MY STORY

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        Nicole Durham AKA, The Caulk Artist, was born in Beidigheim, Germany in 1975 and moved to El Paso, Texas where she became a US citizen at the age of 8. Daughter to a German mother and African American father, Nicole shares how her travels as a military brat helped mold her creative soul:

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I started my love for art back when I was a little person, creating miniature cities out of old cereal boxes and chalk on the hot sidewalk streets in El Paso. I always had a love for the arts and remember falling in love with my high school art teacher, Mrs. Kusheid, and her passion to have a full-time art career. 

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In 1997, Nicole moved to Denver, CO, and art took a back burner to become a wife, a mother of two, and pursue a very active career in marketing. Following the tragic terrorist events of 911, Nicole and her family moved back to Texas. 

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Today, Nicole lives in Houston, Texas and after raising two amazing young humans, found herself with way too much free time on her hands. I had literally dedicated my life to my career, being a mom, and being a wife, and honestly, where would I have found time for much else then?

 

Life has a funny way of bringing us back to the things we truly love and the passions that call us...and now, I make abstract textured creatives with caulk and whatever objects I can find." 

 

Artist Statement

 

An Experimental Journey of Obstinance,

 

Creating textured artworks with caulk began as an experimental journey to explore my abandoned cultural and domesticated identities. The nontraditional medium is an industrial, and far more obstinate, material than traditional acrylic products, reconnecting me with ambitious emotions of endurance and sacrifice.

 

I thrive in the struggle, the determination, and the persistence that pressing and sculpting with caulk provides.

 

The porous material draws out the ambiguity of privileged creating, awarding the viewer with dramatic relief experiences. Caulk has challenged me to incorporate and do other mediums including collaging and assemblage practices.

 

Collaging and assemblage allow me to collect objects that are representative of my cultures. 

These objects become memories, history, a sense of nostalgia, and a form of documentation. 

To take care of these objects is to reminisce and to blend them is to preserve the culture. 

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                                                                                                                                                                 - Nicole Durham