Heather Hicks: Adventures in Art Making

I never set out to be an artist, but I have always loved to learn. At 19, I injured my back. What followed was years of chronic pain, fatigue, and the slow, painful shrinking of what I thought life could be. 

Being creative gave me something back. It helped me feel connected to the world and gave me a sense of accomplishment. Creating gave me a sense of importance I thought I’d lost. I may not have been able to pursue the roles I once imagined for myself, but I found something just as valuable in making art.

I first created in art journals. Art Journaling  magazine published pictures of my journals with accompanying articles I wrote for them from 2011-2016. From then I traveled to mixed media workshops several times each year and continued to learn new skills. 

In 2021, I started working in a digital format, and took drawing classes online. Figure drawing interested me most, so I took two courses from different teachers. The work here comes from the portfolio I built while learning to draw, digitally.

Something to think about, when you erase on a digital drawing, the surface becomes clean again no matter how many hundreds of times you do it. Erasers on paper leave behind a lot of evidence.

I live in Iowa with my husband and my service dog.