This year, after I got the last of three homeschooled kids into college, I had enough hands free to start making the things I've been seeing in my imagination for many years. I call my works "narrative textiles" as they all involve some form of fiber, knitting, weaving, spinning, stitchery, several kinds of felting, printing original photos on silk, beading and various sorts of construction in combination with original poetry or "lyrics".  I use quite a lot of "repurposed materials"-- which sounds better than "stuff I dig out of other people's trash."
 
I have discovered that, even if you are just an old granny who only knits and felts and can't paint with oils or compose music, you can STILL have an art-voice.... and it DOES NOT have to be polite. Dark and scary and angry and sad voices are ok-- even for women-- even for OLD women. LIFE is often dark and REAL scary, but still extremely beautiful. I enjoy doing dark, morbid, creepy art-- but in a good-natured way. It's all just my own post-post-modern aesthetic, but I prefer dark reality and angry beauty to cheery prettiness.

I have a couple of semesters of college-level training in the fine arts, and I have tried to learn from some wonderful craft-persons. I'm not patient enough, however to really hone skills in any single area, so I'm just going to keep banging the rocks of many art and craft forms together, hoping to strike sparks sooner or later.

Roger Cardinal describes "outsider" artists as having "profound strangeness and integrity"-- that's what I aspire to when I grow up.

Shows
 
July 2009, "Demented Little Rabbits", duo show with Fran Lakatos, at Cranky Yellow, St. Louis, MO. Have been invited to show there again next summer.
 
August 14, 2009- September 26, 2009, "Sew What", Flax Gallery at Art Dimensions, St. Louis, MO
 
August 2009, two semi-wearable pieces are being used in a music video for Strych9Hollow, St. Louis, MO

October 24 2009, "Halloween Art Show and Party", Koken Art Factory, St. Louis, MO

October 29-30 2009, "Damned II", Tangent Gallery, Detroit, MI
 
 November 2009, "Danse Macabre III" in London and Nottingham, England
 
 
Contact info:

Lynn Graznak Saults
1715 Bettina Dr.
Columbia, MO 65202
 jssaults@gmail.com