I have been married for 21 years and I am a mother of 2 boys. I have always lived in either East Tennessee or Kentucky in very small towns and rural areas surrounded by woods, hills and an abundance of nature. Nature is one of my passions of life and one of the biggest inspirations in my work. I love to try to find ways of incorporating natural things into the clay like rocks, dirt, feathers, herbs, that kind of thing.
People tell me that I have the ability to express my raw emotions through my work. I never really set out to intentionally make things that mimicked what I was feeling but I look back at work I have done in the past and can see a vivid reflection of what was happening in my life at that time. I think that I use my work as a tool to "cope" with life in general. Usually when I am stressed or unsettled I get this huge urge to just feel clay in my hands . A lot of the time I don’t have any idea what I am going to make I just play around and see what comes out. Other times I will have a distinct idea stewing about in my head for months before I ever decide to actually make it.
Working with polymer clay has opened doors to many things people and places that I would never have experienced without it. I have truly enjoyed teaching polymer clay classes for the past seven years. Being a self taught artist, I find that I learn so much myself as I am instructing others in a class.
Leslie Blackford
What Leslie feels inside just flies out of her fingertips! It's as natural to her as breathing. Her work speaks. Her art comes directly from her heart and quite a wonderful heart it is.
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