Interview with Cynthia Darling

Cynda, our Summer 2024 MYEEP Intern at SFWA Gallery, has interviewed Cynthia Darling, a talented artist for SFWA. Cynda asked Cynthia about her passion for art, her artistic practice, and its purpose:

“I have always been a maker of things. When I was six, I lived with my Grandparents, [and] I made pot holders.” She used the money from selling the pot holders to buy more supplies. “My great Aunt was a seamstress in New York City and she taught me how to sew. It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I found a passion for jewelry. Then I moved to Michigan, to continue my graduate work. I made time on the weekends to do art shows in the summer.”

“There is no purpose to my art. I like to make jewelry, and I only make jewelry that I love. I don’t follow any trends and I don’t make things just to sell. I just want to surround myself with beautiful stuff and I have a lot of beautiful stuff. Some of it is really funky.”

“A few years ago, I took art lessons at Artworks.” However, Cynthia began to realize that she’s more of an abstract painter, so she quit. She states, “It took another two years to develop my own style of mark making on acrylic paint which I now refer to as Geometric Abstraction.”
“Almost all of my [jewelry] pieces are one piece of wire that I bend, and then I add hooks.” Cynthia says that she spends a lot of time at the gallery. “I like the people that come in, I know them very well. I have really good times with the artists. I’m always inspired by their work, [and] I’ve bought a lot of pieces from this gallery. [It] is primarily what I look forward to.”