In this episode of the show, we welcome artist and photographer Karen J. Lloyd. She talks with Inclusive Arts Vermont’s Heidi Swevens about coming to terms with incorporating disability into her identity, how Lyme Disease changed her life, and a painting by Lloyd that is part of Inclusive Arts Vermont’s CYCLES exhibit: an image of a red-and-gold phoenix on a tranquil blue background.

Karen graduated from the University of Vermont in 2004, with departmental honors. The CYCLES exhibit has been on tour around Vermont for the past year, and is currently in residence at CDCI’s offices in Mann Hall on the University of Vermont campus, in Burlington, Vermont.

https://youtu.be/5GsJ-bai5jc

A full transcript appears below.

Heidi Swevens: Hello, and my name is Heidi Swevens. I have been asked to do a guest host for the Green Mountain Disability Stories Podcast and I’m thrilled to be here with artist Karen Lloyd. So, for access, my name is Heidi Swevens, I use she/they pronouns. I’m the director of Community Partnerships and Exhibitions with Inclusive Arts Vermont, and I’m also a disabled artist and really thrilled to be here. I am a 50 something white human with blue eyes and pale skin and short brown hair. Today I’m wearing a turquoise turtleneck sweater and there’s a soft focus behind me and I’m really excited to be in conversation with Karen Lloyd.

So, Karen, please introduce yourself.

Karen Lloyd: Hi, I’m Karen Lloyd and I also, I use she/her pronouns and I am a 42-year-old fair skinned woman with very long strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. I’m wearing glasses and a turquoise heart necklace and a teal sweater. I am sitting in my living room today in Winooski.

Heidi: Wonderful. And so the Green Mountain Disability Stories Podcast is about stories of people with disabilities in Vermont, and today we’re going to be talking with you about, we’ll start with a piece that’s in the CYCLES exhibition, phoenix, and then we’ll just see where the conversation takes us. So, Karen, if you don’t mind, just tell the audience a little bit about your piece that’s in CYCLES, “Phoenix”.

Karen: Thanks, Heidi. So, my piece, “Phoenix Rising” is an acrylic on canvas and the original is actually is an eight by 10. It was the first piece I’d done in a while and it was a little over a month before my 40th birthday, so sort of the precipice of sort of that change of a new decade. And so a lot of self-reflection happening and I hadn’t done actually more full-sized painting in a while, but that one just hit me so hard and it really wanted to come out once that idea was planted. And so I worked on it for all the weeks basically leading up to my 40th birthday and finished it just before my birthday, which meant a lot to me to sort of have that timing. It really felt like the phoenix is this mythological creature that sort of represents rebirth and transitions and overcoming and persevering and being a disabled artist now for over a decade, it has felt like a symbol to me to look to even for my own inspiration.

So, I think sometimes people think as an artist we’re putting out to the world, but it’s also been my own inspiration back to me and it felt like a symbol of everything I’ve overcome, having Lyme Disease actually starting when I was a UVM student and the challenges that happened even just to get to graduation in a good way. And even then persevering and graduating with honors, but that being very difficult and taking a lot more effort. And then going through the past 20 years really of struggling with all the effects of Lyme Disease and what came through that as fibromyalgia and the migraines and the brain fog and the fatigue. And so hitting that 40 and looking both back and forward of what is the rest of my life going to look like?

And at the same time I was just about to contemplate the big decision of divorce.

So, it was also a really big life stage change in my life as I was starting “Phoenix” and now I can look back two years later and I am officially divorced. And so having that painting of mine to even look through during the past couple years now, it has really sort of helped when it’s been difficult.

And remembering the phoenix actually it rises from its own ashes, so there is that fire and it might be pretty intense at times and seem really dark and not so fun, but in the end the phoenix does come back and it rises and it’s beautiful and it’s strong and it really is something that I’ve held onto. This is sort of where it all began.

A TV tray table laid out with a canvas of a phoenix with paints and photos of various birds. The table sits in front of a glass door leading to a small deck thronged with plants.

You can see I have — it’s actually just like a TV tray table — by my glass sliding door with a view of my garden and beyond. Because my garden is a big inspiration to me. It’s my happy place when it’s not snowing in Vermont. And so from like roughly May to October, that tends to be a place I hang out a lot.

I also have a few reference photos on my table of real peacocks and I did that so that I could see just the way they move, the way their feathers go and get an idea of how does a real bird have motion. And I wanted that to sort of be loosely reflected in my phoenix. It was kind of wild: the way I like, drew the phoenix is I didn’t even really draw.

Heidi: Nice.

A close-up of the background of the painting, showing brushstrokes in bright blue, dark blue and lavender

Karen: And this is just another more close-up of, so you can see the various shades of blues and teals, a little bit of the purple of the background and lots of movement and then just the most basic outline of the phoenix, and it was kind of wild. The way I drew the phoenix is I didn’t even really draw it. I painted the outline solid. And so that was even an interesting process because I didn’t draw just a thin outline and then go from there. I sort of painted its body, if you will, solid, if that makes sense. And then built up from there.

Heidi: I was just going to say, as you’re describing this, I’m hearing you just also articulate and say how different this process was for you, which is maybe some version of a newness in the process for creating it, which may or may not be relevant. So, I didn’t mean to interrupt you even though I did, but I wanted to [inaudible 00:06:40]-

Karen: That’s okay.

Heidi: … it escapes me. Yeah.

Karen: I never even really thought about it before, but that’s such a good point of, there’s actually quite a lot about the phoenix that was me trying new things and it just working out that way. It wasn’t like I necessarily even set out initially to, okay, let’s see how many different things we can do. But I guess looking back now, that’s true, there was a lot to this process even starting with the Sharpie drawing, which is not how I normally begin a piece of work.

Episode 33: Karen J. Lloyd & Heidi Swevens