Cynthia Cusick

BIO

Two roads diverged in the woods and I—

I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.

— Robert Frost

I am a product of my environment. I grew up poor in terms of money and material things but not in terms of experience. I grew up in a suburban town in the New York City vicinity, just north of the Bronx. I grew up in the shadow of the Big Apple and was intimidated by its culture, crime and attitude but dove into the deep end after high school and ended up spending 15 years living in Manhattan and Brooklyn, sometimes in areas inhabited by pimps, dealers and prostitutes. I pre-gentrified before I knew what the term meant. I did as my Uncle Frank said; I OBSERVED. I immersed myself in the energy and grittiness of the City, walking the pavement, riding the subway, watching the people, testing the energy, feeling alive, like I had broken free. I photographed. I drew. It was a two-dimensional world of self-expression.

But I yearned for an element of desire experienced in my suburban apartment childhood that the asphalt and brick of Williamsburg and Greenpoint couldn’t fulfill, the mystery and discovery of the natural world, the real environment that the human environment inhabits. I would sit in front of my computer at my job as a graphic designer in Manhattan and look out the window, twisting my neck and looking up for a glimpse of what the day was like and all that blue sky I was missing. I thought about the times as a kid I would lose the day wandering behind the apartments on Garth Road in the woods behind them, spending hours upon hours digging through the dirt and clay banks by the river, finding bugs and turning up rocks in the stream for crayfish or something else exciting. I missed that sense of discovery and wonder, that aspect of being alive.

I was at another turning point in my life, a fork in my path. I dumped myself in the deep end again and took off for rural countryside of Kentucky. Why Kentucky? My sister was already here and it was cheap. I rediscovered my sense of awe. I fulfilled childhood dreams long thought abandoned. I added a dimension to my life experience and added a dimension to my self-expression.

I am a product of my environment. My art is a product of my life experiences and would not be possible at any other time but now.