Hanging modifier aside, I found these incredible turned wooden handbags at the Gallery of Wood Art (which in itself is a gem) in Landmark Center, downtown St. Paul. They're made by an Oakland, CA wood worker, Denise DeRose, denisederose.com. Yes, i thought they were beyond amazing and unique but i don't get out much, so i turned to the googlenets which confirmed, they are amazing and unique. So i got busy and pitched the living daylights out of this idea to magazines high and low. It was only after Oakland magazine responded that i thought i'd better let Denise in on the whole venture.
i just talked with her today by phone. Her day job is an attorney, but she said creating something physical is a biological imperative. Here's how she described this creative need/compulsion/expression:
All of my career as an attorney, I have had a yellow pad on my desk. I alternate between my word-based logical rational job as an attorney, and running to my yellow pad where I MUST sketch something real. These days – a handbag, but in the past, landscaping plans, additions to my house, carpentry projects, lamps I was refurbishing, pots I was throwing. I have to do something in the real world. It is enormously satisfying to have made something that did not exist before, and that only exists now because I conceived and executed it. If I did not have my day job, I think I would do more pleasure reading than I do now, and I am pretty sure I would write more. (My need to create extends to words as well.) But I am pretty sure I would not be driven to go out and find a case to try. Practicing law is like speaking a foreign language: I can do it and I can do it well, but my mother tongue is creating with my hands.
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