooks.com/home/manchris. She also owns Manfred's Books in Pt. Reyes Station, named after her St. Bernard. Manfred's specializes in art books for adults and children. DeCamp exhibits her work there, and holds readings and special events. If you go to visit, be sure to take a dog biscuit (a big one, please) for Manfred, the ruler of the shop).
To send Christine an e-mail: manfredsbooks@hotmail.com

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