Erin Kleider

Artist, carver, sewer, wooden doll extraordinaire

When you first present a written profile of yourself to the world, it is incredibly daunting. How in the world can you possibly encapsulate everything you are into a paragraph? And while I consider myself to be an artist, I live and breath art, art surrounds me, I am art, I wear art and I find art in so many of the little things that people do, that to me, categorizing what kind of art I do is impossible. I create as an idea takes my fancy and I try to follow it to see where it takes me. I create using so many things, food, paint, paper, glue, wood, metal, cloth, camera, feelings, words...that I think rather than limit myself to a focused profile, I'd rather share with you the things about myself that make me into the artist I am. I am one of the Beloved of Christ, I am an adoring wife of a talented and inspiring computer artist, I am a mother of two beautiful, intelligent and awe-inspiring children that to me are the best art I could have EVER put into the world, I am a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a friend. I love the environment and I love peace. I never do anything without, at some point, analyzing it to death, and while I write spontaneously, usually long and painful self analysis has gone on behind the scenes for me about the topic I am writing, not always, but often. I feel deeply...so deeply in fact that some days it just hurts while on others the whole world feels sunny. I feel so deeply that I often take the emotions of others into myself, which, believe me, can be both a blessing and a curse. I love to read, I love to write, I love to take pictures, I love my family. I love to carve. I love to make dolls. I love to make people laugh, smile, cry and feel just about anything in the world. I love to make people feel alive, special, important. So at this point, rather than give you my art dossier, seeing that I am not trying to become professional in anything I do, I am going to say that living is my art, that opening my eyes each morning to see what the world has to show me and travel the path God wants me to travel is my focus. My favorite quote right now comes from the song “Nature Boy” that was written by eden ahbez, “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” Love is a profound thing. And I must admit, I consider myself very blessed indeed to be loved and surrounded by the people I care about most in the world, every day of my life. I wish the same for you.