Nicole Licht
Painter and crafter
Tell us a bit about yourself:
I went to art school. I gave birth to my daughter a few days shy of my 23rd birthday; I’ve been a mom for 13 years.
I work for an art non-profit as a teaching artist in underperforming, underfunded public schools. I frequently have bouts of pretty extreme anxiety. Most people don’t know that, I suppose can mask it pretty well or maybe they’ve gathered…
I’m awfully remote. If left without a task or anchor, I’m bound to spin out. Hm, I don’t think I ever come right out and said that but my struggle with and against that has greatly shaped how and what I do.There are very few people I can spend extended time with comfortably.
What do you make?
I make dolls, hand stitched bits, drawings, collages, paintings, wearable things and dinner.
Where else on the web can we find you?
My etsy shop
My flickr site
My blog
I made a small collection of plush for Ses Petites Mains
And I’m working on some things that will be available at The Shiny Squirrel
What did you dream about last night?
chipped toe nail polish, dark rooms and alleys, my own sordid past after checking out tethered to the sun’s websites.
What inspires you?
Clouds, discard, fragility and those out on a limb.
People who think and care and do.
Irrational love
My fear of utter collapse
Where do you live and what do you like about it?
I live in the Crown Heights or Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, depending on which map you look at.
Even though the buildings are often beautiful, the streets are dirty, the fruits and vegetables are a bit off and there is a sadness that hovers around the unnecessarily abundant discount/99c stores.
People are gruff, struggling.
I feel sad that ambient negativity trickles down to my daughter. I’d like to say more of what I like about right here because I’m sure there is much I’m missing but to be very honest, I really don’t have very much access to those good bits as an outsider for three years now. Save for some yummy rotis and some excellent Jamaican health food shops, it's not been the happiest local. I spend time looking at handmade tree houses online these days and I’d move us if I could afford to.
What is your biggest fear?
A photo I saw of people struggling, smashed against each other, trapped behind a chain link fence at a British football game gone riotously awry in a Sports Illustrated, while in a dentist office waiting room, as a child, has never left me …so I suppose being forced to witness an utter collapse of humanity, to be sandwiched against dead or dying, powerless is my biggest fear. Oh I hope I didn’t give anyone nightmares with that. Terrifying.
Name a few of your favorite movies \ books \ websites \ bands:
I love movies like…Me You and Everyone We Know, Mama Roma, The Marriage of Maria Braun (really any Fassbinder film), The Science of Sleep
Sewing has stolen my reading time…
But some favorites are Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
My musical tastes and website favorites show how fickle I really can be. I love love love something than drop it and move on… right now I like crooners and Okkervil River’s The Stand Ins is my guilty pleasure, I torture myself with websites like The Selby
I like artists like Gerhard Richter, Sophie Calle, Kai Althoff.
What are you really good at? What are you really bad at:
I’m really good at carefully listening to people but I’m really horribly rude with my constant interrupting.
I’m really good at working hard long hours on a given task but I’m really horrible at keeping a schedule and finding time to do all that must be done.
What is your favorite thing to eat?
Apples, leafy green vegetables and good crusty bread.
How would you like to be remembered?
Oooh that question worries me.
What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?
Oh cmon…. It’s too frequent. My shyness makes me awkward, childish, worried if people like me… or worse that they already don’t, I stutter and start thinking that perhaps I am drooling …actually drooling! It’s all a recipe for disaster. Being a mom sort of tempers things though. I get to honestly say ‘oh don’t worry, it’s not so bad…or you know that happens to everyone’.
Anything else you would like to say:
’ve made plush dolls for just over a year. Before that my work was much different, darker, more conceptual, often not very family friendly even. I’m still wondering if reconciliation is in order and exactly how one would organize that.
And thank you. Truly, thank you for inviting me to take part in this wonderful project.