Featured Artist Lydia Boddie-Rice

For Lydia Boddie-Rice, becoming visible is as much a creative process as the layered mixed media assemblages she creates. See more by visiting her website.

 

 

For years, I thought I was collecting images. Now I realize I was collecting questions.

 

 

As a trained illustrator, I have always been fascinated by the stories hidden within images. Whether working from my own drawings, photographs, memories, or found materials, I am drawn to moments, gestures, symbols, and unexpected details that invite a second look. An image may capture my attention, but it rarely represents the end of the story. More often, it becomes an invitation—a doorway into something not yet fully understood. My mixed-media assemblages begin with that invitation.

 

 

Using original illustrations, photography, fabric, paint, embellishment, and collected fragments, I explore what happens when an image is given permission to become something else. Many of my drawings are translated onto fabric and layered into compositions that evolve through cutting, fusing, assembling, concealing, and revealing. What emerges is often surprising, even to me. The finished work may bear little resemblance to its starting point, yet somehow it reveals something that was present all along.

 

 

Lately, I have been thinking about the difference between seeing and understanding. We live in a world saturated with images. We scroll, glance, consume, and move on. My creative process asks something different. It asks me to slow down, to look beneath the surface, and to remain curious about what might be hidden within a single image, memory, or experience.

 

 

Curiosity has become one of the most important forces in my work. I follow connections that do not always make logical sense. I merge illustration with fabric, personal memory with cultural symbolism, and fragments of lived experience with imagination. I trust that disparate pieces will eventually reveal a larger story. What begins as exploration often becomes discovery.

 

 

As my work continues to evolve, I find myself returning to the idea of exposure—not only in the photographic sense, but as a form of revelation. Layers are built, altered, concealed, and uncovered. Stories emerge. Meanings shift. What was hidden becomes visible. In many ways, this reflects my own experience as an artist.

 

 

People sometimes describe me as an emerging artist, but I do not feel as though I am becoming an artist. The artist has always been there. What is changing is my willingness to be seen. After years of creating alongside careers in education, counseling, leadership, and community engagement, I find myself stepping more fully into public view and embracing the creative identity that has accompanied me throughout my life.

 

 

Underlying this journey is a belief that art can illuminate, connect, and heal. Creativity has taught me that discovery is rarely a straight path. It unfolds through curiosity, courage, and a willingness to trust what cannot yet be fully seen.

 

 

Perhaps that is what art has been teaching me all along: To remain open. To stay curious. To trust the process of becoming. And to recognize that visibility is not the beginning of the story. It is simply another layer waiting to be revealed.

 

Lydia Boddie-Rice invites you to follow on Facebook, Instagram, Threads and BlueSky.

 

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