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July 2018
Interview Carolyn King |
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Carolyn King is a multi-faceted artist who creates beautiful artwork, who teaches others how to create beautiful artwork, and who always can be counted on to say challenging and very interesting things about the role of art in our lives. She lived for more than 25 years in Mexico and considers herself bicultural and bilingual.
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La Charra de las Chollas-Mexican Cowgirl of Cholla Cactus
SAN: Carolyn, you’ve had such a varied and interesting career in the arts that I always wonder what you’ll be doing next. Tell us first what medium or mediums you work in and give us an overview of how you create your paintings. (We’ll talk about the subject of your paintings in a minute.)
Carolyn King: I trained as a print maker way back when which is partially why my work usually includes monochromatic drawing at some phase of my mixed-media approach. I love to work in layers which include, but not necessarily in this order, charcoal, graphite, acrylic paint & mediums, collage, pastel and prismacolor pencils. I sometimes use liquid watercolors and watercolor pencils as a layer, but not always.
In the most recent series, I toned the entire 3’x5’ canvases first using either pastels or thinned acrylic paints in one family of color. The idea was to gradate color from light through medium to darker tone somewhat randomly over the entire surface. Next, I patterned the entire canvas using stamps and stencils. Again, this application was freely applied as opposed to pre-planned. This phase is like a dance. I respond to the shapes and tones as I am intuitively covering the canvas. There is no preliminary sketch per se.
The figures as subject in the series, “Las Damas del Desierto” were created as drawings on tracing paper synthesizing people I either drew or photos of people I found in a variety of sources. Initially, the figures were drawn in graphite then re-drawn using charcoal and charcoal pencils. These drawings were then collaged in pieces directly onto the canvases. The drawings were sprayed with fixative prior to the collage step to prevent smudging. Once the figures were adhered, the next step was to integrate the drawn figure into the background. This is done using acrylic glazes, pastels and/or prisma color pencils. I developed this way of working because I love to draw and find it frustrating to draw with precision directly onto a canvas using a brush instead of a pencil or charcoal pencil. This method of utilizing layers of fairly thin paint then collaging my own drawings onto the surface has become a wonderful way for me to include transparencies and to honor my love of pattern, color AND fine- tuned drawing.
Carolyn King: I trained as a print maker way back when which is partially why my work usually includes monochromatic drawing at some phase of my mixed-media approach. I love to work in layers which include, but not necessarily in this order, charcoal, graphite, acrylic paint & mediums, collage, pastel and prismacolor pencils. I sometimes use liquid watercolors and watercolor pencils as a layer, but not always.
In the most recent series, I toned the entire 3’x5’ canvases first using either pastels or thinned acrylic paints in one family of color. The idea was to gradate color from light through medium to darker tone somewhat randomly over the entire surface. Next, I patterned the entire canvas using stamps and stencils. Again, this application was freely applied as opposed to pre-planned. This phase is like a dance. I respond to the shapes and tones as I am intuitively covering the canvas. There is no preliminary sketch per se.
The figures as subject in the series, “Las Damas del Desierto” were created as drawings on tracing paper synthesizing people I either drew or photos of people I found in a variety of sources. Initially, the figures were drawn in graphite then re-drawn using charcoal and charcoal pencils. These drawings were then collaged in pieces directly onto the canvases. The drawings were sprayed with fixative prior to the collage step to prevent smudging. Once the figures were adhered, the next step was to integrate the drawn figure into the background. This is done using acrylic glazes, pastels and/or prisma color pencils. I developed this way of working because I love to draw and find it frustrating to draw with precision directly onto a canvas using a brush instead of a pencil or charcoal pencil. This method of utilizing layers of fairly thin paint then collaging my own drawings onto the surface has become a wonderful way for me to include transparencies and to honor my love of pattern, color AND fine- tuned drawing.
El Sol de Mi Gente-The Sun of My People
SAN: The last time I talked to you at length, you referred to yourself as a teaching artist, not simply “an artist” but a “teaching artist.” You’ve taught in several different locations, you ran an art school in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, then you worked in the Tucson public schools, hospitals and a retirement community as a freelance art teacher. Now you are teaching art classes at your studio on Broadway (1202 E. Broadway). Tell us about the classes you currently teach, and why teaching is important to you.
CK: I am still working as a teaching-artist both in my own studio and in a wide range of locations around Tucson. Last year, I taught middle school students at a local charter school three days a week while also offering workshops for seniors through TMC Senior Center on Wilmot. I have worked in schools all over town through a wonderful program called “The Living River of Words” which is a City of Tucson Parks & Recreation sponsored program. This program brings k-12 students through field trips to either the Santa Cruz River or Aquas Caliente Park to learn about aspects of water sheds and the critical importance of the rivers. Visual artists and poets provide on-site arts experiences in the parks and then go to the classrooms to facilitate follow-up arts experiences for students to integrate the lessons shared at the river sites.
In my studio, I have offered Children’s Summer Arts Programs, School Break Camps, and Visual Arts Workshops for adults. I have also begun to host Visual Arts Birthday Parties for kids and adults. The gist of my offerings at the studio is two-fold: First, I offer support for people who feel called to explore their creativity through the language of visual arts. I guide adults and children through projects designed to teach & strengthen fundamentals like “How to mix colors” and “How to apply acrylics”.
CK: I am still working as a teaching-artist both in my own studio and in a wide range of locations around Tucson. Last year, I taught middle school students at a local charter school three days a week while also offering workshops for seniors through TMC Senior Center on Wilmot. I have worked in schools all over town through a wonderful program called “The Living River of Words” which is a City of Tucson Parks & Recreation sponsored program. This program brings k-12 students through field trips to either the Santa Cruz River or Aquas Caliente Park to learn about aspects of water sheds and the critical importance of the rivers. Visual artists and poets provide on-site arts experiences in the parks and then go to the classrooms to facilitate follow-up arts experiences for students to integrate the lessons shared at the river sites.
In my studio, I have offered Children’s Summer Arts Programs, School Break Camps, and Visual Arts Workshops for adults. I have also begun to host Visual Arts Birthday Parties for kids and adults. The gist of my offerings at the studio is two-fold: First, I offer support for people who feel called to explore their creativity through the language of visual arts. I guide adults and children through projects designed to teach & strengthen fundamentals like “How to mix colors” and “How to apply acrylics”.
El Duente del Desierto-The Spirit of the Desert
Of equal importance to skill building, my workshops offer a safe haven for participants to explore the ways in which visual arts practice can contribute to one’s sense of well-being. To be able to commit time, energy and attention to connecting with one’s intuition and inner guidance through visual arts is a way to balance the extremes of our very outer-directed cultural imperative at this point in time. Practicing visual arts can be a path of ‘mindfulness’ and a conscious decision to slow down, de-stress and turn inward in the company of like-minded, supportive people.
For me, visual art is a language. I have been guiding people of all ages and abilities through visual arts experiences for my entire adult life because I believe in the inherent ability of the arts to act as a conduit for healing and communication. I could go on at great length about this, actually. I believe creativity is a birth right and that each and every person has the ability to access his or her own unique creative ‘voice’. Creative expression is a healing force for us all as individuals and as a collective. Especially in these very troubled times, I continue to share what I know and love about visual arts in the role as ‘teacher’ in order to support as many people as I can to open up to what we have inside and to share our visions with each other.
For me, visual art is a language. I have been guiding people of all ages and abilities through visual arts experiences for my entire adult life because I believe in the inherent ability of the arts to act as a conduit for healing and communication. I could go on at great length about this, actually. I believe creativity is a birth right and that each and every person has the ability to access his or her own unique creative ‘voice’. Creative expression is a healing force for us all as individuals and as a collective. Especially in these very troubled times, I continue to share what I know and love about visual arts in the role as ‘teacher’ in order to support as many people as I can to open up to what we have inside and to share our visions with each other.
Las Abuelitas en Mi Corazon-The Grandmothers in My Hart
SAN: Tell us about your master’s degree from John F. Kennedy University in Art and Consciousness. Your website shows opportunities to engage in Art and Healing Circles. Tell us about art in the context of consciousness and healing.
CK: Looking back, I was blessed beyond measure to have been deeply involved with the Arts and Consciousness Program at John F. Kennedy University in the 1980’s. This program was one of five strands available to students in The School of Consciousness Studies at that time.
Other degree offerings included Holistic Health, Transpersonal Psychology, Consciousness Studies and Para-Psychology. These degree programs, including the Arts and Consciousness Program, were offered at a time when thought leaders in the area of the study of human consciousness were writing and speaking all over the globe about such topics as New Physics and studies related to the realms of near- death experience. This was the decade just before the U.S. government declared the 1990’s as “The Decade of the Brain” when funding for neurological studies allowed researchers to discover the amazing plasticity of brain functioning.
While I was an M.A. student in Arts and Consciousness, students became increasingly aware of the enormous power imagery has in the realms of healing and psychology. Jungian psychologist, James Hillman wrote that “Imagery is the language of the psyche” and re-influenced a next generation of artists interested in becoming therapists. At that time, there was a well-defined organization that trained and certified art therapists on the East Coast. Generally speaking, their members were trained psychologists who later added skills in a variety of art forms to their treatment tool kits. But in the 1980’s, a new group formed.
These next wave practitioners were artists first who had ‘discovered’ the healing power of imagery through their own practice and as teachers. A new organization formed to represent
the artist-therapists who trained first in the studio and then later, as psychologists and therapists. These were heady times, to say the least. The debates and the jockeying for
authority were fierce and heated.
For myself, I surveyed the situation as I was studying for my M.A. and made the decision to focus my belief in the healing power of both creative practice and imagery itself through the role of ‘teacher/ midwife’ as opposed to becoming a certified art therapist. I saw the therapy arena as fraught with heavy duty masculine archetypal battles. My degree work had led me down a path of study of The Feminine which was nearly diametrically opposed to the power struggles I was witnessing in the therapy world.
Through the course work in the Arts and Consciousness Program, I learned how to facilitate myself and others through symbol and to reach back into the history of humankind to follow the spiritual threads that have interwoven belief systems and imagery since the dawning of time. The Arts & Healing Circles I hold in the studio are designed to support women to breathe deeply into our own images and symbols in order to feel and express truth and understanding as we experience our lives in the context of our times as well as the past.
CK: Looking back, I was blessed beyond measure to have been deeply involved with the Arts and Consciousness Program at John F. Kennedy University in the 1980’s. This program was one of five strands available to students in The School of Consciousness Studies at that time.
Other degree offerings included Holistic Health, Transpersonal Psychology, Consciousness Studies and Para-Psychology. These degree programs, including the Arts and Consciousness Program, were offered at a time when thought leaders in the area of the study of human consciousness were writing and speaking all over the globe about such topics as New Physics and studies related to the realms of near- death experience. This was the decade just before the U.S. government declared the 1990’s as “The Decade of the Brain” when funding for neurological studies allowed researchers to discover the amazing plasticity of brain functioning.
While I was an M.A. student in Arts and Consciousness, students became increasingly aware of the enormous power imagery has in the realms of healing and psychology. Jungian psychologist, James Hillman wrote that “Imagery is the language of the psyche” and re-influenced a next generation of artists interested in becoming therapists. At that time, there was a well-defined organization that trained and certified art therapists on the East Coast. Generally speaking, their members were trained psychologists who later added skills in a variety of art forms to their treatment tool kits. But in the 1980’s, a new group formed.
These next wave practitioners were artists first who had ‘discovered’ the healing power of imagery through their own practice and as teachers. A new organization formed to represent
the artist-therapists who trained first in the studio and then later, as psychologists and therapists. These were heady times, to say the least. The debates and the jockeying for
authority were fierce and heated.
For myself, I surveyed the situation as I was studying for my M.A. and made the decision to focus my belief in the healing power of both creative practice and imagery itself through the role of ‘teacher/ midwife’ as opposed to becoming a certified art therapist. I saw the therapy arena as fraught with heavy duty masculine archetypal battles. My degree work had led me down a path of study of The Feminine which was nearly diametrically opposed to the power struggles I was witnessing in the therapy world.
Through the course work in the Arts and Consciousness Program, I learned how to facilitate myself and others through symbol and to reach back into the history of humankind to follow the spiritual threads that have interwoven belief systems and imagery since the dawning of time. The Arts & Healing Circles I hold in the studio are designed to support women to breathe deeply into our own images and symbols in order to feel and express truth and understanding as we experience our lives in the context of our times as well as the past.
SAN: One of your life challenges has been to parent a special-needs daughter, Analyssa. Some of your artwork has addressed this challenge. Please share one of these paintings with us and explain its meaning.
CK: This image was created in 2006 just after Ani and I had moved from central Tucson to Armory Park. The move was inspired as Ani was starting high school. After visiting a number of self-contained classrooms around town, I chose Pueblo High School and then moved us so we could be in closer proximity. We had lived for six years previously in an apartment complex across from Rincon High School so Ani could attend Duffy Elementary. The move to our own small house proved to be super challenging and stressful for Ani. I don’t think I understood how isolating being in our own place would feel for her after having been born and raised in a small city in Mexico then transplanted to a lively apartment complex here in Tucson.
The piece is titled: “Parenting Analyssa”. I have only created a handful of pieces expressing my frustrations and challenges as her single Mom. In this mixed-media piece, each frame, so to speak, has a gesture or a part of a figure expressing a feeling about this ‘special’ parenting path.
CK: This image was created in 2006 just after Ani and I had moved from central Tucson to Armory Park. The move was inspired as Ani was starting high school. After visiting a number of self-contained classrooms around town, I chose Pueblo High School and then moved us so we could be in closer proximity. We had lived for six years previously in an apartment complex across from Rincon High School so Ani could attend Duffy Elementary. The move to our own small house proved to be super challenging and stressful for Ani. I don’t think I understood how isolating being in our own place would feel for her after having been born and raised in a small city in Mexico then transplanted to a lively apartment complex here in Tucson.
The piece is titled: “Parenting Analyssa”. I have only created a handful of pieces expressing my frustrations and challenges as her single Mom. In this mixed-media piece, each frame, so to speak, has a gesture or a part of a figure expressing a feeling about this ‘special’ parenting path.
Raising Analyssa
La Chinita-The Chinese Woman
SAN: Your most recent body of work is titled “Las Damas del Desierto.” It was interesting for me to learn that you created this collection to represent the six ethnic groups that make up Tucson’s rich ethnic diversity. (Native American, Spanish, Chinese, African-American and Caucasian). Where did you get your inspiration for the Damas collection?
CK: I had seen the “Call to Artists” for years and years before I finally applied to be considered for a show at the downtown library. The application asked for artists to propose a theme for a body of work and to send examples of current or past work as samples of one’s abilities. In September of 2015, my daughter was living with a family here in town as she explored her emerging independence so I felt I finally had the time and space to actually create a new body of work. I went to visit the library lobby to view the lobby and while there that day, I felt called to bring images of The Feminine to that space.
I have worked in a 3’ x 5’ format for many years so in thinking about how to approach that lobby, I made a list of the things I love to paint and draw. From that list, the idea came to me to honor women from the six cultures that have formed Tucson because I feel that we as women are the ones who most often send down our roots into the places we inhabit just like the cactus and other plants anchor through their roots. My list of things I love to draw included hairstyles, fabric, drapery, plants, jewelry and patterning. The fact is that all women all over the planet and throughout time have shared a love of those things. I sent in the proposal to create one large mixed-media piece to honor each of those 6 cultures. Little did I know that just a few years later, our country would be deep in the throes of such controversy about ‘Me, Too”, about such horrific treatment of women and children with the current family separation crisis and the state of worldwide panic about immigration in general.
I was raised in a family that was devoted to hosting visitors from all over the world. My parents brought people from India, Africa, South America and many other countries to our dinner table through Rotary International throughout my childhood. I spent a year abroad as a Rotary Exchange student and later ended up living, studying and working in Mexico for decades. My Mother collected arts, crafts and textiles from India, Japan, China, Indigenous cultures of Mexico & South America and many other places. My love of pattern, form, texture and color were all nurtured and formed in my childhood home. Of course, as a child, I had no idea how unusual this was. Now, as an adult, I feel nearly compelled to share my love and respect for the arts and the people of the world who create them with especially children, who may have no exposure otherwise to the vast richness of our world’s visual legacy.
El Flamenco - The Flamenco Dancer, Hands Becoming Nopal
SAN: Americans are currently having quite a bit of tension around issues of immigration and ethnic diversity. What role do you think art can play in reducing this tension and creating a more positive approach to these issues?
CK: I have been watching as a younger generation of creatives is rising to the challenge of these issues through responses like street art, music and theater, to name a few. Fashion is also a powerful platform for creative dialogue these days. Thankfully, those people who are most in touch with the flow of creative energy in life are often people who have a wide breadth of vision, acceptance and the ability to synthesize ideas and images. I have immense trust and faith in young artists who are demonstrating their passion for a sustainable future on all levels. The role of the arts as a major conduit for the healing power of both our inner and outer realities cannot be denied.
SAN: What do you think would make life easier for artists in Tucson and southern Arizona?
CK: Patronage. In reality, the Southwest is a great place to live and practice visual art, but a tremendously difficult place to thrive while doing so. Tucson visual artists need sponsorship, grants, and patronage of many kinds in order to sustain a committed, flourishing practice.
SAN: Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
CK: It would be splendid to talk about bringing together a group of people who are interested in arts collaborations as a vehicle for healing on a community wide level. We have several wonderful events each year like Tucson Meet Yourself, Tucson Folk Festival, The All Souls Procession and even The Gem & Mineral Show. In addition, I would love to see Tucson invest in some initiatives designed to bring people together to actually make visual art together. Lots to talk about in this arena!
Learn more about Carolyn King's work here: http://www.dreamco.com/hearttohand/
CK: I have been watching as a younger generation of creatives is rising to the challenge of these issues through responses like street art, music and theater, to name a few. Fashion is also a powerful platform for creative dialogue these days. Thankfully, those people who are most in touch with the flow of creative energy in life are often people who have a wide breadth of vision, acceptance and the ability to synthesize ideas and images. I have immense trust and faith in young artists who are demonstrating their passion for a sustainable future on all levels. The role of the arts as a major conduit for the healing power of both our inner and outer realities cannot be denied.
SAN: What do you think would make life easier for artists in Tucson and southern Arizona?
CK: Patronage. In reality, the Southwest is a great place to live and practice visual art, but a tremendously difficult place to thrive while doing so. Tucson visual artists need sponsorship, grants, and patronage of many kinds in order to sustain a committed, flourishing practice.
SAN: Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
CK: It would be splendid to talk about bringing together a group of people who are interested in arts collaborations as a vehicle for healing on a community wide level. We have several wonderful events each year like Tucson Meet Yourself, Tucson Folk Festival, The All Souls Procession and even The Gem & Mineral Show. In addition, I would love to see Tucson invest in some initiatives designed to bring people together to actually make visual art together. Lots to talk about in this arena!
Learn more about Carolyn King's work here: http://www.dreamco.com/hearttohand/
