MARGARET KILGALLEN: WHERE THE BEAUTY IS

To say I love the work of Margaret Kilgallen would be an understatement. To say I’m obsessed with her influences and body of work would be putting it mildly. I ask you this, how many banjo playing, freight train tagging, former bookbinding, amish quilt-making, artists do you know? She is just inspiring…period…and even though she passed away at 34, her work continues to be relevant, exciting and beyond the scope of anything I usually experience.

As I sit in front of a computer daily, sometimes over 8 hours a day, I find her ideas about the imperfection of art and the importance of making things with your hands inspiring and important to return to. Hope you find inspiration in this lady too!

“I like to see people's hand in the world, anywhere in the world; it doesn't matter to me where it is. And in my own work, I do everything by hand. I don't project or use anything mechanical, because even though I do spend a lot of time trying to perfect my line work and my hand, my hand will always be imperfect because it's human. And I think it's the part that's off that's interesting, that even if I'm doing really big letters and I spend a lot of time going over the line and over the line and trying to make it straight, I'll never be able to make it straight. From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is.”
                                                                                   -Margaret Kilgallen. 1967-2001.