Every year, the Prairie Winds Art Center has a miniature art show. This is a great show because all work is small and it is also juried. I sent my first ever 3-D piece, made out of wood, cooper, paper mache, clay and acrylic paint. It was so fun to do! And, like my friend and fellow artist, Terri Horner told me, wood tells you what the subject will be. It has it’s own life. This piece seemed to title itself: ‘Empty Womb’. This is not what I had in mind when I started, but the face which came out of the clay and the shape of the wood let me know what the name would be. Female subjects, of course, are always in the back of my mind, so as the piece developed, this title seemed to jump out at me. A very fun merging. The other two, a collage titled: ‘Solitude and Friendship’ and a felted piece called ‘Time for Harvest’.

So, with a show coming up, one of the hardest parts of preparation for me is the artist’s bio and statement. I am very excited about my show for the Lincoln Art Center because I am showing my journey and not just a body of work. This is my statement: “Debbie Wagner is a full time artist living in Bennington, Kansas. For the past ten years, she has specialized primarily in pastel. However, during the last 2 years, she has integrated other media into her art and has been inspired by the cross over effect this has had on all of her work. For Debbie, this exhibit “Journey”, tours the exploration and changes of her visual voice.”
After setting up a show such as this, the thrill arrives as I view my own show. Seeing the body of art as a journey, with pieces side by side, allows me as an artist to really understand where I’ve been and the direction I’m going in. In addition, the comments from the public can be very revealing. I consider this invaluable personal information. Thank you Lincoln Art Center for allowing me to see my personal journey and to share it with others.

It seems being a female artist can have so many more challenges than being a male artist. We are the nurturers, the caretakers. The baby makers. For many women, this time of being a mother takes all energy sources: time, emotions and serious career options. Men can outsource themselves as artists and remain true to their career even if they have children at home. I knew I could not start a serious career and raise children too because I give everything to what I’m doing. Art would have been a hobby and I was not interested in being an hobby artist. So when my last child was old enough to not need me so much, I began my career. Now, I find myself drawing on life’s rich experiences for content. In fact, it seems I am being bombarded with moments from my past.

This painting, 3′ x 4′, is about how full I felt in both an emotional and physical way while pregnant. Completely saturated with the moment I was in. A lovely time in my life, full of joy as well as all consuming. I loved that time, but I don’t lament as I also love this stage in my life, too. Painting feels like giving birth in a different sort of way, less nurturing after the delivery. And not as many worrisome nights!

I have found that one of the best ways to correct my own work, even better than holding it in front of a mirror and looking at it, is to photograph it and download it on the computer. This is a piece of fiberart I’ve been working on for some time and now that I’ve photographed it, I can see what else I need to do to it to make it better.
So, with my chickens as inspiration, I am finally seeing their influence in my art. It took me almost a full year to watch them and to get to really know their quirkiness and their funny movements. And the peeking order is fascinating!

As an artist, I continuely carry a little guilt about working in different media.  I have been told you cannot become an accomplished artist unless you stay disciplined in the same medium.  I chose pastel, however, there have been pieces in my mind which I want to reinterpret but pastel doesn’t express what I see in my mind.  But fiber does.  Then when I finally confronted the inner struggles of dealing with brain surgery, neither pastel nor fiber seemed to be the answer to creating for these feeling.  But art journaling and collaging were perfect!

Of course, in the back of my mind is the rule:  “Never put words in your art”.  I love book art and words and I love when I see art with words in it, so I have decided that I just cannot listen to “rules” anymore!  I am simply going to express how my creativity leads me.  Intuition is usually a wonderful voice!  And with every new medium or style I am called to, eggs always seem to appear.  So, here is a combination of multimedia and it makes me smile.  There are so many different kinds of love, but what this piece really represents to me is the acceptance of loving whatever medium I am working with and the acceptance of breaking rules that were created by artists who felt they were warranted at the time.

This project was quite involved! Especially since I have not worked this big before!   The kids really enjoyed learning how to create a felted wall hanging.  The magic of felt is always amazing, even when you have witnessed it many times.  This one will have 24 plus pockets which will be revealed after the felting process is over.  Under the pockets is everything from camel to flamingo feathers.  Even snake skins will be running in and out of the pockets.   When we started, it measured a little over 4′ x 9′.  I have brought it home to continue the felting process.   It took me hours of rolling and rubbing the wool, but the finished product will be worth it.  And the kids really benefited from the experience.

I have opened the windows which reveal the animals’ fur and skins.   After it is fixed to be hung, I will share pictures of the outcome.

When you have people interview you and photograph a document on what you do, you never know how it will turn out in print!  I had a wonderful experience with professional writer, Patricia Ackerman professional photographer, Larry Harwood.   And then I saw the marriage of their work and was so impressed by how it turned out!  Kudos to both of them and their ability to work so well together.  They are speaking the same language in different media and that doesn’t always happen.  Here is the link to the article they did on my sunrise painting series.  Each worked alone, but came together as one congruent piece.  Sometimes, I can’t even do that within my own work!!!!!

http://issuu.com/sunflower_publishing/docs/sl11sp?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fdark%2Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true

In the U.S., we take water for granted.   All we have to do, is walk over to a faucet and turn it on, hot or cold, instantly.  When we sit down in a restaurant, whether we want it or not, water is brought to the table and refilled left to sit full in the cup after we leave.  Since it is so available, it seems to have lost its value.  We forget that it is a non renewable resource and will not always be so available, especially with our accelerated abuse of this precious life-giving liquid.  We can be so wasteful of water in our personal lives, but the big culprits are cities built in deserts and farmers draining our underground supplies at rapid rates so they can make money off of crops which shouldn’t be grown in their locations.  As an artist and an environmentalist, this abuse is and always has been, of great concern to me.  Personally, I am concerned for my future grandkids and my great grandkids who I will never even know.  As an artist, I understand that just about every thing I do relies on water.  My supplies are made with water including the glues, paper, and paints.  Then, when I think about how an artist creates felt through the wet felting process, water is used like it will never run out.  Hot water, warm water, cool water, soapy water, vinegar water, clean water perhaps with even a little softener added, it’s all needed!  So, if you are an artist or a chef, or a singer/actor whose voice must be hydrated or a person working with clothing and fabric or even a writer who loves pen and paper (this list represents my entire family), know that your day depends on the free and unlimited use of water to sustain your future.  Respect this natural, non renewable resource by the way you live and the way you teach your children.

I love creating with fiber. Though one area I have not been interested in is dollmaking until I saw the work of Lisa Lichtenfels! Every once in a while I run across an artist whose work is so exciting to me. And the words she had to say about showing her first piece to her professor having him tell her it was the worst piece of junk he’d seen are very interesting. How she did not get discouraged should be an encouragement to all artists. Here’s her website: http://www.lisalichtenfels.net/index.html
Another artist I’ve just been introduced to is Terry Allen. He does all kinds of art from songwriting to painting to bronze and he does it all well. This is also very encouraging to me easing the guilt I sometimes feel when an idea takes me away from the media I’m most comfortable with and the ones I have achieved some sort of accomplishment with.
Lisa’s work really touches my human spirit.  I am glad to see an accomplished artist like Terry going so many different directions and doing it successfully!  So, I will continue with my altered book/art journal while also painting with pastel and working with fiber.  All in the same day, too.  I have pulled out some older paintings which I never liked and I am enjoying altering them also.  It feels good to cover them up so they become a new piece of art.  One I like better, but if this wanes, I know I can just layer over the top of it until it becomes the piece of art I am happy with!

My last post makes it sound like I don’t like to donate my art or time. This is actually not true and is part of the problem. I do like to give which makes it harder for me to say “no”. But worse than my situation is the Kansas Teacher as a profession. My husband has now taught for 34 years. Basically devoting his life to teaching other people’s children. He has watched these ‘children’ grow up into successful adults and surpassing him on the material success ladder. This has never bothered him because he has always loved what he does and is very good at it. Many owe their success partly to him. It does bother me. Not only has he not had a raise in 4 years, they are now asking him to take a paycut. Of course, health benefits and taxes will go up which means his cut will actually be more. And today, the paper mentions how it is going to change the pension plan for his retirement, making sure he will not get so much money when he retires! Which, at present, is not even enough for us to live on left alone. In 2003, there were 27 nations ranked higher than us in their secondary education levels. I can’t imagine how much that ranking has probably fallen. Countries such as Japan, South Korea, parts of China, Hong Kong, Finland, Germany, France, Iceland, Australia, Poland, Spain etc are all ahead of us. I recently read that there are at least 33 countries ahead of us in their level of education. Years ago, I actually thought that the US would recognize how important the job of teaching our children is and that teachers would start getting better benefits. If I had known then what I know now, I would have encouraged my husband to find a more rewarding profession. We can’t retire on my tax deduction income and his pinched pension plan!

So while it is very hard for me to imagine a world without art, it is extremely shameful for me to think about a country without superb higher education, a country which prides itself in its teachers and the quality of its education to the future employable population.  Art is just a small but important segment of this education.