Department of Art History  |  Sweet Briar College



















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EXHIBITION CATEGORIES




Decorated Pottery




Illustration




Prints




DRAWING




Photography




Sculpture




Painting






















   


 
What is Art .... ?
                     .... What is an Artist ?
  






An exhibition exploring the perception of ART     

and the identity of the ARTIST     

through HISTORY     
 
and in CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY     
























DRAWING....

essays by
 
Jane Kwak and Tara Hartnett













Kay WalkingStick

American

Mountain Synergy I, 1992

charcoal drawing

Sweet Briar College Art Collection, Gift of the Friends of Art


click here for a LARGE image







               Kay WalkingStick, an artist of the 20th century, has a completely different approach to drawing. She has included her ancestral
traits in her artwork by reverting back to her Native American origin. In her adolescence she spent much of her time in
upstate New York, followed by studies at the Pratt Institute. 


               At Pratt she was able to acquire Western techniques which she predominately uses in her work. Many of WalkingStick's
drawings are purely what she has retained from the objects that she has viewed. When she is drawing, she draws what she
sees and later goes back and relates the metaphysical world to what she has drawn. After relating these two she returns to her
drawing and on one half she draws the metaphysical sight. As a result her drawings leaving the viewer with a diptych or a
horizontal piece in two halves.


               Early Spring, Boulder Colorado (Mountain Synergy I) is a prime example of a horizontal piece in two halves. She has used a
semi-oval shape with a triangle to relate the metaphysical sense of this world to the mountain. By speculating the nature of
being, truth, and knowledge and incorporating it into her artwork, she shows the view how she views various objects.
WalkingStick has an interesting way of showing her perceptions of this world. Her methods explain to the viewer her way of
thinking, looking deeper into objects than just their outer shell.





  Drawing












The objects and material in this exhibition were gathered together, researched and largely written about by students in the seminar "Art and Artists" conducted in the Fall semester, 1997, by Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, 24595 USA. Invaluable assistance was provided by Rebecca Massie Lane, Director of Galleries and the Arts Management Program, who in turn was assisted by Dana Lee Bordvick '98.