LORRAINE SCOTT CROOKS BIO - 2026
Lorraine Crooks was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1977. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design in 1999. Lorraine focused on drawing, painting and photography. During her summers, she helped launch ArtWorks in Cincinnati, a highly successful community arts program which is still flourishing today, beautifying the city with murals. She also painted and studied abroad in Florence, Italy. After graduation she moved to Los Angeles, California and painted murals, designed sets for plays, and developed art curriculums and materials for schools and camps. She worked as an art teacher, frame shop designer and tutor for a neurodivergent young person before entering the corporate world.
For 16 years Lorraine pursued a sales career, licensing high-end photography and videos to global media, advertising and corporate outlets. Her work in licensing landed her in New York for 10 years where she soaked in the art scene and built a community through volunteering. She is now in Cincinnati where she pours her passion into her role as a Mom to her energetic and neurodivergent 8-year-old son.
She is also a writer and community builder who has taken a variety of classes in leadership, story-telling, illustration and writing. She is a deep believer that art is not a luxury, rather a necessity and a tool for life, connection and emotional growth. Below are some recent essays and poems she has written as she pursues motherhood and joyfully juggles both remote and local jobs. Her roles include Project Management for a Leadership Development Company in NYC called Performance of A Lifetime (POAL). POAL’s mission is to help leaders grow around the world, using creativity, empathy, and performance. As a Book Marketer for Children’s Books, Lorraine supports local authors to launch their stories into the world. Additionally she creates her own books as tools for her son’s social and emotional development.
“HOW TO MOTHER-HOOD” - L.Crooks 1/22/2024
Look, the tools you need for this job have not yet been invented. You need to create them on the fly. Have on hand: Wood, tin, rocks, paint, a bag of miscellaneous items from each drawer in the house. And marbles.
There are benches to be built, big enough for both of you, with short walls to cut the wind, and make-shift shelters for hail. You’ll see the size of these things, like boulders, making dents in the thin tin. Engineer a headlamp so you can still see when the skies darken. Jot expressions of your love. Have this list ready so you can say them when you are rattled. Say them gently, and then remember you believe them too.
Line up painted cobble stones for leaping out of storms. Include teal and magenta and a type of ochre which has gold flecks. Paint rollers work best on stone. And the gold sparkles are added with a fine, long-handled device that looks like a wand.
You may have to hop when you are too tired. Your bones may dent your skin, like hail on tin. Keep jumping, stone by stone, and listen for the sound of giggles behind. It’s a good sign. Quickly - you must start the game that hasn’t been invented yet. Do it with such zeal that you know it will lead somewhere. Dig into that miscellaneous bag, deeper than you knew possible. Find the yellow marble. Something will click and you will know it because the sun comes out. Craft a window so you can see the light coming through. Hold it so you are both warmed by it. Don’t use a mirror because it will tell you: “You are wrong. You are too old.” The window works better. If there are 2 shadows moving and dancing, playing, resting, and sometimes merging and sometimes not, making shapes you’ve never seen; then this is the best tool of all to show you. You have created something new with this impossible job you have decided to do.
“HOUSES HELD AWAY FROM HOME” - L.Crooks 1/17/2025
The Villa Corsi-Salviati was nestled in the rolling hills of Sesto Fiorentino - a town perfectly panini’ed between bustling Florence and the vast Tuscan landscape. In 1998, a group of University of Michigan art students gathered there for our study abroad program - an unlikely home for 8 young painters and musicians. Like all Italian Villas, it looked like a massive castle with a solid swooping Baroque facade, earthy-beige stone walls, and grand arched windows.
One of those less grand windows was situated upstairs at the back, and became my bedroom view for the next 4 months. From there I could see red roof tops made of terracotta barrel tiles, the type that curved and stacked, an endless collage of dusty pinks, burnt oranges and clay reds. Conical cypress trees peeked up their tall skinny heads introducing an occasional pop of shimmering green. No other windows or people were visible from my perch allowing a sense of tranquil seclusion and sweeping space.
The Villa courtyard sat on the other side of our castle, and was one of the main “classrooms” for painting students. We sat for hours each week in the lush, immaculate gardens with our easels and brushes, finding rocks big enough to keep papers from flying. Gardeners spoke to us in slow and patient Italian as they moved expertly through organized sections of pansies and morning glories, sprinkled with potted lemon trees. Frogs croaked and splashed in the long rectangular lily pad pond. Wafts of fragrant roses lilted in the breeze interrupting the caustic smell of oils and turpentine.
My small room provided separation from the deep, sun-soaked concentration spent in the richness of the gardens. My room: bare white walls, a simple bed, and the generous window - gifting me vastness and cool nighttime air. As evening fell, squares of light would dance in orange and pink overlapping patterns on the blank walls. I would watch the shapes flicker - a visual song. The mosquitos would start buzzing and biting as I drifted to sleep. The itching nagged me and my dreams beckoned me - I felt pulled between worlds, a subtle tug of war.
On days we did not paint, we woke at 6 AM, had crusty bread and jam in the dining hall, and took the 8 AM bus to Florence, meeting our professor at specific monuments and an exact time: The Gates of Paradise, the Duomo, Uffitzi, and Michelangelo’s steps. We’d jot notes about the architecture and history, while navigating our way through the busy city - buying bus tickets, studying transportation etiquette, ordering sandwiches and asking for directions in our varied levels of Italian. The constant learning was exhilarating and exhausting.
My dreams worked hard to fill in the gaps. While I faltered in public, speaking in clumsy fragments, only understanding half of each interaction, my dreams were in full fluent Italian. I dreamed in words I didn’t know that I knew. Names of flowers came to me, colors, words about water and weather. “This is immersion,” I told myself one morning upon waking. It’s not a linear path, rather a bobbing up and down in the life-blood of a place. A series of places.
On the weekends, I explored. I rode a horse through the vineyards in Tuscany, smelling the deep woody olive groves, mixed with crisp salty mineral air. I traveled to Cinq Terra and hiked from town to town to see the aqua-blue Mediterranean Sea sparkle below, to see the misty snow capped mountains which weren’t snow at all. They were white swaths of marble where stone masons lived. I visited parks and museums where I could overhear children speaking - where I could learn how to be direct and clear in the language if I just emulated them.
In this intricate weaving of experiences, I decided that my work was to be both inside and alongside the places. I decided to dream, and paint, and bleed, and itch, and be held by where I was and where I could go. To immerse was to be in-between all the time, creating connections in a continuous way - clumsy, curious and alive.
“TRUST” - L. Crooks 1/31/2026
In the kitchen, there was trust. I held it steadily while peering into my Mom’s yellowish-green eyes that looked like crushed stars. It grounded my bare feet on blonde floor boards while the strings from my lavender corduroys tickled my ankles. My face was almost touching hers as she sat in the yellow cushioned chair, peering back at me through curtains of shiny black hair.
The theme song of The Transformers floated in from the living room where my older brother sat on the carpet eating a warm bowl of cream of wheat - brown sugar melting in the middle.
I licked my lips, ready to show her again.
“Open,” she said gently and got closer. I wiggled the tooth with my tongue feeling it spin and twist, dangling at an angle that was oddly uncomfortable given how loose it was.
“Ooohh!” She commented with a playful curiosity.
“Don’t pull it!” I reminded her, snapping my lips shut and leaning my forehead against hers in a nuzzle. It was the top front tooth and felt important compared to the two little bottom chicklets that had already fallen out.
“I won’t pull it,” she assured me. “Just looking...”
Newspapers, coupons and a half-made grocery list were strewn across the kitchen table. Headlines about the Iran-Iraq war, the use of chemical weapons juxtaposed next to my Mom’s scrawl struck me. The list said: “Brats, metts, buns, mustard.” Her cursive was jagged but I had learned to read it. My belly fluttered with excitement as I pictured my Dad at the grill cooking sausages for dinner.
“Let me just wiggle it,” my Mom offered.
With a deep breath and swallow, I opened again and felt the tooth pirouette under her long slender finger. My eyes focused on the wallpaper behind her. It was a mesmerizing pattern of blue asparagus with yellow ribbons weaving around the stalks. A design so bizarre yet so lyrical -- only someone as bold as my Mom could have picked it out and made it work.
I felt nothing, yet there was a sudden swiftness that surprised me. Her hand flew like a bird from my mouth and then behind her back. A mischievous smile teased her lips, golden eyes glinting. My tongue darted to the phantom tooth. Nothing. A hole. A window. A smooth concave divot.
“Did you pull it?!” I squealed in disbelief. My tongue rapidly continued its search for confirmation.
She nodded slowly, her bird-like hand revealing the gift in her palm. A small pearl nestled in the center. The blood looked old - a simple line of maroon crust along the top. There was no bleeding, no pain. The tooth was ready. Somehow she knew. Laughter bubbled up along with tears, as a cool, sweet relief cascaded over me.
“LETTERS” - L. Crooks 2/2/2026
Dear Dad,
While you were up there, sparkling and galactic in that great inky abyss, I was sorting alphabet magnets for the one zillionth time, making sure each letter was there: Sealing the Zip-Loc bag, labeling the box, and stacking it next to the other ABC paraphernalia that absorbs our precious and limited closet space. I was down here, creating order, while you were up there, swirling in glorious chaos.
Did you know the last letter of the Cyrillic alphabet looks like a backwards R and sounds like ‘ya’? Did you know if you take foam bath letters and dip them in paint, you can make an interesting piece of print-making? Sort of Jasper Johns-esque, I think.
Did you know you have a grandson?! I wish you could meet him! He reminds me so much of you. Gavin stims on all things to do with letters and numbers, and took it upon himself to memorize the Russian alphabet when he was just 3 years old by watching a YouTube video on repeat. On repeat.
What would you make of all of this in your googol of stars, dear Dad? Would you twinkle a knowing eye on us? Would you boast a rainbow ring around the moon? You, with your structured and rigid life behind you. Nothing left to burden or tether you: Not your meticulously folded and matched socks, your secret storage unit hoarding letters and newspaper clippings, or your beloved wine collection which we long-ago distributed. The vintages you had effortlessly memorized … each year archived in your mind and matched with an event in stunning accuracy.
I think I saw you the other day, as we were roasting marshmallows over a campfire, making sure Gavin didn’t get too close to the flames, his sense of danger forever squelched by his impulses and curiosity. “A shooting star!” I called and we all looked up. “Hi Dad.” was the next thing that escaped my lips, though I wasn’t expecting to say this. Did you see us too?
Did you know marshmallows are one of Gavin’s “safe foods” and we use it as a “transitional object” too. You don’t know what those things are, as we never knew you were on the spectrum too. Something I see so clearly now. These are useful things to know down here, where order is necessary. Down here, where we must get from A to B, to get anywhere at all. And we must venture through A to Z, on repeat. On repeat. Wherever we go, we zip-up that Zip-Loc of Jet-Puffed marshmallows, enough white pillowy confections to cushion us through Gavin’s entire childhood. One marshmallow for the transition to the car, one for the car ride too, and one for the inevitable meltdown triggered by what? A missing number? A lost letter?
But if you sort these things in advance, and have back-ups too, and if you have a tray with edges, where things can stay in place, then you can keep the order, Dad. And you can get more than one thing, though there is always a favorite thing. You can get stickers that sparkle, and stamps and magnets, and you can get them twice or three times. You can get all of these things on repeat down here, dear Dad. On repeat.
And what would you care about this now, now that you are stardust and endless, with no limits at all? Once I had wished to have your ashes to scatter, Dad, somewhere sacred or somewhere ordinary, somewhere we had been before. A Zip-loc bag to hold you, dear Dad. But now I know you are already here, in the DNA of my life, the repeating sequences of each day. Step by step. A helix staircase, spiraling all the way to the moon and back, Dad. I love you to the moon and back. On repeat.
“CAMP PALOWAPEK, SUMMER 1989” - L.Crooks 5/14/2026
Campers ran naked into
Lake waters - murky, dark, cold - under night clouds, a slice of moon.
Sticks crackled beneath bare feet, at the edge where
wet meets dry.
We were 11, 12, some 13.
My best friend grabbed my hand, a flash of fingers pulling me -
“Faster!” her tug implored.
So we could splash – in unison.
Our feet were cut now, on sticks, but how quickly
Blood washes away. Splash!
Laughter exploded when suddenly
Swallowed.
By ancient waters where we imagined the Shawnee people swimming.
In tribes.
It wasn’t hard to swim to the other side, if you kept paddling.
Swiftly.
Heads bobbed and dotted the dark - dots disappeared toward land.
Land disappeared in the night.
My own black hair trailed like lake snakes behind.
We kicked - quick - sputters, spits, gulps of air.
She glanced back to make sure,
I was there.
The glint in her eyes - still smiling
Made her easy to follow.
“Close?” I panted.
She nodded, laughed.
Each Summer, we returned. We got taller.
Pre- School, Middle School, High School, together.
Sleep-overs. Road trips. Bunk beds.
Sisterhood was built, like campfires - where the sticks overlap.
We met at only 3 years old - then built from there.
First kindling, then logs.
She wore lavender and had blond hair, her Grandma Juanita wove ribbons in her braids.
She ran the fastest, kicked the hardest, and drank rain water.
We ate candy cigarettes in the closet, saved pennies in a jar.
When the wasp went up her pant legs and stung a million times, she barely cried.
I couldn’t keep up, but I tried.
We drove to California on a whim,
lived in a yellow room where palm trees danced outside.
We danced at weddings (each others), we had babies, husbands.
She designed a place where I can paint.
She polar-plunged - just for fun.
She built a treehouse for her daughters, her nieces, her nephews.
She rolled grape leaves, chopped parsley, cooked chicken soup with rice - the way Juanita used to do.
Once, in Costa Rica, she killed a scorpion with her shoe.
She sends her kids to that same camp.
That camp where she claimed me, where I kept up enough.
To become sisters for life.