I am an American artist based in Porto, Portugal currently in the process of immigrating to Portugal. Looking back, it was clear in my early childhood that I was destined to be a maker. What wasn’t clear as how that path was going to manifest itself in my life.
My early adult years were about aimlessly wandering around the forest of life without a sense of direction. This was followed by a period of self discovery and getting my sh*t together. By the time I was in my mid 40s, I had built a nice life for myself. I had a great career, owned my apartment in Manhattan, and then met and married my amazing husband. All the while I had put my creative self on the back burner for the better part several decades.
My journey to where I am at today has been an unequivocally uneven. Over the years, I’ve acquired a wide variety of skills and talents. Some through sheer need, others as a direct result of my endless curiosity. Recent years have enabled me to resign from the paid workforce and explore various mediums of creating art. I have done woodcut print making, digital generative art making, various painting techniques with acrylics and oils, and working with hot wax creating encaustics.
My passion is working with encaustics making works using simple materials like beeswax tinted with pigments to create layers of intrigue and interest. However, logistics and reality limit my time to working with wax to the warmer months of the year. During the colder months, I focus on the joys of making simple mixed media abstract works with acrylics, watercolor, and inks.
There are a million ideas floating about my head. I am now tasked with filtering them down to a realistic quantifiable body of work. This is where I am at now. I will be spending much of 2026 working on my first serious series to establish my mark on the world.
It is never too late to make a start, it could be argued that starting is what we do every day, all the time, at every moment.
Each moment we can make a change, begin anew or continue unthinkingly with the old. I choose new beginnings as I move through my life, I savor what I have experienced and move on to fresh experiences . . . few rules apply. Join me as I explore this next stage of my creative life.
Devyn Caldwell