Meet Tisha Dolton

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tisha Dolton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tisha below.

Tisha, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I still struggle with imposter syndrome. For me, it comes from a place of wanting to be perfect. The idea I that could not claim to be something if I was not the best at it, if I lacked the credentials to back it up. I allowed those thoughts to hold me back for a long time. I would lift up others, but not myself. Then I turned 40. I realized I needed to claim my place in the spaces I thought I didn’t belong. The more I introduced myself as a historian, singer, artist, the more I began to believe those things to be true. Claiming “artist” was the most challenging. Somehow I thought there could only be one artist in the family and that was my older sister. But I applied for an art exhibition in 2016 after a friend told me “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” I was accepted. It was a four person show called Environmental Portraits. My embroidered portraits were featured along with paintings, sketches, drawings, and mixed-media works. It was thrilling. And I just kept applying. Now, at 50, I have participated in over 35 regional and national art shows.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am truly nerdy. I am fascinated by the Women’s Suffrage Movement. I am constantly researching local women involved in voting rights. I sing suffrage songs in concerts and history presentations. I embroider portraits of suffragists. I have an ongoing series called the “Suffragist Tea Cozy Project”. It started out as a grant project made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts, and administered by the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote in 2020. I researched, designed and hand embroidered all of them and had them made into tea cozies. The Suffrage Movement also had strong ties to tea. The planning of the 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention began over tea. The women used the Boston Tea Party as a model, using “no taxation without representation” as a rallying cry. The Woman’s Suffrage Party of California even sold Equality Tea as a fundraiser, charging 75 cents for one pound of tea in the 1910s. Over forty suffragists, with ties to New York state, were featured in the exhibition “Equali-tea: Suffragist Tea Cozies in Redwork” at the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls, NY from October 2020 to August 2021, and again at Traditional Arts of Upstate New York (TAUNY) in Canton, NY during Women’s History Month 2023. Warren County Historical Society published the book, “New York Suffragists in Redwork”, in the fall of 2022. The exhibition is currently available for display at museums and historical societies with optional accompanying programing.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I was raised to be a hard worker. Put in the hours and you will get better. That is true of most things, but not everything. I’ve never gotten better at running, But, I have become a better singer, artist and historian by doing the work, and honing my skills.

I took a mindfulness course to help avoid burnout at work. It helped me realize that I could utilize the things I already enjoyed doing, embroidery and singing, as my mindful practice. Embroidery helps me slow down. Singing brings me joy.

I love learning. I go to conferences. I take free or low cost online courses. I do at least one webinar a month. Keep those skills fresh, and learn new ones. You never know where it will lead.

Get involved in your community. Join the board of a non-profit. Run for office. Go to art openings. Volunteer at a charity event. Find a community organization or event that speaks to you & do it.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I would love to collaborate with other textile artists, glass blowers, metalsmiths, and potters to create an installation in conjunction with my Suffragist Tea Cozy Project. I can be reached through my website aprilsongstress.com

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Jude Dolton (Dolton_Tisha_bio_Voices.JPG)
Craig Murphy (SuffragistBicylist_Dolton2017_GlensFallsArt.jpg)
Mathilde Linde (IMG_0562.JPG)

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