Valerie Downs is an American artist with over 15 years of classroom, elementary art instruction, and mindfulness experience. Dedicated to promote learning and practices that better one’s relationship with the world, she holds an Illinois State Board of Education Professional Educators License, is certified in K-12 Art and K-6th General Education, has an adult yoga-certification, has trained as a Crisis Counselor with over 200 hours of experience, and has been an animal rescue trauma and recovery volunteer assisting projects in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and China.

Valerie describes her creative career much like a “Lazy Susan” — sections of herself igniting different forms of creative expression. Depending on what life is presenting and what her mental configuration requires of her to function in a normative society, her creativity shifts regularly. During her time at ´ace, Valerie worked tirelessly and meticulously on handmade papers that she scratched pierced and intervened with deer fur, feathers, and her own hair. The result was a series of pieces that had both geometric and organic elements, resembling, in a way, her own path through life.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Using items most would overlook: shed fur, feathers, dirt, rust, and hair, I ask the viewer to reconsider established practices. Coming to terms with a late-in-life neurodivergent diagnosis, my work created during this residency questions what “normal” materials are and why. By scraping, tunneling, sewing, picking, and peeling fragile vintage paper, I unknowingly released internalized tension, guilt, and shame while working through what my neurospicy reality means, how it feels, and what considerations are required in moving forward. The resulting mixed media series, La Precaria, is an intimate visual representation of the psychoanalytic process in healing and recovery.