thePULSE
November 2003 – Bright-eyed, animated, and articulate, she’ll soon be some lucky kid’s art teacher. Alethea Roy is preparing to be graduated later this spring from Mass College of Art with a degree in art education, finally realizing her long-time ambition. But it was not an easy road.
Things started out simply enough, Roy was born and brought up in the sleepy little town of Ware, not too far from the bustling metropolis of Worcester. She finished high school in Springfield and matriculated to Boston’s Mass Art in 1992, planning a career in Illustration. Somewhere along the line she realized that this field was too restrictive for her — her mind imagined things far beyond the scope of T-square and triangle. So she hit the road, traveling all the way to the Northwest coast where she settled in Seattle, making jewelry and continuing to develop and expand her interest in three-dimensional art. Eventually, Roy began to drift homeward, stopping briefly in Minnesota, before ending up at her current place, just over the line in Shrewsbury.
Having made her share of votive candles, handmade books, jewelry, tattoo flash, and dolls to be sold at street fairs and flea markets, Roy realized that although she will continue to communicate through her art, she really wanted to assist others in attaining that same goal for themselves, so she took up Art Ed. As a bonus, through her wide-ranging assignments she has been working in different mediums and exploring new areas of her own artistic development.
While adhering to the requirements of formal education, Roy has still found the time to raise her three-year old son, Desmond, as well as produce and show her own personal artworks. And her artworks are just that — personal. Her work tends to be thematic and based on incidents or situations that have befallen her. Her most recent theme has been the state of broken heartedness — something that crosses all ages and is both intimate and universal. Within that topic she has created a body of works including illustrations, dolls, reliefs, and artist’s books. Many of these objects were just recently shown at lux, a gallery in Somerville, where she is currently constructing an installation concerned with the obsessive/compulsive aspects of cleanliness. And what better place to assemble this, but in the gallery’s restroom.
Roy likes to create with whatever happens to be available at the time. She doesn’t really discriminate between media — certain ideas require certain materials. Her dolls are hand-sewn from found fabrics, often accented with a little paint and the occasional bits of beadwork, colored thread, or pins. Other dolls, made of paper, are painted with enigmatic expressions. Her most recent dolls are more realistic altered commercial playthings that are dressed in hand-sewn costumes, sport real hair, and — because of their inscrutable character – are not meant for children. She even went so far as to make herself into a doll in a performance piece. She wore her blue velvet college party dress, altered with hidden images of friends and acquaintances, which could only be seen if the frock were snipped with scissors à la Yoko Ono’s memorable performance, “Cut Piece.”
Many of Roy’s pieces are self-portraits. One rag doll with mismatched legs, a forlorn look, and real hair, portrays Roy during a more introspective time. Another item, “Circlage Doll,” came about because of a surgical procedure that kept her bed-ridden for a time. This experience also spawned a handmade book composed of all the hospital bills she incurred – embellished with choice handwritten phrases.
Self-portrait doll by Alethea Roy.A found book, “Winnowed Hymns,” with such Methodist songs as “Precious Blood” and “Wrestling Jacob,” provides the framework for Roy’s wry wit with her added writings and drawings. Her maze-style handmade Valentine book, “I have kissed over 50 people,” is a tell-all, tongue-in-cheek design that is based on particular interlude in Roy’s life.
Roy recently made her debut in the Worcester art scene as a participant in the fund-raiser at Clark University for the “stART on the Street” art festival, by offering one of her mended heart sculptures to be sold – which it was.
As ominous or disconcerting as many of her creations may appear, perhaps Roy’s most successful work to date has been a brightly colored, multi-layered accordion book, “Chugga Chugga,” made for Desmond — who can’t seem to get enough of it.
