Meet Tara Stallworth Lee
What is your name and where do you live?
My name is Tara Stallworth Lee and I live in Birmingham, Alabama.
Describe your creative process.
I carry a simple desire to cultivate a greater intimacy with the world. Invariably, I'm pursuing golden nuggets of interest that I sense are seeking me out, too, inviting me to dive into a singular person, thought, or idea. I Google and read and think and run. I try, test, and play with materials, my mind's radar wide open. I do, undo, and redo with frequent pauses (sometime years!). A mental, emotional, and physical rhythm emerges, the distilled components eventually collaged into a basic harmony. I get a buzz from this experience of focused chaos and keep multiple projects orbiting simultaneously.
Describe your piece in the exhibition and its connection to the theme.
SOUL NEST is made from a salvaged bird feeder discovered with a vacant hornets' nest secured to the inside ceiling. It was painted white, perhaps like a summertime cloud or maybe for peace and tranquility, and a quote borrowed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge was painted on the hinged roof and sides:
"[S]He looked at [her] own soul with a telescope. What seemed all irregular, [s]he saw and showed to be beautiful constellations; and [s]he added to the consciousness hidden worlds within worlds."
A bird's nest from my collection was tucked inside, holding and protecting a mica rock placed on a tiny blanket that was knitted by my daughter when she was a little girl. I thought about a parent’s instinct to nurture and protect coexisting with self-love, self-protection, introspection, and imagination. Within the apparent simplicity of the self (the little mica rock), there are layers of consciousness, experiences, and potential yet to be discovered and understood.
What was your first love?
My little black poodle, Joey. My parents gifted him to me when I was five or six.
What could you happily look at every day for the rest of your life?
My children, Kiwi and Annie. (To be sure!) my grandson, Davis, who will be arriving in a couple of months! Lou's eyes while he's looking at me. The sweetest face of our terrier mix, July (Julie). The Milky Way from the Shed in Monroe County. Our northern view from our little mountain on Observatory Drive. Art.