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Celebration of West Texas Women’s Art
By Story Circle Book Reviews
Every now and then, a book comes along that teaches us how to be grateful. Art of West Texas Women is such a book, an inspired and inspiring activity of formally presenting something of the work–and the lives–of twenty West Texas women artists. It is, Kippra Hopper and Laurie Churchill tell us, an examination of professional artists “off the mainstream grid,” living in an area that “has no major art market.” If only for that reason, we will have to be grateful, for this book shows us originative work that we might not other than as supposed or expected see.
But there is much more. What fascinates me when it comes to this book are the intentional and complex contextual frames that Hopper and Churchill have created. These challenge the reader to examine, understand, and be grateful for each artisan within a number of varying environments: the artist’s evolving work, her altering life situation, her affiliations with other artists, her relationships to the wider world of art, and–importantly, since these are visual artists–her perceptions of the wide landscapes, open horizons, and tremendous skies of West Texas. Readers are further invited to consider the artists as a group, growing and devising within the more prominent evironments of place, time, society, and art.
Each of the artists in this collection is on an individual basis important, and her work is represented with care and attention–not just the recent work, but work from former years, so that we may witness the evolution of her interests and proficiencies and her altering media preferences. To help us perceive these evolutionary patterns, the writers have provided spacious interpretive essays for each artist, drawn from in-depth, spacious person interviews. The work of each artisan may be seen within the multiple contexts of the life, the experience and training, the philosophy, and the probabilities for study and for exhibit that have shaped the work itself.
Among the twenty featured artists, I found myself exceptionally drawn to the sculptural pottery of Marilyn Grisham, which incorporates native rocks, Anasazi shards, and pieces of family china; the mixed media installations of Sara Waters, with their spatially and temporally layered constructions; the established shrines and retablos formulated by Deborah Milosevich; and the strikingly bright hubcap mandalas painted by Collie Ryan.
I was also mesmerized by the rich cultural interplay in the Haitian-like textiles of Future Akins; the Middle Eastern flavor of Lahib Jaddo’s paintings; the borderland constructions of Anna Jaquez; and the French Impressionist-influenced paintings of Toni Arnett.
But most of all, I was pulled into the artist’s work through the authors’ interpretive essays that introduce us to the artisan in the context of her life space and the place where she lives and works. Photographer Tracy Lynch lived for ten years in the primitive village of Terlingua; her photographs of Big Bend reflect her deep dedication to the place and people. Maria Almeida Natividad’s magical paintings sizzle and sing with the vivid, vibrant energy of El Paso. Dale Jenssen works in a studio that looks like a metal shop, filled with the intriguing forms of found objects. Robin Dru Germany’s photographs take us deep into the webbed veins and cellular spaces of the plants of the Llano Estacado. And Pat Maines shows us, in imaginative, inventive miniatures, the interiors of places where she–and we–might want to live.
In her fine introduction, Pamela Brink writes that all of the artists celebrated in this landmark volume have chosen to “pursue their art in relative solitude, far away from big-city life and glamorous art marketplaces.” They are percentage of a “broad and scattered community of creative, freedom-loving women” who are inspired by lonely places and wide spaces. For me, that is precisely what sets these artists apart: their selfassurance in their own originative energies, sparked and held alive by their connection to the world and vividly indicated in an eclectic range of work.
Kippra D. Hopper and Laurie J. Churchill have given us an primary gift. Through their own originative resourcefulness and their commitment to women artists who percentage a territorial bond, they have introduced us to a community of particular people with particular and distinctive talents. Art of West Texas Women is a celebration of imagination, of personal story, and of the natural world. Individually, each of the impressively illustrated essays is as stunning as each artisan herself. Taken as a whole, the collection demonstrates and illuminates not only the wild and wondrous diversity of Texas women’s art, but the extraordinary range of women’s resourcefulness and women’s experiences.
by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and when it comes to women
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Art For All
By Christopher B. Goldsmith
I read a lot and I love it when a work takes me someplace I have not been. West Texas is like nowhere on world and the author’s glide you there. You could smell the creosote and ocatillo and the spaces themselves not only physically but within these artist’s studios, homes and lives. This book was a lavishness for and to myself. And I’m a gnarly dude.
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