Art is everywhere, though I didn’t see that for most of my life. I am Billie Davids and I have almost no education in art only practice but I think one of the first rules of painting is to paint what you know and are interested in. Here I am though calling myself an artist, a creationist really, as we all are, but I am in the experimental category although my medium remains the same so far. I have found I really do have three area’s of fascination affiliated with my creations. Faces - I was the fourth of girl of five with a large extended family close by raised in the 50‘s, and the entertainment for me was listening to the stories around the kitchen table and watching the faces. The faces that were telling the stories were telling history, humor, quite probably gossip and opinion, but also personal testaments. When I bought myself a camera in 2001 I started taking pictures. What I saw again in the faces of those people were their lives. So when I started to paint I started there, with the faces, and they still fascinate me to this day. I have found Iowans are wonderfully creative, insightful, forward minded people, from a great state, where people work hard and play with purpose. Genuinely too I am interested and curious about people. On our faces we wear Characteristics, Thoughts and Elements from our dragons to our faith. I want to in some way document those Elements. Charts/Human Alchemy - Along about my fifth painting I woke up thinking about the Periodic Table of Elements that has placed me firmly with the fascination with the Universe and my respect for it. I’ve been side tracked more often than not, this was one of those times and after I mapped it out, from a chart I found in an old dictionary, I painted The Periodic Table using paint left over everyday from the other paintings I was working on eventually all the squares got filled in then a month or so to dry and the process of the white ink letter began. This is a chart, of supposedly everything in the Universe though they are still introducing others. Who wouldn’t want to paint that? From this two other charts were imagined and painted as, The Table of Human Qualities and Characteristics, and A Modern Study of Cognitive Practices. By painting the others I’ve built a belief system in the connection and all together a part of a huge DNA system connecting us to a Universal DNA system. Connecting myself with Human Alchemy, I discovered I wanted to become a better cell, then on to the Absolutes. Learning - My third fascination is learning. The Elements teach me to further understand that every decision, thought, adventure even the one’s I envision, every bite that I taste is an Element and connection to nature, to love and to you. As these Elements enter and leave me, I am changed just as those who cross my path change me. Now my interest is expanding, I am going on from there with my journey of the Elements into the Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Spirit. That is where the random pictures of flowers, a river scene from Lindsey Park in Davenport Iowa, or three little girls in tutu’s come from. I look at something and I wonder how to paint it. Some turn out to be flops but even in the flops I learn. I continue to be fascinated by all kinds and mediums of art, linoleum block, poster art, abstract, the list goes on. I think we are all extraordinary people trying to find our way in the world maybe in fear or maybe with an open mindedness but always toward each other. I believe, “some part” of my inner-contentedness with you all involves painting. My works also bear the name Billie Davids, if you are looking for her, you are also in the right place. So here I am described in seven paragraphs from Le Claire, Iowa but that is not nearly all there is to me. It’s not even nearly all there is to me the artist.
Thanks for looking, et al. Billie Little (563) 349-3338 www.billielittleart.com
