"The Carol Roberts Aspiring Artist Memorial Fund"
and Carol Roberts's Story

Carol and her new grandson, Devyn

is a fund, set up in lieu of flowers, designed to help new artists afford supplies and materials to start them on a journey of creation, discovery and
learning that will live with them and
inspire them the rest
of their lives.

We will have an annual show of new artists and their talents with these funds for as long as the 
Hill Family and Stanwood-Camano Arts Guild
are able.
 

Carol's Story
by Linda Hill, her daughter

Here in Snohomish county, my Mom, Caroline Roberts, wanted to go with me to nursing, rehabilitation facilities and other areas to teach art classes to anyone of any age who wanted them, just because she loved art and just because she loved people. She never got to go. Chronic illness, and then eventually her death, stopped us on October 28, 2013. 


With the help of Stanwood Camano Arts Guild, this memorial fund is my vow to awaken new artists of all ages to the wonder inside of them through art in her memory, much in the same way she was awakened. 

The theme and legacy of my Mom's entire life was about existing in a state of creative grace, awe and wonder without ever realizing it. Like many others, her reactions to life experiences beyond her control blinded her to the creativity and beauty of who she actually was inside. First, she never really had the chance to flourish as a person much less be an artist until later in life and, second, other experiences deprived her the confidence to even try until someone saw the fantastic in her art.   

In retrospect, my Mom Carol, never saw a thing actually for what it was, but what it could be. She saw potential in furniture, fixatives and failures. She saw it in polishes, permanent glues and people. She never gave up on a person or a piece of art. From literally the time I could remember, Mom was constantly making something: dollhouses, doll furniture, sculpting or sewing the dolls to even using real hair, often mine, to put on the dolls' heads. 

She made curtains, clothes, flowers for our house, sculpted, molded and painted ceramics, mixed glue, mop strands and grout together to make a mess that would eventually become a wonderful vision-frame. This is how she loved and this is the Light she held for the world and the Light that she instilled in me: the need to create. She was the epitome of the verse in Genesis "Made in the image of the Creator." She handed me the pencil and paper for my first drawing and gave me the words to my first sentence: "I wanna write. " (I was too young to pronounce "draw".)

This creative compulsion is what brought her through disabling poverty in her childhood, brutal neglect, a stint in an orphanage, sexual abuse, addiction to alcohol, domestic violence, a violence shelter, breast cancer and chemo until finally, through the hardest of her last days. The first words she said when when she came out of her last coma was, "I have canvases at home still, don't I? I want to paint. Can you bring me my art supplies?" You could have knocked us over with a feather. And, yes, we did bring her as much as we could carry.

Creating is how she celebrated love, life and beauty, but my Mom never realized she was an artist. She just "had to make things", as she saw it. It wasn't until she was diagnosed in 2003 with breast cancer, too tired and sick to move, that I "caught" her using those cheap, crappy paints to make what looked like something I'd chew my arm off to create. (You know, the tiny plastic pots stuck together that you get for $1?) Her painting was amazing. The cheap stuff was offensive. I snatched the paints- not politely, either- and said, "If you're going to paint THAT good, you need something better. Lets get you something you can actually work with." 

The look of surprise and somewhat shock that she could actually make something so beautiful that warranted real art supplies hit me in the solar plexus. She couldn't afford toothbrushes or good food in her childhood. My Dad wouldn't "allow" her to buy anything for herself in her adulthood. That moment, the thought that she actually gets to splurge on something she enjoys in her golden years was all so foreign. The look on her face in that moment is branded in my mind forever. 

This validation started her love of painting (and my love of openly believing in people) that gave us a common ground for the rest of our lives together. That moment instilled in me the need to create artists when the realization set in that other people exist who don't realize their worth, their creative potential, either.   

Now, with the help and blessing of the Stanwood-Camano Arts Guild's "Carol Roberts Aspiring Artist Memorial Fund", we can reach a few more.

Thank you so much for reading and/or donating. 
 

Checks may also be made to Carol's Memorial Fund (or any way you want to word it) and mailed to Stanwood-Camano Arts GuildPO Box 778
Stanwood, WA 98292

More recent paintings are coming soon. Forgive the older ones, I had "thrown" this together pretty quick.